Austria is a land of theatre. In the last regular season before the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 9,000 performances were held, attracting more than three million visitors. Beyond quantity, the theatre and musical theatre scene also offers an enormous artistic diversity and range — from traditional city and regional theatres with drama and opera, to musical venues like Vienna’s Raimund Theater, renowned concert halls such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, and open-air festivals like the Seefestspiele Mörbisch. What these venues have in common: they have recently placed their trust in the DiGiCo SD/Quantum series mixing consoles.
Convincing Dual Engine Redundancy Mode
Since 2020, five renowned theatres and concert halls across Austria (Vienna Konzerthaus, Raimund Theater Vienna, Landestheater Linz, Stadttheater Klagenfurt, Seefestspiele Mörbisch) have invested in a new DiGiCo console. With the exception of Landestheater Linz, which opted for a Quantum 338, all venues use an SD7Q for sound control.
“Theatre productions are becoming increasingly complex. The mixing console has to keep up,” explains Manuel Bundschuh, head of the sound department at Stadttheater Klagenfurt. This statement reflects a broad range of requirements, from more inputs and outputs to an intuitive operating philosophy and dedicated functions of the SD7Q theatre software. “The theatre software is unique and enables us to tailor our workflow precisely to the script of a musical production,” confirms Thomas Hofstädter from the Seefestspiele Mörbisch. “As a festival, we only work at the console for a few weeks each year, so an easy setup is all the more important.”
During the decision-making process, the DiGiCo consoles generally had to prevail against other manufacturers and models. Besides the dedicated theatre software, the Dual Engine Redundancy Mode and the broad rider acceptance of the DiGiCo Quantum consoles were particularly convincing. “In the musical sector, the mixing console is usually specified by the respective sound designer. For our current production, MISS SAIGON, the specification was to use an SD7,” explains Patrick Polly, head of sound for musicals at the Raimund Theater in Vienna. “Since the SD7Q will be used repeatedly in the future, we decided to purchase rather than rent.”
Would you like me to polish this
Also at the Vienna Konzerthaus, which operates two SD7Q consoles at FOH and monitor positions, the preferences of freelance sound engineers played a decisive role in the final decision between the major mixing console manufacturers. “We asked numerous freelancers which manufacturers and models they were familiar with,” says Ingeborg Doblander, head of event technology at the Vienna Konzerthaus.
Unlike the theatres mentioned above, the Landestheater Linz, a long-time DiGiCo user (SD10 and S21), opted for a DiGiCo Quantum 338. Christian Börner, deputy head of sound engineering: “We have been using the new Quantum since the 2020/21 season. With its audio quality, remote options, and node processing, the console is state-of-the-art.”
In addition to investing in DiGiCo, some theatres have also equipped themselves with routing and audio network solutions from Optocore as well as the Waves SuperRack — the latter enabling latency-free integration of Waves plugins for live productions at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Stadttheater Klagenfurt. Immersive monitoring systems from KLANG:technologies have also recently been deployed in Klagenfurt and at the Landestheater Linz.
The following solutions and products were delivered by Signal Sound & Light Distribution to the theatres:
Vienna Konzerthaus
- 2x DiGiCo SD7Q
- 2x DiGiCo SD-Rack
- 2x DiGiCo SD-MiNi
- 1x DiGiCo Orange Box
- 2x Waves SuperRack
- 1x OPTOCORE Route 66
Raimund Theater Vienna
- 1x DiGiCo SD7Q
- 1x DiGiCo SD-Rack
- 2x OPTOCORE DD2FR-FX MADI Interface
- 2x OPTOCORE DD32R-FX AES3 Interface
- 1x OPTOCORE Route 66
Landestheater Linz
- 1x DiGiCo Quantum 338
- 1x DiGiCo SD-Rack
- 1x KLANG:technologies DMI-KLANG
Stadttheater Klagenfurt
- 1x DiGiCo SD7Q
- 4x DiGiCo SD-Rack
- 2x DiGiCo Orange Box
- 2x Waves SoundGrid Extreme Server
- 1x KLANG:technologies KLANG:vokal
- 10x KLANG:technologies KLANG:kontroller
Seefestspiele Mörbisch
- 1x DiGiCo SD7Q
- 2x DiGiCo SD-Rack
- 1x DiGiCo SD-MiNi
- 4x DiGiCo Orange Box
- 1x OPTOCORE DD2/4
- 2x OPTOCORE DD32R-FX AES3 Interface