The 2,700-seat Boettcher Concert Hall at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, home to the Colorado Symphony, was an early adopter of DiGiCo’s SD7. Staying of then forefront of evolving technologies, the orchestra upgraded the console with a new Quantum engine in 2019, integrated DiGiCo’s 4REA4 processing system about 18 months ago, and now has installed DiGiCo’s new flagship Quantum852 at front-of-house, alongside a Fourier Audio transform.engine setup. Both new solutions were supplied by Thornton, Colorado-based Brown Note Productions.
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“Purchasing the Q852 was a natural progression for me, trying to stay up with where the technology is going,” explained Aric Christensen, Colorado Symphony’s longtime head of audio. “Whenever I see a new product being released by DiGiCo, I want to get in on it because it’s such a powerful platform. I’m excited about how powerful it is out of the box and where they’re going to take all this technology.”
For Christensen, the most significant feature to stand out when he first laid eyes on the Quantum852 was the surface’s new, larger display screens. More than twice the size of the SD7 screens, it allows different functions to be represented. Additionally, the brightness and the resolution of the screens, compatible for both indoor and outdoor use, jumped out to Christiansen.
Christensen installed the new solution during the symphony's busiest season, but he wasn't concerned. There is a consistency in the layout of the consoles throughout the DiGiCo product range, he added, and that familiarity gave him the confidence to integrate the new Quantum852 as soon as he could.
“You start digging into it and, while everything’s familiar, there are a lot of new features here," he said. "This thing has exponentially more power than I’ve ever had before, to the point where I’m still trying to figure out when and how to utilize some of it.”
The hall’s audio equipment is owned by the City of Denver. The support from DiGiCo and Fourier Audio through Group One, the U.S. distributor, and the Audiotonix Group’s network of people in the U.K. and United States makes it easy to get the solutions into the city's budget.
As for the new system’s processing features, “I think the biggest change on the Mustard side is that they released a Primary Source Expander that’s internal. You can have that available across 128 channels,” he said. “I’m a big fan, because the more stuff that’s internal to the desk is appealing to me because it’s one less thing to deal with.”
As an early adopter of technology under the Audiotonix brands umbrella, Christensen also purchased a pair of Fourier Audio transform.engine plug-in servers, which integrate directly with DiGiCo Quantum consoles, some time ago. It was Christensen’s experience with Audiotonix’s support that also inspired him to integrate DiGiCo’s 4REA4 processing system in place of the previous backstage 70V distributed system while also performing an AoIP networking infrastructure upgrade to support Dante and AVB.
While Colorado Symphony mostly performs in Boettcher Concert Hall, the 80-piece orchestra of full-time musicians also performs at other Colorado venues during the summer season. For those events, Christensen will take advantage of DiGiCo’s Convert software to adapt his console’s layout to the console model he rents for the show. For a show at Red Rocks, for instance, he can use a Q338 console. "I rent a board from Brown Note, a great rental partner in town, and I can just show up and put my key in there with my session files and templates,” he added.
The software also enables Christensen to easily accommodate the needs of visiting engineers who also work on DiGiCo consoles when their artists collaborate with the orchestra. This past summer season, Colorado Symphony collaborated with Beck, the Beach Boys, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.
“I can tell the engineer, I’ve got all these templates that will work for your pop show, and I can just lay you on top of that," he concluded. "Or, if you already have a DiGiCo file, send it to me. Before you show up, I can have that reorganized so it’ll work for both of us. The fact that DiGiCo has a free, offline editor really helps and is just one more little way that demonstrates why they’re the best in the business.”
