Offering a mix of opera, classical music, dance and jazz, Italy’s Ravenna Festival embraces indoor venues and outdoor stages for live audiences and also recording. Taking the audio challenge this presents, BH Audio has had a part in shaping the experience of the festival since its inception.
Massimo Carli, whose involvement with the Ravenna Festival spans decades, talks of the continuous pursuit of sonic improvement. Collaborating with the festival’s visionary team under founder Cristina Mazzavillani Muti, BH Audio, in collaboration with Italian sound engineer Massimiliano Salin, consistently sought innovative solutions to perfect the sound within the festival’s diverse venues.
One pivotal decision led them to embrace the Lawo mc²36 live audio console – at the time, a console that had yet to establish its reputation in live sound. The console’s sound, intuitive layout, flexible set-up options and workflow resonated with Carli.
‘There is no other live audio console on the market that gives me this freedom and quality.’ Carli says, and highlights the console’s channel management and layout preparation, a crucial factor when adapting to dynamic changes and last-minute adjustments inherent to live events. This enables Carli to fine-tune the set-up before the concert, ‘because on this kind of jobs we never have real soundchecks’.
The mc²36 MKII offers 256 processing channels, available at both 48kHz and 96kHz, and natively supports ST2110, AES67, Ravenna, and Ember+. It provides an I/O capacity of 864 channels, with local connections that include three redundant IP network interfaces, 16 mic/line inputs, 16 line outputs, eight AES3 inputs and outputs, eight GPI/O connections, and an SFP Madi port. Operational features include Button Glow and touch-sensitive rotary controls, color TFT fader-strip displays, LiveView video thumbnails and 21.5-inch full-HD touchscreens. Loudness control is built-in and complies with the ITU 1770 (EBU/R128 or ATSC/A85) standard, providing peak and loudness metering for individual channels as well as summing buses.
Carli’s extensive experience with world tours and acclaimed artists has made him a firm believer in the mc²36 MkII’s quality. ‘For me, there is no real alternative,’ he says.
Taking innovation a step further, Carli and Salin explored the integration of d&b SoundScape software with the Lawo console. The results enhanced the sonic landscape across various venues. This integration, tested and embraced even before its official launch during the 2013 Ravenna Festival, marked a pivotal moment in the festival’s audio evolution. ‘The use of Ravenna/AES67 makes the set-up very clean, compared to the past,’ he says.
Carli efficiently routes 128 direct outs post-fader from the mc²36 to the DS100 processors, which in turn drives loudspeakers via its AES/EBU outputs. The inclusion of a tracking system further enhances the experience, dynamically transmitting performers’ positions to the DS100.
Facing evolving requirements, Carli’s partnership with the Ravenna Festival remained steadfast. When the need to stream concerts online arose, Carli sought a solution to merge the Ravenna IP technology of the mc²36 with the Dante protocol used by d&b SoundScape. Enter the Lawo Power Core, equipped with a Dante card, effectively uniting these technologies and ensuring comprehensive set-up redundancy.
Throughout, the Lawo mc²36 MkII console has been a key asset in the Ravenna Festivall’s sonic development.
More: www.lawo.com
