Tallinn College of Music and Ballet (MUBA) in Estonia has DiGiCo Quantum mixing consoles not only as teaching aids, but also for concerts and gala performances at the college owing to their intuitive system layout and flexibility.
MUBA was opened in 2022, teaching children from age ten upwards. Children learn a variety of skills, from dance and music to technical skills and music technology. The audio system is fully networked, to allow connectivity throughout the school. The staff at the college are able to use its existing DiGiCo S31 mixing console that can be wheeled wherever it is needed, opening the whole building up as an impromptu performance space. The college also utilises wireless microphones and Bluetooth speakers, to fully explore every possible opportunity for staging.
‘Our new Quantum 338 and 225 consoles are mobile, so connectivity via Dante is really important to us,’ as Sound Studio Manager Andres Olema and Lead Music Teacher Rene Keldo explain. ‘Most of our digital ecosystem is built in Dante, so the ability to instantly transport signals all over the facility between the consoles and other equipment is mandatory.
‘I also really enjoy the broad configurability of the consoles, especially the layout. I have used a lot of different consoles and I really appreciate the way I can make my layout exactly what I want with a Quantum. It particularly shines on big gala concert events where layout configurability and ease of use dictates how smoothly the broadcast or FOH mix will be.’
The school benefits from a large music studio, black box theatre and a large concert hall. Children can board or attend as day students. There are also gyms and a pool, to ensure they are able to remain fit while studying. As Keldo adds, no two days are the same, so the academy requires the ultimate usability from its Quantum range consoles: ‘Somehow DiGiCo has managed to create one of the best and most easily usable console manuals for its Quantum range that I have ever read.
‘You read it once and everything becomes clear. If you forget something, you just need to read the right section, and everything is clear again in few minutes. In a school setting, this also helps us to cultivate the skill of helping oneself with available materials in our students. I hope that this achievement by DiGiCo, while easy to overlook, will never be underappreciated.’
Tiit Terask, Director of Audio Sky and supplier for the MUBA refurbishment, offered the DiGiCo Quantum 338 and 225 to the academy because of their rider friendly reputation alongside thei value as teaching tools. ‘We chose DiGiCo because, it is very important to teach students modern technology, not history lessons. Our new consoles are one of the best and most flexible platform choices for a mixing console available.’
With such a varied list of applications, flexibility is key to the success of the Quantum 338 and 225. From first thing in the morning, to the end of the show at night, Keldo can be sure that he is getting the best from the consoles and, as a result, the best for his students. The Quantum consoles have been a good fit for MUBA and will continue to perform for years to come. As Terask and Olema conclude, their longevity ensures future generations get the training they deserve and their audiences get the experience they expect.
‘The interconnectivity of our two DiGiCo consoles is crucial and the gain tracking function makes life a lot easier,’ Olema says. ‘Usually, we have the Quantum 338 doing FOH and the 225 as the streaming console, in receive-only mode in our beautiful studio down in the basement. If the FOH engineer suddenly needs to change gain values, communicating that could take some time and might create some problems, but gain tracking eliminates that issue. It is also easy to enable or disable this function per channel, so the streaming engineer always has quick and complete control over it.’
‘When we were first looking to install the consoles back in 2022, we had issues with global supply chains, but DiGiCo could not have been more helpful,’ Terask adds. ‘The Dante DQ racks were delayed, then there were issues with fitting them into MUBA’s existing systems, but the DiGiCo technical support is excellent and helped us through that, so now the students have the perfect system.’
See also:
Genelec leads the dance at Tallinn College of Music & Ballet
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