The SD9T gives all the advanced theatre features of the flagship SD7T to the smaller (and just as popular) DiGiCo SD9.
For over a decade, DiGiCo has been working with world-class sound designers, including Andrew Bruce (Les Mise´rables, Chess, Miss Saigon, Mary Poppins), to develop a software package that provides the tools needed to address the highly demanding discipline of live theatre sound reinforcement. The results have made the acclaimed SD7T a standard on the majority of productions on Broadway and in the West End. This feature set is now available to an even wider selection of live theatre users around the world, thanks to the impressive specs of the smaller, more cost conscious, SD9T.
Some of the biggest problems in live theatre sound are those of ‘imaging’ as performers move around the stage whilst occasionally donning hats which profoundly affect their sound due to the proximity of the head-worn microphones.
As a result, a designer will build a show file with a long cue list and use our theatre specific programming tools, including the Auto Update system and Aliases for cue to cue changes, and Matrix nodal delays for precise sound positioning.
The theatre variant of the Auto Update function instantly updates the channel parameters to all cues, and by using Aliases, affect only those cues where that parameter is the same. For example, if you wanted to make an EQ change to character ‘Bob’, but not in the cues where Bob is wearing a hat, you would create an Alias ‘Bob Hat,’ and any changes you made to ‘Bob’would track through the cues without updating the Alias ‘Bob Hat’ and vice versa.
John O’Donnell at the Athenaeum Theatre In Melbourne doing ‘Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be’ with his SD9
Additionally, as theatre shows make much more use of Control Groups (CGs – also known as VCAs) than traditional live programming, DiGiCo provide a visual CG programming interface. This, along with the SD9T’s 12 CG channels, allows the engineer to maintain control of the constantly changing cast on stage, by quickly assigning and un-assigning CG members with reference to the cue list.
One of the newest time saving tools in the collection is the Players function. This allows the engineer to quickly deal with cast changes on stage. What was once a process of recalling the proper preset for each Alias is now simply a mater of selecting the actor performing that role. The show is then automatically updated with all the settings for that actor.
Additional features include template sessions and Sets (previously only available on SD7T), which has been enhanced to allow for ‘Set Spill’. This allows the user to create Sets and, with a simple button press, change the console layout to display members of that Set.
