Birmingham, UK (June 28, 2024)—There are plenty of colleges that teach how to mix a live show and even more that have venues as part of their offerings for students, but South and City College (SCCB) in Digbeth, Birmingham does a bit of both with The Crossing, a 600-capacity live venue and teaching space, overseen by 40-year industry veteran Nils Edstrom.
Recently, the site got a leg up on staying up-to-date when it added a new Midas HD96 console, but it wasn’t necessarily new to Edstrom, who recommended it to the College. He explained, “I’d used an early pre-production HD96 for [regional audio provider] Urban Audio as we came out of lockdown on a reggae festival, and then at Camper Calling Festival. I was blown away by the sound of the console and the capabilities it offered. SCCB already owned a Pro Series console and stage boxes, so the decision to purchase was very much influenced by the ease of integration into existing systems.”
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Now sitting front of house at The Crossing, the HD96 is used for both commercial shows and education. Edstrom reports that students have taken to the desk as “It has a very fast ‘learning curve’ with most functions being quite intuitive; it also has the flexibility to work in very individual workflows. As a house engineer living with this console for a number of months now, I’ve been amazed at the positive response from visiting engineers, and how quickly I’ve been able to implement their workflow on the HD96. The internal EQ, dynamic processing and effects have been an eye-opener.”
