LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The 37th Ryder Cup competition, described by some as the Super Bowl of golf, was big news in the world of international sports as the U.S. reclaimed the title this year for the first time since 1999. Lou Castelluci, NMR Staging and Events director of audio, spec’d a DiGiCo CS-D5 for the production to manage over 24 inputs of video, myriad wireless mics, recording/playback functions and outputs for both the live audience and broadcast recording decks.
The console’s ability to handle the Digigram EtherSound technology proved invaluable, as Castelluci was able to keep the audio all-digital by sending eight channels of EtherSound out of the console to his NEXO PA via his NEXO 242 digital processors.
“Since we already owned the EtherSound Cards for the Nexo NX242s it only made sense to have a digital board that could handle the EtherSound outputs as an option,” Castelluci explains. “DiGiCo in its forethought made it available. What it allows me to do is keep my drive lines from the DiGiCo to all the digital processors—and to control all the processors and console via a Dell Precision laptop running Auvitran ESMonitor software. No more having to go out to the racks and change my processor settings manually.”
An interesting aside to the Gala, Castelluci added, was accommodating the musical act, country artist Carrie Underwood. “Her engineer was a very analog person, and was a little nervous about what was going to happen in the signal path running their audio through all the digital. I ended up putting him through the console’s tube preamp and that seemed to make him pretty happy.”
Looking back over the past year since NMR’s investment in the DiGiCo CS-D5, they’ve been extremely pleased. “After months and months of looking at digital boards, we made the decision to go DiGiCo,” says Castelluci. “Initially, what sold us was the console’s scalability and the ability to add digital inputs and outputs easily. Having eight tube preamps was another big deal for us, along with its impeccable sound quality… We didn’t think the other consoles sounded as good, not to mention that getting around on the others was much more difficult. And finally, price. You get so much more console for your money in this price range with the CS-D5.”
“We’ve had it for a year now with zero failure,” he sums. “It’s been an extremely good investment. All the homework we did in finding the right gear has really paid off. It’s proven itself to be the best console on the market for us—an all-in-one-solution—and one that I know we can grow with in the future. But I must add, we are extremely excited, too, about getting our first SD8s.
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