Datemi Tre Caravelle, a musical inspired by the life of Genovese explorer and mariner, Christopher Columbus, is currently playing all major Italian cities before it heads to New York and Broadway in October 2006. The production is designed by Oscar award-winning designer Gianni Quaranta and stars Alessandro Preziosi and Niki Nicolai with music by acclaimed Italian jazz musician, Stefano Di Battista. Italian rental company and theatre specialists, Fox Sound Service out of Aquila in Abruzzo furnished all the audio and lighting equipment for the show, including an InnovaSON Sy48 compact digital console for monitoring requirements.
The show actually started with an analog console on monitors, but had to transfer to digital during its run. Monitor engineer Stefano del Vecchio was nervous about the transition, as it would be his first experience with a digital console. "Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to make the transition to digital sooner or later," says del Vecchio. "I'd reached the limits of the possibilities on the analog console I was using. Unless I went for an analog console that was physically bigger and, therefore, offered more capacity, the only option left was digital. The Sy48 enabled me to remain with the same physical footprint (in fact, it was even smaller) yet offered me everything I needed and more in terms of inputs and features.”
Del Vecchio particularly appreciated Sy48’s assignable faders, the input and output patch capabilities, and the OverRam function–a time-saving utility which allows users to copy parameter changes in RAM without having to modify all of the pages individually. He also found the audio quality to be exceptional, and that the state-of-the-art mike preamplifiers are "much better than on many professional analogue consoles."
"I'd say that our move from analog to digital has been nothing but positive,” concludes Del Vecchio. “My initial misgivings simply evaporated as soon as I started using the desk. The sensitivity of the EQs, the possibility of having all the parameters under control without menus or layers, and the sheer problem-solving abilities of the console made using the Sy48 one of the most exciting and innovative experiences in my ten years as a sound engineer."