For over two decades,Allstar Audio has offered full-service sound, lighting, video, and staging design for a range of clientele, corporate events and concert tours. Recently, the all-analog company decided to cross over into the digital domain with the help of DiGiCo, citing the console’s small footprint, sonic quality and snapshot save/recall as incentives. Allstar employed DiGiCo D1 and D5 consoles for a host of events in the past few weeks alone: to handle FOH and/or monitor duties on Florida events such as the Children’s Miracle Network Celebration 2008 in Orlando on March 13-15 and on the Cocoa Beach Pier concert with legendary surf band, the Beach Boys the following week. On subsequent events, Allstar used DiGiCo consoles on the Pride 2008 Youth Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio and for a Mercedes Benz-sponsored after-party with Keb’ Mo’ at the Master's Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.

“Until recently, we primarily used British analog consoles on all of our productions,” says Allstar founder and president, Mike Borne. “ But we began to see the DiGiCo console being carried by some of the headline acts on recent productions, and noticed how much better our PA sounded with the DiGiCo hooked up to it. We purchased our first pair of consoles in December of 2007 and have been using them on more and more shows since then.  DiGiCo desks have a much smaller footprint plus access to all the outboard effects and such compared to a normal analog console. And DiGiCo pre-amps are right on the money. ”

For the Children’s Miracle Network conference (a yearly event sponsored by the non-profit children’s hospital alliance), Allstar put in place a DiGiCo D5 to manage 50+ channels for the multi-tiered event - including all stage monitor mixes for various solo artists and groups (among which were 2007 American Idol winner Taylor Hicks and a 50 th Anniversary Osmond Family concert) . Additionally, the D5 handled various RF mics for the ‘talking heads’ portion of the event, which included CNN host Glenn Beck, and for subsequent video feeds. The console’s internal effects were used on the PA and for in-ear monitors onstage, but Allstar found that the D5’s ability to create automated snapshots was invaluable on this challenging event.

“We were concerned about handling the quick changes for the event,” recalls monitor engineer Brian K. Westrope, “but because of the abilities of the D5, I was able to create snapshots for every act of the day. Having limited experience on the console, I was worried about creating the snapshots, but once I got passed the first few, it was like a breeze. There is so much you can do with this desk.”

Borne is confident that DiGiCo consoles will increasingly become Allstar’s primary tool of choice, and already has plans to put them front and center on future productions such as the Memphis in May festival next month, where over 45 national bands will pass through during the 3-day fest.

“ DiGiCo consoles have certainly found their niche within the professional touring community,” says Borne. “We’re trying to give them more exposure to the regional markets, and a big boost into the corporate theater market.  Everybody loves how they make our PA sound all thanks to the quality sound of the DiGiCo console and the British pre-amps. Once they experience that, they fall in love.”

About Allstar Audio
Founded in 1984, Allstar Audio offers full-service sound, lighting, video, & staging design for Corporate VIP Events, Live Event Marketing Tours, Concert Tours, Festival, and Other Special Events. From corporate meeting rooms of thirty, to stadium concerts of 50,000+, Allstar Audio has a diverse inventory of industrial sound, lighting, video, & staging equipment to fill any need. Combine our diverse and constantly growing inventory with the many years of cumulative engineering experience, and we can meet the toughest challenges. www.allstaraudio.com

About DiGiCo
DiGiCo is a UK-based manufacturer of some of the worlds most popular, successful and groundbreaking digital mixing consoles for the live, theatre, broadcast and post production industries and is exclusively distributed in the U.S. by Group One Ltd. For more information, go to: www.digico.org

Press Contacts:
Dave Webster at DiGiCo
Tel: +44 1372 845600
Email: webby@digiconsoles.com
Web: www.digiconsoles.com

Diane Gershuny
Public Relations
P: 562-366-8869
Email: dgershuny123@gmail.com