Since 1974, Manning Bar has stood as one of Sydney’s premier mid-sized music venues, hosting concerts for a wide range of genres from Australian artists and bands such as Brad Cox, Beddy Rays, and INXS, and has welcomed international acts like Nabihah Iqbal, Janet Devlin, and Foo Fighters. Located on the campus of the University of Sydney, the purpose-built, 1,000-capacity, live entertainment venue has become a local favourite among students and music enthusiasts. In a recent collaboration, Manning Bar worked with Group Technologies, DiGiCo’s Australian distributor, to replace its existing console with a more intuitive and rider-friendly solution from DiGiCo. With the Quantum 225 on board, the venue is now able to provide touring engineers with a much more comprehensive and user-centric mixing workflow, offering world-class audio experience.

With an extensive history as a DiGiCo user, Zac Ruokari, Production Manager at Manning Bar, was well aware of the UK brand’s capabilities and performance, which played a pivotal role in cementing his decision to choose a Quantum 225 for the venue.

“The DiGiCo Quantum 225 has been a great choice as our new FOH board,” he says. “The choice to move to DiGiCo at Manning Bar was, amongst a multitude of other reasons, to assist in aligning with most touring bands’ tech rider requests. As much as the previous console was very capable, it tended to scare a good percentage of touring engineers in terms of workflow, patching and setup. The DiGiCo OS and patching, on the other hand, is a more natural fit for most of engineers due to its significant worldwide footprint, familiarity and user-focused design.”

Having worked with every DiGiCo SD Series console at different times and venues around Australia, Ruokari expresses his consistent admiration for DiGiCo consoles. “They’re easy to use, fantastic sounding, and I have loved having the ability to add a Waves Soundgrid to the setup, and also to record multitrack via MADI so easily,” he says, adding that his favourite attribute of the Quantum 225 is the ability to configure the console with the amount of aux and matrices needed for for each show, which he considers a significant advantage. “I’m also really loving the new Mustard channel effects, plus the new touch screen is a massive improvement, especially in a bright room,” he adds.

Since being installed in its new home, the Quantum 225 has already garnered significant attention and praise, impressing not only Ruokari but also professionals and patrons alike.

“I see every FOH engineer’s eyes light up when I mention we now have a DiGiCo at Manning Bar,” he concludes. “The fact that the OS will be familiar to anybody who has used an SD Series console means that most touring engineers are already comfortable using the 225 when entering the venue – a massive difference compared to what was in place prior. We had Electric Six and Switchfoot come through recently and they loved it! Everyone has commented on the clarity of the preamps and the cleanliness of the output, even the bar staff can hear the difference. The Quantum 225 is most definitely ticking all our boxes!”

Press Contacts:
Maria Fiorellino at DiGiCo
Tel: +44 1372 845600
Email: maria@digiconsoles.com
Web: www.digico.biz

Sarah James at Gasoline Media
Tel: +44 1483 223333
Email: sarahj@gasolinemedia.com

The Quantum 225 is most definitely ticking all our boxes!”