Sapphire Raving Review

28 January 2013

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Theo Papenfus (Stage Effects) and Ni-Lou Breytenbach (Lightship Productions)     Ni-Lou Breytenbach from Lightship Productions was the first in South Africa, along with Theo Papenfus (Stage Effects) to play on the Avolites Sapphire Touch. Stage Effects consequently purchased the console. Ni-Lou, who works with the company on a freelance basis, gives a raving report on the desk.

The first time I saw the Sapphire Touch was on a brochure at an associate’s house just as he came back from PLASA, I think that was 2010. For lack of a better expression, I fell in love.

The next day I showed the brochure to Theo Papenfus, boss of Stage Effects and long-time friend. His first comment was, “We must have this desk!”

Fast forward to 2012 and on the 10th month of that year we (Stage Effects and Lightship Productions, that’s Theo and me) were given the privilege to take possession to demo the first Sapphire Touch to land in South Africa. After three months, and I have to admit not doing nearly enough shows on the console, I’m still excited when I know we are rolling that bad boy into the truck for a show!

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As with any new console it will always have its teething problems, but nothing I could ever say is unfixable, and mostly with a simple software upgrade. That is as much as I can admit to any bumps that I had with the console.

In respect to the software’s amazing ease of use, I have to admit the Avolites folk hit the nail on the head with this one for me. With Titan now in its 6th version, one can only get excited as you see extensions and functionality being added with every release, not to mention improvements on existing modules, and also the sense one gets that the developers really listen to user feedback.

On the hardware side, the desk reminds me of someone who might have been inspired by Dieter Rams, famous industrial designer. It’s clean, simple and everything that is necessary is there. Sometimes you may look for buttons which you are used to finding on another place on consoles like the Titan Mobile or Tiger Touch, but it doesn’t take long to get used to the layout and you soon get so used to it… and then you get confused when you work on another Titan version console again!

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I had a great time and great shows so far with the Sapphire Touch and would like to push this desk as far as I can. So far it hasn’t disappointed me regarding something it couldn’t do for my purposes. Notable events for the desk have been the Macufe Jazz Festival, Durban Jazz Festival, Synergy 2012, The Parlotones (engineered by Travis Yeatman) and a few large corporate events like gala dinners, launches and award ceremonies. So, we’ll see how it likes the dust and Rock and Roll when we take it to Oppikoppi this year!

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