Studio Production Unit- The day of the Production.

Recently we have completed our studio production. It was especially difficult for myself, as we were suddenly introduced with a massively different sound board, which we were expected to use to mix the sounds for the production,
Previously, we had only had experience using this old soundboard:

I have been told this soundboard is very basic, and is analogue. I found this board very easy to work with and easy to set up, but admittedly it was a very old piece of equipment, and probably wouldn't have sufficed on the day of the actual production.
Instead we were using this:

Of course, this is a much more advanced sound board, and looks extremely intimidating at first glance. I was very worried at first because this particular board is digital, and has more switches and dials than I care to think about. However, as complicated as it looks, through trial and error, I was able to fully understand what switch does what.
I also began to understand how important the sound job is in a studio production unit, and this was mostly down to spending a lot of time with Paul, who would be overseeing our sound work.
Paul has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the business, and it was very interesting to pick his brain about what he has done in the past in terms of sound work.
From what he has told me, it is a very thankless job, but one of the most important. Paul summed it up with the statement; "No sound means no show."

All in all, despite having less than 2 days to learn how to use this digital sound board, I feel that I did a great job in mixing the sound for the show, despite one or two mishaps (which I put down to nerves on my part) nobody complained about any problems with the sound which makes me feel that I did my job correctly.