Help buy audio & video mixers for Crux community

Crux began in 2014 with a vision to provide an open space for electronic music and video performers to showcase their work, develop projects, jam with each other and share knowledge.

 

This was initially via events that integrated workshops and a jam session before an evening of liveset performances (this later was separated out into separate events). It’s an entirely non-commercial enterprise and a labour of love for the crew and has ably served the London and UK community of sound and video nerds and continues to be both a warm test-ground for new work and a reputable place to play for some more established acts. We have been lucky enough to host students and newcomers for their first ever public performance and welcome them back at a later date to see the development of their work.

 

 

 

WHAT DO WE NEED?

 

At recent events we have completely maxed out the basic analogue mixing desk that was kindly gifted to us many moons ago. This crowdfunder will help to bring Crux into the 21st century world of mixing by providing more inputs for our live musicians and jam session participants, the ability to refine their sound with some onboard processing and also to enable the easy recording of the sets for the benefit of the artist to evaluate and also for sharing to the public. We are looking to source both a new audio mixing desk and a video mixer/switcher.

 

 

 

WHY CAN'T WE PAY FOR IT FROM EVENTS?

 

As firm believers in accessibility to music, art and culture we make a lot of free-entry events and keep the admission price to all other events low (and even welcome a decent blag if people are genuinely skint). The crew do not take any money for their time and hard work in both the pre-production and event production stages. We offer any entrance income directly to the performers but have been lucky enough to have most performers kindly put their small share back into the pot – and this has helped massively with general running costs, equipment repairs and maintenance and the ability to do the occasional larger or allnight event.

 

 

 

 

Despite any generosity and a growing local, national and international reputation for Crux this (strangely) remains a niche event; and we don’t really care to enter into the world of being ‘promoters’. This means that, despite our best intentions, the events are unlikely to make enough turnover to pay any substantial amount towards a proper technical equipment overhaul such as what we are proposing for this crowdfunder. We do not need to hit a specific target – all contributions of any size are welcomed and we will likely top it up from personal savings if we need to.

 

 

 

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT US

Click here for our main website 
Click here for our YouTube channel 
Click here for our Facebook Group 

You can watch 'In the Moment' – a brief documentary that we made that interviews some of the performers and our crew:

 

 

EQUIPMENT

 

To be specific about what we intend to purchase with the funds raised, we would hope to be able to purchase:

Presonus StudioLive AR16c (16 channel audio mixing desk with multi-track recording capabilities)

Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro (4 HDMI input video switcher with option to record/stream)

 

If we were able to raise more than our initial target then we would love to purchase a proper digital audio mixer (albeit a more hand-on variety) in the shape of an Allen & Heath QU16. This would make us much more expandable, well into the future.

 

In either case we would make this equipment available to other groups and events on a similar mission – we believe in furthering the whole live audio/video performance community and not just Crux. We hope this pitch has piqued your interest, thanks for taking the time to read through it and perhaps we can look forward to a contribution (of any size) from you to help us reach our goal!