Manchester Center, VT (September 16, 2025)—Many audiophiles’ greatest goal is to create an audio system where “it sounds like the artist is playing right here in the living room.” For Doug Hacker and Caroline Schneider, along with their sons Ethan and Kai Hacker, artists playing in the living room is something that actually happens on a regular basis.
The family has been running Billsville House, an intimate house concert venue, for nearly 15 years, first in Williamstown, Massachusetts and now Manchester Center, Vermont. Over time, they’ve hosted fledgling acts, established indie names and Grammy-winning artists like Sierra Hull and Tony-winning writer Anais Mitchell, who have performed in their living room and backyard. There’s also the likes of Nicole Atkins, Lake Street Dive, Lydia Loveless, Strand of Oaks, Syd Straw, and dozens more.
In recent times, Ethan Hacker has been mixing artists on an Allen & Heath SQ-5 digital mixer and a GX4816 stagebox, having upgraded from a small analog mixer. A significant improvement was the SQ-5’s capacitive touchscreen. “The customizable fader banks are also really huge for my workflow,” he said. “Having my input channels and DCAs and groups on the same fader bank was a big improvement.”
The new addition of built-in effects has made it easier to get good acoustics inside a house, as he noted, “In a living room with minimal natural reverb, being able to just dial the slightest amount in – and to have so much granular control over it was really nice.” That living room is L-shaped, so he also uses the desk’s matrices to feed two sets of mains, a front fill and a sub, ensuring all processing and tuning are handled directly within the console.
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Hacker also leverages the SQ MixPad app on his laptop and iPad for initial setup and soundchecking. “The wireless control allows me to be connected with the musicians on stage, especially if I’m running their monitors too,” he explained. “I can listen to them and make adjustments without being stuck behind the console.”
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Ethan grew up into the job, as his parents started the venue years ago due to the lack of good venues near them in rural New England, and have stuck with it ever since. Today, they provide musicians with 100% of the proceeds from ticket sales, along with “a fine helping of our vegetarian cooking, and a place to stay for the night,” said Doug Hacker. “It’s a deal that makes sense to everyone involved.”
