News
Allen & Heath and Meyer installed in Shakespeare’s Underglobe
Andrew Low Jul 1 2009, 9:37am
T series mixer and Meyer speakers kit out the corporate venue
The Underglobe, located in the basement of the rebuilt Shakespeare Globe Theatre, is host to the Globe Exhibition, and venue for the Globe’s corporate and educational events.
Autograph Sales was recently appointed to design and install a new system audio system for the venue with sound designer, Sarah Weltman. As such the team chose Meyer Sound speakers and Allen & Heath digital mixing products, including the new iLive-T Series.
The system was worked and refined by Autograph and Weltman to provide a solution that integrates with the room’s aesthetics and is capable of delivering exceptional quality in an extremely reverberant and large space.
“Flexibility, versatility and speech intelligibility were the key aims of the system, whilst keeping control and operation simple to enable a non-technical end user to walk up, switch on the system and play a CD, or perform and make announcements using radio mics,” states Weltman.
Allen & Heath’s iLive-T mixing system was installed to cater for greater input requirements and control of theatrical productions, musicians, bands and other events that frequently perform at the venue.
Several self-powered loudspeaker systems were modelled in the space, with Meyersound products - comprising several UPJ-1P’s, UP-Junior’s, USW-1P’s, and UPM-1P’s - chosen for their coverage, size and quality. Meyersound’s MAPP program was used to highlight coverage and levels throughout the system and helped to engineer speaker placement, delays and output levels.
The system is distributed throughout the room to give even coverage, controlled by a central Allen & Heath iDR DSP system. The iDR-8 16x16 matrix mixer and iDR-Out expander unit are utilised to provide 10 inputs into the system from wall panels around the venue, and 16 outputs to the loudspeaker system. PL-4 and PL-5 wall panel controllers are fitted to give users remote, simplified control of the venue’s loudspeakers and wireless systems, and operate the system as if it were a standalone audio system.
Autograph design engineer Simeon Ludwell commented: “The iDR system allows very complex processes to be simplified and condensed into one button push, allowing end users to operate the system without needing to know what is going on in the background.”
iLive-T was chosen because of its design architecture, which incorporates a separate stage rack and control surface connected over CAT5 cable using Allen & Heath’s proprietary AC (Audio and Control over Ethernet) link. A series of high quality CAT5 patching is installed into the infrastructure of the building allowing the iDR-32 MixRack and iLive-T80 Control Surface to be plugged in at many points in the venue.
“The new ACE system offers control and audio bussing on one CAT5 cable, simplifying the connection process and offering quick and efficient set up,” continues Ludwell. “iLive’s vast processing capability, and the 32 inputs and 16 outputs on the iDR Rack mean large bands and theatrical productions can be realised.”
Milab, Sennheiser Radio, and Countryman lavalier microphones, and K&M stands were also provided to complement the high quality system offering exceptional performance for all events.
“We needed a system that would address the varied productions we manage,” comments Russell. “iLive and iDR give us exceptional flexibility, yet are of a high specification to allow us to cater for all events. The PL wallplates make it simple to use for non-technical staff and clients, and the distributed audio design of iLive-T makes set up easy and quick.”
www.ilive-digital.com
www.autograph.co.uk/sales
