ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Allen & Heath’s iLive-80 digital console along with an iDR-8 digital zone mixer and 6 remote control PL Series wall plates were installed at the Childrena’s Theater of Annapolis as part of a full audio system recently completed by Dennis Wilson at Audio Plus.
A brand new construction, the Children’s Theater hosts local and regional theater productions as well as other events. The iLive-80 provides FOH as well as monitor mixing duties and the iDR-8 takes care of all main loudspeaker, monitors, and zone speaker management. There are a variety of Allen & Heath PL wall plates installed in various locations throughout the theater providing remote control of the system.
“The iLive/iDR integration is the perfect solution for theater,” states Sales Reps Audio Associates’ Charles Cassell. “It is infinitely flexible and has a ton of features that will allow the system to grow with the theater’s needs over time.” As Cassell describes the installation, “the system is configured for 48 inputs by 24 outputs, with eight of the inputs and eight of the outputs located at the FOH control surface, and the remaining 40 inputs and 16 outputs in the Mix Rack located near the stage. The outputs from the Mix Rack are bussed to the iDR-8, which takes care of all of the speaker management and remote controls installed in the venue.”
Main outputs feed left, right, center, and sub with four monitor sends for wedges on the stage and additional sends for monitors mounted overhead and side fills. Speaker zones are set up in the actor’s dressing rooms, the green room, lobby, general work area and the stage manager’s position.
The PL-4s installed in the dressing rooms allow the actors to control volume and select between main mix and monitor mixes to listen for their cues, and the PL-4 located in the box office controls the volume of the main mix in the Lobby area. The Green Room and general work areas also get PL-4 remotes for volume control. An eight channel PL-10 remote rotary mixer is installed at the Stage Manager’s position and is set up to control 8 DCAs pre-configured on the iLive-80 mixer. “The PL-10 – iLive DCA control set up is perfect as it allows non-technical folks to handle audio levels and mutes during rehearsals or simple events without requiring the theater’s professional audio engineers to be present,“ explains Cassell. “This was a very important requirement for this system and one of the reasons the iLive/iDR system was chosen.”
Other important requirements for this installation included scene recall and system admin permissions. “The iLive was an excellent choice here,” continues Cassell, “because it allows the theater’s audio engineers to configure the system and set up various scenes to handle the different scene changes on the stage, and then lock down the system and assign privileges. At that point, non-technical folks can handle the scene recalls and run a given performance. Productions at this theater typically involve 24 wireless mics and headsets, so a great strength of the iLive is its ability to control volumes and mutes easily in a theatrical performance situation.”
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