ZED and iLive mixing consoles from Allen & Heath have been installed in various areas throughout the Performance Hub – a new £18 million performing arts venue at the University of Wolverhampton.
The eagerly-awaited new complex brings together the University’s Dance, Drama and Music departments into one dedicated building, providing purpose-built facilities such as a black box theatre and music rooms.
An iLive digital mixing system – comprising an iLive-T80 Control Surface and iDR-32 MixRack with a Dante networking audio card and additional Mixpad app – has been installed in the main Black Box performance space.
“iLive was chosen right at the beginning of the building’s design process, and the infrastructure of the Black Box was then built around how we planned to use it,” explained Andrew Lowe, music technician at the University of Wolverhampton, picture here (right) with Andrew Martland from installer The Music Company. “Having all the audio travelling over a Cat5 cable enabled us to ensure that, other than a simple patch lead to a point on the wall at each end, there are no large multicore cables on show. Also, with all the processing carried out in the iLive rack, it means that we can choose to work with or without the control surface.”
The iLive Mixpad app gives additional control – enough for the technicians to manage a presentation-based lecture or a small performance. It also provides the freedom to move around the space and listen from several points to ensure the best possible sound is achieved for the audience.
A total of 11 ZED-12FX compact USB mixers have also been installed in the smaller performance studios and music rehearsal spaces.
“I’m really pleased with the ZED mixers,” said Lowe. “They have a clean transparent sound, and are nice and simple to use. The USB output is a fantastic feature, ideal for getting a quick scratch recording of a band rehearsal onto your laptop. The students will be really pleased with that as it’s something we’ve been asked for many times!”
