A/V event specialists Cambridge Audio-Visual acquired a new24-channel GL3300 live sound console from Allen & Heath to managesound reinforcement at a conference at the University of Cambridge inEngland.
Cambridge Audio-Visual’s general manager, Julian Berry, explained,”Our available hire stock did not have the sound quality or number ofchannels to manage the audio requirements for this event. Previously,we had subhired Allen & Heath desks for larger events from a localtrade supplier and had always been happy with the results. We hadlooked into buying other brands, but Allen & Heath came out on topfor reliability, features and price. The DNA conference became thewindow of opportunity to upgrade our stock.”
Hire manager Alex Parmee commented, “The conference was held in theUniversity’s Lady Mitchell Hall, a listed building with no in-builtP.A. system. The original number of delegates was 500, but due todemand, this figure rose to 750. This meant we also needed to establisha sound feed to an extra 200 people in an adjoining building, as wellas a video feed captured by four live cameras in the main lecturetheater. Furthermore, there was a satellite truck on site sending asignal to The Laboratory of Molecular Biology in another part ofCambridge and beaming straight to London where the event went out on alive Webcast on the BBC.
“The new Allen & Heath desk supplied much more than just agreater number of channels,” Parmee continued. “There was nowhere inthe lecture theater to hang the speakers, and due to over-subscription,the room was too full to position speaker stands. This meant all of ourequipment had to be set up from the front stage area. What’s more, thelecture theater is wooden, concrete and an awkward shape, making sounddifficult to project. Due to the desk’s Matrix feature, we were able toovercome these handicaps as the main speakers were fixed to the leftand right legs of the lighting truss and a center cluster fixed aboveon a mono feed in order to throw sound to the back of the hall. Theconsole also has TRS jack direct outputs on all of the mic channels, agreat feature for broadcast and recording and something our previousdesks didn’t have.”
Pictured with the GL3300 are, from left, Robert Mills, seniortechnician; Parmee; Matthew Foster, technical manager; and Berry.
