Wolverhampton Uni Kits Out £18m Facility

Allen & Heath iLive and ZED mixing consoles have been installed throughout a new £18 million performing arts venue at The University of Wolverhampton.
Called the Performance Hub, the facility 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, have 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, who is responsible for selecting audio equipment. "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, and 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.
"The Dante card is very exciting, especially as one of our modules teaches the students about live sound recording. Being able to send the incoming audio directly to a DAW via Ethernet is a perfect solution and more modern approach for us to teach," continued Lowe.
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. 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!"
(CD)