Head audio engineer Alexander Herrin, who has been at the theatre for a year and a half, explains: "This summer we decided to upgrade our sound system. We were replacing a three or four-year-old console that had just fallen to pieces. They asked me what I thought we should get. I'd worked with the GL4000 in the past and told them that I really like Allen & Heath. Phil Mester from StageTech, who installed the system, brought us a console to try out, a 32-channel ML5000."
StageTech supplied and installed the entire system, which also includes a Stage Accompany Performer Series speaker system. "We're running LCR, which is another reason why this console is great, with its panning capability," says Herrin.
The flagship of the Allen & Heath range, the ML5000 features the company's proprietary LCRplus panning capability, which allows signals to be blended and panned anywhere across the Center and Left/Right busses. The dual functionality of the FOH/monitor console allows any combination of 12 aux sends and 8 subgroups to be assigned to fader control with inserts and metering. The ML5000 includes eight VCA groups and snapshot automation with an RS232/MIDI interface.
The new audio system is installed and ready for the opening of the new season, which will start in October with the rock 'n' roll musical Return to the Forbidden Planet Herrin said: "That will be a lot of fun, with a new sound system and a new console to run it on. It's sounding fantastic, the whole system is just a huge upgrade."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
