The Bedford Corn Exchange has much in common with civic theatres in towns all over the UK, featuring a 1000-capacity main auditorium which hosts a huge variety of repertory productions and one-off shows. The sound team also sallies forth into other venues owned and operated by the Borough Council, and have therefore invested in a new V-Mixing System from RSS by Roland which gives them 48-channel digital mixing capability on the move.
Pro-audio dealer JAP Sound fulfilled the Corn Exchange order, supplying the M-400 16-bus digital console and two S-1608 Digital Snakes with remote controllers. This compact digital system can be moved around the Corn Exchange building, which houses the main theatre and also two large function suites, which are used for corporate and council events. And it can also be moved around the town; primarily to the nearby Civic Centre, but also to outdoor assemblies.
The Corn Exchange inventory includes two Snakes in 16x8 configuration, each unit featuring 16 remote-controllable microphone inputs and eight returns. Using the REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) transmission protocol, a system can provide up to 48 channels of 24-bit, 48 kHz audio transfer. With two S-1608 units, the engineers have the flexibility of using them singly for smaller productions, or for larger events, being able to place one stagebox on either side of the stage.
As well as distributing the products, Jason Price of JAP Sound has added the M-400 and S-1608 Snakes to his own rental inventory, which is being used all over the Bedfordshire area. "This summer, we'll use the gear on some big festivals. A major advantage in these situations will be the ability to link a monitor desk with the same snake using the RSS S-4000-SP Splitter to send a digital split. The V-Mixing System really is a complete package."
(Jim Evans)
