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Maryland Theatre Upgrades with iLive
The Maryland Theatre in Hagerstown, MD has installed an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system as part of an extensive upgrade of its audio equipment.
Hosting a wide variety of musical and theatrical events, the historic 1915 theatre is renowned for its excellent acoustics but has been in need of an audio makeover to bring the sound system up to date.
Brian Marquiss of BDI Sound, who advised the Theatre on its new purchase, commented: "I recommended an iLive system, comprising the iDR10 MixRack and a compact iLive-80 Control Surface for a number of reasons. It operates almost like an analogue board making the transition to digital very easy, and iLive is fully-featured and self-contained, so there's no need for outboard processing gear. The system also uses CAT5 cable as a digital snake; for an historic building like this where running new conduit is not an option that was really important."
"Our system was old and we needed a modern mixer, not just for running the shows but to help us teach theatre tech to the arts students that we host," explains Jenni Hatcher, executive director of Maryland Theatre. "Buying a new mixer first provides the most benefit, both for improved sound quality and in what we can offer to the community. The iLive system will make further upgrades to the audio system that much easier."
The transition to digital promised to be a challenge for the Theatre's tech director, Mickey O'Brien. "I had never used a digital board before but iLive is really easy to learn," he notes. "The folks from Allen & Heath came in and gave me a demo, then left the board with me for a couple of weeks and I just taught myself. It was so easy, that's what convinced me it was the right choice."
Installation took only a day, and mainly involved running a pair of Cat5 cables through the existing infrastructure. To ensure flexibility for any future needs, Marquiss set up the system with a full set of 48 inputs and 32 outputs in the iDR10 rack. With iLive's powerful 64x32 Rack Extra DSP engine, the theatre was able to retire its rack of outboard effects and utilize the extensive processing power of the iLive system, which offers greater capacity than before.
The sonic benefits proved substantial as well. Using the DCA's, the system is set up with one output for the JBL mains and another for the EV speakers in the balcony for easy system control.
"We were amazed at how much better our old speaker systems sound with iLive in place," notes O'Brien. "There's no noise, and the sound is really rich and warm. Everybody noticed it as soon as we installed the system."
One of O'Brien's favorite features is the ability to save scenes for later recall, making many productions much simpler.
"I'm still learning, but I've been incorporating effects into shows that I never could before. We have a lot of shows that play here once a year, so I'm saving their programmes and building a library of scenes so that the next time they come in we'll be ready to go. That's just fantastic!" he says.
Executive director, Jenni Hatcher, concludes: "We looked at a lot of options but the Allen & Heath had a depth of quality that was very attractive at the price. And frankly, once our tech director got his hands on it, the decision was an easy one."
In picture: Mickey O'Brien with iLive-80
15th April 2009
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