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iLive Manages Liverpool Youth Orchestra

Three Allen & Heath iLive digital systems were employed for a recent outdoor festival featuring Liverpool's Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Managed by Kent-based PA company, SRD Group, and engineered by classical specialist, Ian Barfoot, the event employed SRD's newly purchased iLive systems to manage FOH and monitors, with a third system provided by Barfoot.

"We manage a lot of festivals and chose to invest in iLive because it has a simple interface for analogue desk users and provides full DSP to every input and output. For instance, it is important that we have a graphic EQ across every output and can still use the onboard effects," commented SRD Group's MD, Stuart Roberts.

The orchestra featured a full complement of instruments including 20 violins, mixed by an iDR10 Mixrack and iLive-112 control surface at FOH, with a second identical system controlling the orchestra sub mix and all vocals. A third system, comprising an iDR0 processing unit networked over Ethernet to the FOH system and iLive-80 control surface, was used for mixing monitors.

"The extensive channel count of the orchestra - around 90 - meant we needed a single iLive rack fully loaded with the orchestra's inputs, sub-mixed on a second iLive with the choir and vocals, whilst the 3rd system acted as monitor board," explains engineer Ian Barfoot. "The beauty of the iLive system is that all the processing is onboard, so the only outboard gear employed was a CD player as a background source during intervals, and the two surfaces at FOH took up less space than the single analogue console I used to use."

The event was one of the first times SRD had taken out their new iLive systems. Roberts concluded: "iLive has proved very simple to set up and a brilliant system for festivals. Using our optical fibre link, the distance between the surface and stage rack can be extended to 150m and is installed in 2 minutes with no hassle. We can even send all 64 channels to broadcast or recording using the Ethersound network from FOH or stage.

"The ability to assign any input or output channel to a fader channel makes the control surface very flexible, and using scenes to recall fader assignments makes festival set-ups much easier to run. System techs can deal with the actual channel numbers in use, leaving the touring engineer with just the faders they need for their band, all pre-labelled above each fader strip."

18th August 2008

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