Adlib has worked on many educational and schools projects over the years, gaining a great reputation for supplying appropriate kit that's practical for students and their teachers to use. The company is renowned for its policy of not over-specifying.
The overall installation project was overseen by Adlib's Roger Kirby. He also drew up the recording studio spec with Mark Burnley, while Adlib's head of lighting Pete Abraham, sorted out the visual elements. The Adlib team worked closely with Sean Back, Maricourt's head of music who also runs the recording studio and head of drama Sue Marshall.
In the drama workshops, four pre-wired lighting bars were supplied and rigged in the ceiling around the perimeter of the space. These are loaded up with eight Fresnels and four Profile fixtures per room.
"Each system had to be flexible and capable of mimicking various different types of show, stage lighting and performance states in a rehearsal environment," explains Abrahams. The idea was also to produce a set up that is straightforward enough for non-technical staff to use with confidence.
There's also plenty of capacity for future expansion and the addition of further fixtures, which can be plugged up via the pre-wired bars. The same principal was applied to the Strand dimming system and Strand 200 lighting desk.
For the recording studios, a Soundcraft Ghost recording console is at the core of the action, supplied with a Carallon recording hard-drive, Delta 1010 sound cards and a selection of TC Electronic outboards. These include a TC M1 XL multi-effects processor and a TC T2 Digital Delay plus dbx gates and compressors.
Adlib built a special multicore infrastructure which is crucial to the versatility of the installation, featuring pick ups from the rehearsal room and two classrooms located around the perimeter of the building, with a patch bay in the main recording room. This allows scenarios like cross monitoring from each of the rooms for a choir whilst a band performs in the rehearsal space.
A mic package includes top brands like AKG, Shure, Sennheiser and Beyer as well as a set of Beyer headphones for the comprehensive room-to-room headphone monitoring system. Tannoy Genlec speakers are used for all the source monitoring and an HB CDR Burn-It is available for mastering CDs.
Adlib has built two other recent school recording studios at Gateacre Comprehensive and Parklands CLC, and they drew on their knowledge and experience of these and other similar projects to tailor a system for Maricourt's needs.
Adlib arranged a series of staff training sessions so they could familiarise themselves with the new kit and maximise its use as a teaching aid. "We get great satisfaction leaving a project knowing everyone is happy with using the kit that's been installed on a day-to-day basis," says Kirby.
Sue Marshall says: "It's great having a dedicated space and being able to knock lights on and off when we want, and to work thorough ideas and see in situ how drama and stage action works with lighting effects."
Shaun Back adds: "Adlib has done a fantastic job. It's great for us to have such a high quality of recording facilities at our fingertips. It's drawing immense interest from pupils and proving very popular . . . we certainly seem to have some budding sound engineers." Some of the pupils have also attended Adlib open day training sessions as the company's Merseyside HQ.
(Chris Henry)
