Last autumn, Glen Smith recommended a 32-channel Verona for the adjacent BP Lecture Theatre, and such has been its success, the Museum has repeated its order for a smaller 24-channel console.
"We just replicated the system we have next door," says Museum sound engineer Dave Hogan. "Compared to the console we're taking out of service, the Verona offers a significant general improvement in sound quality and better gain before feedback. We can control everything through the desk, all the loudspeaker configurations we have in the theatre - mono, stereo, surround. Before we had to use other devices to control the 5.1 surround sound, so now there's absolutely no risk in the system and the set-up is a lot more controlled and user-friendly."
The British Museum's Stevenson Theatre hosts academic lectures, even live music performances, but is increasingly being made available for corporate hire. "There are a lot of busses, to carry hearing aid induction loop, camera feeds, etc, and they can all be fed separately now. There's much more flexibility in the new system."
Shuttlesound, the distributor of Midas in the UK, also supplied Glen Smith Audio with a new Klark-Teknik Square One dynamics unit. Two such units are already in use in the BP Lecture Theatre; in the Stevenson, where multiple microphones are in use, it will be used as a compressor and gate.
(Jim Evans)
