Opening a new theatre put considerable pressure on a UK college to maintain the high expectations of both students and staff. The St Lawrence College in Ramsgate prides itself on its facilities, bringing the multi-use theatre as part of a new-build that includes classroom space, a new boardroom and dormitories.
Able to seat all 480 senior school pupils, the new hall has a balcony with a stage dominating the back wall but can be adapted to hold performances in the round. An open brief for the design of a suitable audio, video and lighting installation was extended to the London office of Stage Electrics, where Business Development Manager Mark Larcombe responded with a system design placing a Roland M-300 at its centre.
The requirements for the project were typical school requirements – ease of use for the variety of people who would need to use the products, flexibility of the system to be used for different purposes and within a specified budget. The various uses of the theatre would be from school assemblies and prizegiving, to GCSE student productions, up to major productions.
As part of the V-Mixing System, the 32-channel console connects via Cat5e to Roland Digital Snake products for simple and high quality audio transmission, distribution, splits and merging. At St Lawrence College, the M-300 can adapt easily to set-ups ranging from using just one microphone to a complicated live band.
Stage Electrics chose the Roland M-300 Digital Mixing Console, the Roland S-1608 Digital Snake Stage Unit and the Roland S-0808 8 x 8 I/O unit connected with REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) to provide a ‘plug-and-play’ digital system.
Using REAC and Cat5e cables for the audio transmission proved simple and cost-effective as a number of Cat5e points were installed around the new venue. The S-0808 is installed in the back of a control rack and connected to the amplifiers, while the S-1608 has been left as a portable unit so that it can be plugged into various Cat5e panels around the theatre as required – REAC connectivity allows the use the Cat5e points around the venue to connect to the mixer instead of having to use XLRs from the mixer. If the M-300 is in the control room, connecting by XLR is possible but for more advanced set-ups – for example, where there are a number of musical instruments, then the portable S-1608 can be added where necessary to create more inputs.
‘The M-300 desk with the Digital Snakes provides a straightforward solution, which can be easily added to in the future,’ says Larcombe. ‘The theatre itself is such a high quality venue and the technology so accessible that it is now being used for all purposes, far more than it was originally intended for.’
