ALLEN & HEATH’S iDR BECOMES WORK OF ART

A new county museum, 'The Collection', was recently opened in Lincoln’s city centre, including a sound system based around Allen & Heath’s iDR DSP system. The landmark £12.5 million development, designed by London architects Panter Hudspith, was officially opened by HRH the Duke of Gloucester, and houses art and archaeology from the area, including a large Roman mosaic and many other finds from the museum site itself. The iDR system is being used as part of an invisible sound system for a “talking wall”, located in the museum’s Orientation Hall. The wall is a public artwork, commissioned from Dutch artist Adinda van t'Klooster, which broadcasts a multitude of pre-recorded speeches, describing different aspects of Lincolnshire history. These stories are played through 22 Amina flat panel speakers, concealed in apertures in the wall.

“The system was commissioned during the final stages of building the museum, and to ensure quiet we had to do this at night,” explains Paul Pinchbeck from AV installers, Cantoris Sound. “A laptop was set up in the hall to fine-tune the system, using a specially-installed data link, and the settings were then saved to the iDR unit in the equipment room. We also tested programming for typical audio distribution settings, such as background music and public address announcements, for possible future use.” The iDR system comprises an iDR-8 16x16 matrix mixing processor and input and output expander units, managing a Fostex hard disk multitrack recorder, with amplification from Mustang. Over a mile of speaker cable links the wall to the equipment room where the units are housed. “I specified the iDR because it provides completely flexible input/output routing, recallable presets to cope with possible alternative future configurations, and has a 'timed event' facility to stop and start the multitrack machine, providing completely automatic operation. There is also a sensor mic facility allowing the system to cope with varying ambient noise levels throughout the day,” Pinchbeck continues. “This is a highly unusual system, and conventional mixers could not provide the necessary flexibility, nor would they be cost-effective.”