Recent events by Audio Alliance

Santander AGM 2010

Audio Alliance was again commissioned by production company Fresh to supply services to the Santander 2010 AGM. Based on a similar format to previous events, we installed a full Alcons Audio ribbon system, using both line array and point source loudspeakers. An Ethersound cabling system distributed all the audio signals around the venue. Once again Fresh and Santander commented on the crystal clear audio.

Good With Food

The Co-Operative Good With Food Awards were this year held at GMEX in Manchester, the show design devised by A to V was based around an impressive central circular projection screen and stage with a diameter of 10m. The awards were presented from this stage and later in the show the entertainment was focused on an end on stage, against one wall of the room.

Neil Hughes designed and project managed this event around four carefully aligned hangs of Alcons Audio line array for the central stage and two hangs of Meyer Mica Line array for the end on stage. Control was all based around a Yamaha M7CL-48 and with over 12 playback sources, 14 channels of radio mics and a band to mix, it was a busy show, made even more challenging by the Winners of Britains got Talent, Diversity being stuck on the motorway and a last minute substitution at 6pm of X-Factor act JLS who were performing locally that evening and stepped in to cover Diversity's absence!

Many comments have been received amazed at the quality of audio possible in this ex-train station renowned for it's acoustic issues. Additional challenges from GMEX included the venue being double booked resulting in an unexpected noise curfew during the day of the show. All in a days work for the Audio Alliance Team of Neil Hughes, Pete Stanbank and James Silvers.

CRTG Awards

Audio Alliance were again asked to provide audio for the CRTG awards held at the Hilton Metropole, London this year, using a distributed Meyer loudspeaker system, a Yamaha M7CL-48 and LS9-32, Rolf Harris and his band entertained the audience for this fund raising event, with editing and playback accomplished using one of our Mac based QLab systems. Team: Oliver Driver, James Landen, Stuart McPartland, Steve Phillips.

Roundhouse

Again asked by our client to provide audio for this corporate event at the Roundhouse in London this year, this impressive show featured Feeder as the entertainment. Using our Alcons system we flew high to keep the visual design clean and covered this unique venue with crystal clear ribbon sound. Mixing duties were handles by a Digidesign Venue and Yamaha M7. Happy band, happy client - another Audio Alliance success for our team: Oliver Driver, James Landen, Stuart McPartland, Richard Waghorn.

NorthWest Tourism Awards 2009

We had the pleasure of working in Blackpool's splendid Tower Ball Room in October, which staged the 2009 North West Tourism Awards. Rapport produced the event with Ranvir Singh hosting the evening. Even with rigging and acoustic challenges to take into account, Steve Phillips and his team made every word and musical note heard, in every seat in the house. This was also the first event for our new ethersound stageboxes, making multicore installation slightly more pleasurable!

Elbow and The Halle at the Manchester Festival, Bridgewater Hall

Audio Alliance were proud to supply all the sound kit for the superb Elbow and The Halle show at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester in July, as well as providing the equipment for the relay at Castlefield. Elbow engineer Danny Evans asked us to supply orchestra sub mixes and a separate mix for broadcast and relay.

The main FOH mixer was Danny's requested Digidesign Profile, with Yamaha M7 on monitors and a new Digidesign SC48 desk looking after the orchestra, with a CADAC S-Type mixing the final feeds to all the links. It was an exciting event with over 100 microphones to be mixed, and feeds to 20 destinations including all talkback between sites, however the show sounded so good it sent a shiver down the spine and passed without a hitch. Oliver and Jonnie looked after the Bridgewater Hall, with Neil, Pete, and several Chris's looking after the 24 boxes of Meyer Mica and subs on site in Castlefield. We are all delighted to have been involved in this groundbreaking Manchester event that has won critical acclaim from all sources.

View a video clip of the concert here:
BBC Manchester
Check out reviews of the event here:
The Guardian Review
The Independent Review

Britannia Building Society AGM

Audio Alliance were appointed by production company Media Four to design and supply the audio system for the Britannia Building Society AGM. At such a pivitol time in the building societies history, with the merger with Co-Op financial services on the horizon, the event needed to be extremely well planned and executed. An audio design utilizing our Alcons line array and 20 channels of Sennheiser radio microphones, all controlled using a Yamaha digital console achieved the desired result. The event was distributed worldwide via webcast, and MP3 recordings e-mailed at the close of the show to transcribers in Spain.

Jon Faulkner from Media Four commented: "The feedback from the AGM has been extremely positive and it is no coincidence that our client has mentioned how impressed they were with the extremely smooth running of the event. Once again it has been a pleasure working with the Audio Alliance team - what a friendly bunch of people! Thanks for a brilliant job done."

Abbey/Santander AGM

Comissioned by James Marchant of production company Fresh, we designed and supplied an audio system to cover multiple areas of Olympia, London for this prestigious event. The main auditorium system used Alcons LR14 line array with Meyer MSL2 delays and our Cadac S-Type desk with system control by a Meyer Galileo, the exhibition and walk in areas were covered with more Alcons LR14 line array and controlled from a Midas Venice.

James Marchant commented: 'Audio Alliance, as ever, performed flawlessly with every word being crystal clear'.

Marketing Manchester

Gorton Monastery in Manchester was the venue for another outstanding Marketing Manchester event, showing off this wonderful building in England's second largest city, to international travel agents and conference organisers. Designing a sound system for this amazing venue was not without its challenges as you can imagine from the pictures, Audio Alliance delivered a well thought out solution which allowed all guests to hear and enjoy the centrally located entertainment as well as the live performances from the stages at either end of this rather long room!

Royal Television Society North West Awards

The stars came out to party on the 16th November 2008, for The Royal Television Society North West Awards. Held at Manchester's Hilton Hotel, production company Constellation once again turned to us to design and supply a system capable of delivering the audio mix and coverage required for this high profile event. As a television event sight lines were required to be kept clear which saw the deployment of our Alcons ribbon line array. We also provided mixes for the broadcast recording.

BBC Sports Personality Of The Year

Sports Personality Of The Year - SPOTY - was staged at Liverpool's Echo Arena in December, we supplied a large system and an experienced team, for the BBC's exclusive VIP pre-show dinner and after show party. Using a very cleverly designed system by Neil Hughes, all applications were covered, including a live band, play back and speeches, all in different segments of the venue. The BBC expressed their delight with the results, especially the engineering skills of Steve Philips.

Beauty and the Beast

We recently provided sound reinforcement for the musical theatre show Beauty And The Beast at the Royal Northern College Of Music in Manchester, the system was designed by Oliver Driver and consisted of a flown vocal system of twelve Alcons LR7 line array boxes with Alcons VR8 centre fill and Alcons SR9 front fills fills, the band was ably handled by Meyer MSL2's and USW subs. On stage effects were reproduced by self powered Meyer UPJ1P & UPM1P. Twenty five channels of Sennheiser radio mics were mixed by a Yamaha PM5d-RH controlled by our QLab system. The show opened with the beautiful voice of Sir Ian McKellan, which was recorded on location in London at Sir Ian's house earlier in the year by Oliver. The show opened to rave reviews, and was a great success for everyone!

The Latest Technology News

Ethersound Networking

Audio Alliance has invested further in Ethersound networking, we're now able to run 64 channels of audio down a single fibre cable. With this system we can easily run cabling through areas where conventional cabling can't be used ( such as medical environments ) and for lengths of many kilometers.

QLab

Audio Alliance has further invested in QLab play out systems with our new fully redundant QLab Show Control System.

Alcons VR8 Loudspeakers

We've increased our Alcons Audio stock with these superb sounding versatile small speakers using ribbon technology.

Yamaha SB168ES Ethersound Stage Boxes

Further expanding our Yamaha consoles we've invested in the SB168ES stageboxes for all our LS9 systems, making our small packages even more flexible and more compact to transport. We also have taken the fibre option enabling multicore runs of 2km on a single fibre cable.

Tascam SSCDR1 CD / CF Recorders

We've added these CD player, recorder and Compact Flash card recorders to our bigger systems, all in a 1u box... impressive.

Meyer Sound UPJ-1P Loudspeakers

Ten Meyer Sound UPJ-1P loudspeakers were recently added to our stocks, along with a number of UMS subs, and eight MM4 micro loudspeakers. These additions take our Meyer Sound stock to 100 cabinets. Being self amplified, the Meyer Sound range offers us a very versatile and powerful tool.

Cadac S-Type mixing console

A Cadac S-Type mixing console has joined the army of mixing desks here at Audio Alliance. This flexible user friendly console is also built to last, by the British manufacturer's known for their quality and workmanship. Already popular with all our engineers, the desk has been to Vienna twice and down to London for an event at the Roundhouse. This console is already in serious demand over the coming year, clocking up quite a few air miles.

Alcons LR14 line array system

The Alcons LR14 line array system has become a popular option for our sound designers since arriving in our warehouse. They have amazed clients with fabulous sound quality and ability to project with smooth even coverage, due to the ribbon technology used. The ease and speed of rigging is also an incredible advantage. We are also now members of the ribbon network.

The GS-MP1004

We are very happy with these new units from Glensound, they are clever little boxes which offer clients the opportunity to do phone broadcasts or multi-site event talkback where no phone lines exist or cost prohibits their use. The GS-MP1004 uses any network's SIM card and runs on readily available AA cells, so you don't even need mains power.