HHB Equips Tacet For Britain's Got Talent Press Conference

HHB supplied an Allen & Heath iLive-T digital mixing system - comprising an iLive-T112 Control Surface and iDR-48 MixRack - to Tacet, organisers of the audio and breakouts for the winner's press conference of TV show, Britain's Got Talent.
As Tacet's Simon Bishop explained, the combination of such a high profile event with the obvious uncertainty of how many winners there would be brought some interesting challenges to the job: "We got the job through our colleagues at Hotcam who provide the cameras and crews for Britain's Got Talent. All the intelligence suggested that the winner was likely to be Susan Boyle, but I was suspicious that Diversity might just pip it on the night. I needed to be ready for any eventuality, so was preparing for up to six mics to be set up on the top table, plus handhelds to pick up questions from the room.
"Although the inputs were quite straightforward, I also wanted complete control of the outputs as the venue acoustics were quite tricky. I decided to rig a number of small speakers around the room, but was aware that there could be timing issues. And I also needed to send audio feeds to a number of audio DA boxes in order that the world's press could plug into a feed."
Thankfully, the iLive system took these challenges in its stride; as Simon goes on to explain: "The beauty of the iLive system is that I could set the channel strips and faders up exactly as I wanted them to be. I had a physical fader on the top level for every single input, output, send and speaker output, which gave me total control on the day. The ability to gate, limit, compress, EQ and delay on every input and output channel is awesome, and the onboard FX are really neat as well."
Bishop's equipment supplier of choice has long been HHB, so it's no surprise that he approached the London-based pro audio specialists when the Allen & Heath mixer first caught his attention. He said: "As soon as I called HHB they arranged a full demo of the system for me at Pinewood where I was working at the time. As usual, HHB made everything easy and, as ever, the technical support has been first class."
As if to emphasise the versatility of the new system, Simon is now preparing for a spectacular summer show at the Questors Theatre in Ealing by ATS, the children's Saturday theatre school started and run by the actress Amanda Redman. He said: "Suddenly, our least worrying issue is the desk! I am really looking forward to working more with the iLive system - it feels like a very big desk in a tiny footprint and I can't wait to spend more time with it."
Further information is available at: www.hhb.co.uk.
(KMcA/BMcC)