Lincoln’s premier live performance venue has been equipped with an L-Acoustics Kara loudspeaker system and Midas mixing by Adlib. The 1,600-capacity Engine Shed on the campus of Lincoln University is the city’s busiest live entertainment space, staging a mix of music, comedy, club nights and conferences.
Engine Shed engineers first came to Adlib through the training programmes hels at the company's Liverpool HQ. When the in-house facilities at the venue were due an upgrade, Adlib won a competitive tender to secure the project, which was managed by John Hughes, working closely with Lincoln University’s then Technical Manager, Matt Benton.
Adlib’s first step was undertaking a detailed site survey, after which the design was devised and then fine-tuned by Adlib’s Roger Kirby in conjunction with L-Acoustics Applications Engineer, Dan Orton. ‘Kara was our line array system of choice,’ explains Hughes, adding that it followed from several other great Kara reference systems they have installed including the solution for the Cambridge Corn Exchange.
The main LR hangs comprise nine flown Kara speakers a side together with three flown SB18 subs, plus four SB28 subs which are ground-stacked each side. Two L-Acoustics Arcs Focus and two Arcs Wide speakers are utilised for delays together with two additional Arcs Focus for centre fills. The system is powered by seven proprietary LA8 amps.
Similar logic was applied to the choice mixing console – a Midas Pro2 with a DL-251 stage box adding 48 inputs and 16 outputs to the standard I/O.
An important part of winning the tender initially was Adlib’s training and after-sales support of the new equipment. The house audio crew all received training from Adlib on how to work and maintain the Kara system and all its rigging components, along with operation of the LA Network Manager software. Two sets of training sessions were included in the project package – one at Adlib’s HQ in Liverpool and the other on-site at the Engine Shed – andaugmented with a specialist one-day session at Midas’ UK HQ.
Adlib engineer Alan Harrison supervised the first run of shows with the new system to ensure the hand-over transition was smooth and stress free.
More: www.adlib.co.uk
