Allen & Heath iLive tech used for Royal launch of Cutty Sark

Sound for the Royal launch of the Cutty Sark—one of the fastest tea clippers ships in history—was provided by Allen & Heath iLive tech.

The Royal re-launch—which took place on April 25th—saw both Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh arrive at the Cutty Sark Gardens in Greenwich, London, to relaunch the last surviving tea clipper in the world.

The event’s sound was handled by Bristol-based event production company, SXS. They fed over 50 input channels into a 28-fader A&H iLive T112 for the main mix. In addition, a 20-fader iLive T80 surface was used to handle the separate live recording mix for later publication.

“The iLive has become an extension of our team,” explained the Production Manager at SXS, Johnny Palmer. “Many of our projects have complex routing demands and it is important to me that I can provide other contractors with the feeds they need quickly and efficiently on-site.

Certainly, on this occasion the iLive rig provided exactly what was needed.

"With the 24 outputs on the iDR48," added Palmer, "we are never short of outputs to media break outs, foldback, external recordings and audience zones. We simply could not offer this level of flexibility with even the largest analogue consoles.”

The Cutty Sark—which opened fully to the public on April 26th—now allows visitors to go beneath the magnificent ship (which was launched in 1869) as well as explore the upper decks and the hold.

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