De Montfort University given Genelec, VDC revamp

De Montfort University, the public research and teaching university situated in the city of Leicester, has undertaken a major upgrade to the PACE (Performing Arts Centre for Excellence) facility on the campus, including a new multi surround speaker array from Genelec and Van Damme cabling.

The project was entrusted to UK audio supplier and bespoke recording studio designer Studio Creations, founded by directors Mark Russell and Justin Spier.

The facility comprises an upper ceiling grid terminating to 32, beam mounted, XLR termination points and 32 lower floor grid XLR termination points. The system terminates to GPO B gauge jack fields at the rear of the room and is driven by a 64 channel RME MADI based playback system on an Apple Mac Pro in a Sonnet chassis to allow for 64 channels of audio playback to feed a 32 channel Genelec speaker array with room for expansion.

VDC Trading supplied the Van Damme cabling which was used throughout the facility with all speaker lines running on Van Damme Star Quad multicore cable to minimise interference from the lighting system and power. In addition the Van Damme stage box connected at three points around the room used Van Damme Blue Series multicore and all cable stock used Van Damme Classic Mic Cable.

“We specified Van Damme cable, as we always do,” Spier commented. “Van Damme are the only company we have found with workable cable that still conforms to colour coded pairs; essential when wiring patch bays in our opinion and is the only choice for the studios we build.”

De Montfort’s Performing Arts Centre for Excellence was established five years ago and is a flexible workspace for a range of performance and installation arts. Regular concerts are held twice weekly during term times, attracting a range of international artists including; Tim Exile, Pauline Oliveros, Christian Zanesi, Martin Ware (The Human League) and Jem Finer (The Pogues).

The Music, Technology and Innovation subject area also specialises in multi speaker, acousmatic concerts (recorded work composed in studio projected on loudspeakers in concert with no live intervention of instrumentalists.)

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