Repeat client CVS International recently acquired Sound By Design’s services for the 2007 Amlin Awards, held at Old Billingsgate market. The one-day event saw an evening of dinner, comedians, dancing and bands set to a 1920’s theme. The West Hall was divided into two sections, a drinks reception area with live Jazz, whilst the other side was hidden for a surprise reveal of the evening’s late night entertainment – top funk & pop function band Espree. In the East Hall a dinner reception was held with live Jazz acts including legendary singer/ trumpeter Chantz and his band to keep the diners entertained between the comedian sets and the award presentations made by Rory Bremner.

The three areas of the venue were covered by varied approaches in system design, headed up by full-time Systems Engineer Dave Shepherd who also acted as playback operator for the walk-up stings. In the West Hall drinks reception area Dave covered the venue with a flown system of Meyer Sound UPA-1Ps, which were utilised for background music and speech reinforcement. In the East Hall (set for the awards ceremony and dinner Jazz), an array of flown Meyer UPA-1Ps with Meyer MPS-355 front-fill and EM Acoustics i2 delays was used. In addition, Meyer 650-P sub bass cabinets gave the system some low end that was all managed using BSS Omnidrive Compact Plus’.

This section of the evening was mixed on a 48 channel Crest Audio X-VCA with outboard effects and processing from Drawmer, Lexicon, Yamaha, Klark Teknik and BSS. EM Acoustics EMS-81s powered by QSC PL224 amplifiers and mixed from front-of-house provided the on-stage monitoring.

In the remaining section of the West Hall a stage and dance floor was built for the DJ and live band Espree to perform two sets. A ground stacked system of four Meyer MSL-4 and four Meyer PSW-4 subs provided the main front of house system, configured by front-of-house senior engineer John Gale using SIA Smaart and managed on a BSS Omnidrive Compact Plus. John chose to mix this section of the evening on a DiGiCo D1 with an additional Yamaha SPX990s for reverbs. As the front-of-house position was on the mezzanine and off access from the main PA, he also utilised a delayed pair of Meyer HM-1 reference monitors to reference the mix whilst corresponding with the crew downstairs for overall levels.

A second DiGiCo D1 was used by Engineer Richard Denham who mixed monitors for the band, on Sound By Design’s standard monitor rig of EM Acoustics M-12S wedges with QSC amplifiers. All effects and processing were provided by the powerful onboard DSP of the mixing console in order to keep stage space requirements to an absolute minimum.