White Light Illuminates The Science Museum With Yamaha

Illuminate is a progressive new venue at London’s Science Museum, designed to both anticipate and surpass the needs of the ever-evolving events industry. Technical solutions specialist White Light (WL) has been appointed as the venue’s Production Partner and chose a Yamaha QL1 digital mixing console for the space’s flexible audio system.

Situated on Levels 4 and 5 of the Science Museum, Illuminate couples state-of-the-art technology with flexible spaces and stunning views of the City, offering a unique and productive experience for all clients. Thanks to its long-standing relationship with the Science Museum and reputation for managing similar venues across London, WL was trusted with designing and installing the technical infrastructure. The installation was overseen by WL’s project manager Jason Larcombe.

“The Science Museum came to us with their vision for the space and what they wanted to achieve,” he says. “They wanted an intuitive and user-friendly system that would satisfy the demands of any client; covering everything from the biggest conferences to much more intimate events. It was our task to select a range of products to create a bespoke installation for Illuminate to fulfil that vision.”

Jason chose a Yamaha QL1 digital console for portable control of Illuminate’s audio system, which is based on a Dante network. This is similar to the system which WL devised and installed at Central Hall Westminster, where it serves as the venue’s Production Service Partner.

“Yamaha is a brand name that people expect to see in a corporate environment and one which users know is completely reliable,” he says. “We use the QL1 in our other managed venues, because it delivers exceptional sound quality and has the internal processing to allow users a multitude of options. It’s completely reliable and can be used by the majority of technicians and operators without any formal training. So we knew from both experience and reputation that the QL1 would be the most suitable for Illuminate.”

He continues, “We wanted to create a technical set-up that had ultimate flexibility and the Dante network makes it much easier to bring in additional resources and for these to immediately be connectable. For example, instead of having to run multiple cables across the stage, Dante means one Cat 6 cable can go into a very simple interface unit and microphones can be plugged in accordingly. By having all of the audio elements designed to sit on this one digital network, you can move additional fixtures around before immediately plugging them back into the network.”

Reece Stead, Yamaha’s Commercial Audio sales representative for the south-east UK, says, “We are very pleased that WL chose a Yamaha digital mixer for Illuminate. It seems particularly fitting that both companies are represented at the Science Museum’s groundbreaking new events space, showcasing the possibilities of what is possible with the latest audio technology.”

QL Series

QL series consoles offer all-in-one mixing, processing, and routing capability for small to medium scale live sound, corporate speech events, installations, and much more.

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