Christ’s Hospital School in Horsham is a spectacular setting to work in under normal circumstances, but when Her Majesty The Queen and HRH Prince Philip are visiting it becomes even more of a special event.

In October last year B&H Sound Services supplied a Meyer MSL-4 rig to ensure that the event could be heard by the audience of over 3,000 people. Christ’s Hospital Theatre Manager Ellen Whitehead said ‘The sound quality was superb. I was standing near the back of the crowd on the school sports field and the choir and orchestra were crystal clear.’

The staff at Christ’s Hospital School were so impressed with the service they received that they came back to B&H to hire specialist orchestral microphones for their December West Side Story production.

One of the CD’s recorded, engineered and produced by the B&H team has been awarded “CD of the Year 2003” by Brass Band World, 4BarsRest, and Australia’s Band World.

Released on the Egon label, Yorkshire Building Society Band was conducted by Dr David King who has been an admirer of composer Derek Bourgeois’ work since his famous test piece “Blitz” was used in the National Finals in 1981.

The latest recording is significant in that it includes his most recent composition “Apocalypse”, which is reputed to be the most difficult piece ever written for brass. It is described by the composer as “almost unplayable”.

B&H handled the complete project from recording to delivery of the CD’s. Post production was carried out using B&H’s in-house SADiE editing suite.

When it came to looking for someone to work with on the prestigious end of year T-Mobile event, Birmingham based MCL chose B&H Sound Services. Project Manager Dave Garrett said ‘The event went so smoothly, and the quality of the sound was excellent. One of my colleagues recommended B&H as he has worked with them before and now I know why. I would certainly use them again in the future’.

Bands included Big Brovaz and Love Train, and the Meyer rig produced a sensational result.

B&H Syscom was recently involved in a design and realisation installation project at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester. The client’s objectives were to achieve high quality speech and music reproduction giving even coverage to all areas of the auditorium, whilst being aesthetically pleasing.

Based on results from Meyer MAPP predictive software (see picture right) a curvilinear array was chosen made up of Meyer M1D flown speakers and USW-1P sub-bass units with UPM-1P’s for front-fill. The software allowed the coverage to be predicted, and the speaker positions were set to give smooth energy distribution with minimal reflections.

Chief Electrician Marcus Christensen said ‘From the initial contact through to completion the B&H staff were helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. They quickly arranged site visits and demos that fitted around our busy schedule. We were keen to get a quality system into the venue in time for the first musical, and that is exactly what happened. I’m extremely happy with the final result’.

When it comes to AV in Peterborough Cathedral, B&H Sound Services is the obvious choice.

Uppingham School had so many parents and friends coming to their carol service that they decided to use both transepts. Due to the layout of the cathedral this would have offered them little direct view of the service so they asked B&H to provide projection.

B&H supplied two 10’x7’ screens which were positioned back-to-back and two Sanyo PLC XF20 5600 lumen projectors, which produced stunning images from the JVC digital camera.

As with all such events, the cathedral presented challenges in making the cable runs discreet yet safe, but all these issues were addressed to the satisfaction of the cathedral staff. Both Uppingham School and the parents were thrilled with the end result.

Bethel Live in Concert

The Bethel National Choir are renowned for their inspiring harmonies and dynamic diversity, so when they teamed up with B&H for their first live album ‘Only Because’ the result was always going to be something special.

Because the main recording was to be made live at the Bethel National Convention, the programmed backing/click tracks for the songs were recorded at B&H’s Old School Studio in advance.

The live recording took place on 1st August 2003. The line-up was 16 musicians and the 120-voice Bethel National Choir. The key for the production team was to capture the worship and the “vibe” of the evening whilst maintaining a high technical standard.

The mixing of the album took place over a 6-day period. The files were transferred from the Radar 24 and Tascam MX2424 used on the evening into the Pro Tools system. Some additional keyboard parts were overdubbed, resulting in a total of 64 tracks on some songs.

The vast majority of the material is as it happened on the night, and the resulting album is full of life. Needless to say the Bethel National Choir were delighted with the outcome.

When Hot Chocolate and support band The Foundations came to The Broadway in Peterborough, B&H Sound Services was chosen to provide the PA.

Due to the late arrival of the bands, engineer Chris Jones had to set monitor levels once the gig started. Even so both bands and Danny Howe, Stage Manager at The Broadway, were blown away by the final results.