Born as a 1920s motion picture theater, the historic Princess Theater in Harriman, TN reopened in March, 2012 as a multi-purpose performing arts and education center.
Now restored to its art deco grandeur, the Princess hosts concerts, movies, dance performances, community and educational events and local church services.
The Princess benefits from a close association with Roane State Community College which operates the theater and Channel 15 Television which has its headquarters next door. As part of the renovation, Roane State equipped the Princess with a state-of-the-art sound system including an Allen & Heath GLD digital mixing system.
“Roane State decided to do it right from the start,” states Megan Anderson, who manages the theater for Roane State. “We wanted a high-performance sound system that was versatile enough to serve the needs of all of the groups performing at the Princess yet it needed to be easy to learn and operate for our educational programs. The GLD is great for all of this.”
Jon Chemay, Roane State theater technician, operates the GLD at most events. He appreciates the GLD’s versatile EQ and the color-coded custom channel labeling.
“Most events do a sound check,” says Chemay, “but the GLD can be set up quickly for those groups that come in at the last minute. I’ve experienced digital mixers that seemed like they had hundreds of confusing buttons and knobs. The GLD feels like analog to me. Easy to learn and use yet very versatile.”
A local church holds services in the Princess each Sunday. Chemay has set up a “scene” on the GLD which recalls all of the settings and labels for the church including its praise band, which allows the church sound tech to operate the system without affecting the settings for other events.
The sound system was installed and commissioned by Allied Sound of Nashville, with Steve Stanford of Allied noting that the GLD’s main input/output rack, the AR2412, is located near the stage along with a pair of AR84 expansion racks. This allows microphone snake boxes to be positioned where needed on the stage for different events.
Stanford also points out the CAT5e connection from the AR2412 and AR84s to the GLD-80 console. “In an old facility like this,” Stanford says, “it’s generally very difficult to route a large, multichannel analog snake from the stage to the mix position. The GLD’s built-in digital snake made this easy.”
Stanford adds that the Princess has another AR84 I/O expansion rack at the mix position for wireless mic receivers and other sources brought in for a specific event.
Allen & Heath is distributed in the U.S. by American Music & Sound.
