Belvoir Castle is a stately home that sits magnificently in the Vale of Belvoir, Leicestershire. It overlooks a variety of picturesque villages, which form part of this wonderful part of the country. The original castle dates back to the time of William the Conqueror, around 1080 and has undergone several rebuilds over the centuries, most recently during the early part of the 1800’s. Belvoir Castle is the ancestral home of the Duke of Rutland.
The Installation Brief
The client wanted to create a dramatic atmosphere within the recently renovated dungeon and cellar area of the castle. 6 different ‘themes’ were selected, including the old brewery, engine yard and pumping station. After a couple of site meetings we set about the best and most cost effective way, that was easy to operate for any member of the staff, which varies quite often. A simple single switch was required to bring everything into action!
The Solution
We installed a series of mixer amplifiers, all feeding a selection of speakers in each area. With atmospheric creative recordings fed into each line mixer via USB stick playback on a loop, the different recordings play continuously in each area, helping to take the visitor ‘back in time on an exciting journey’
We also added a larger capacity mixer amplifier that ran a series of speakers throughout the corridors and rooms that plays continuous music from the medieval period, again, on a continuous loop, via USB.Once again, our speakers of choice were the APART AUDIO OVO range, choosing their 100 volt line versions, due to the quantity of speakers around the area (over 20 in all), plus we were able to ‘tap’ (regulate the volume / wattage) produced in each zone.
”When this new attraction was first discussed within the marketing team, we thought it may be too expensive to do exactly what we wanted to do, especially creating at least 7 different audio/music files. We had visions of complex computers and technology that could possibly be beyond our capability. We told Mick at Music Gear Installations that it needed to be simple, on a budget! He came back and explained to us what he proposed, which was exactly what we wanted to hear, that it could be done quite simply without requiring a degree in music technology to operate it! The Music Gear team worked efficiently and clearly care about the way the conduct their business and completed the job on time. Excellent service from a very professional bunch of guys!
Charlotte CobleyHead of Marketing for Belvoir Estates