"The venue is a fashionable wine bar/pizzeria which has three distinctly different clientele types. On weekday daytimes the system is required to provide a low-level background music source throughout the whole venue at an even level with even coverage. With things livening up considerably on weekday evenings, the system then provides dance floor music levels on the main dance area, and bar/club style programme material throughout the venue. This also has to cater for DJs doing personal appearances some nights. Friday and Saturday night are, by definition, busier and louder than the other weekdays.
"On certain weekends the venue also plays sports events on a plasma screen and becomes more of a sports bar. Hence the system needs to be able to reproduce the dynamics associated with sports events. At the same time, the system still has to provide unobtrusive background music in the outer areas of the bar, with as little ‘crosstalk’ between the two areas as possible, requiring careful and accurate loudspeaker placement and power tapering so as not to alienate the normal clientele."
The whole system is thus divided into zones which run at pre-set relative levels, and can be fed with different signals (dancefloor/DJ/background music), controlled independently by remote VCAs. These allow the duty bar manager to vary both input and output levels to all zones depending on how busy the venue is and the level of background noise, within pre-set limits.
The CPS installation makes significant use of HK Audio’s Installation Line components - IL82W 100W 1 x 8" + horn (10 placed on MB4 mounts). "These proved to be very useful and compact boxes, providing us with an even coverage without too intrusive an appearance," says Richard. HK's IL12.1s were used to cover the main dance floor area offering the same clear sound as the IL 82s in a larger, more powerful cabinet for specific areas requiring higher SPLs such as the dancefloor and the Plasma screen sports replay. IL115 subs were used to bottom off the whole system and provide discreet cabinets in strategic locations.
(Ruth Rossington)
