Sandwiched between the MTV Studios and Penthouse Club, managing director Roger Payne of Sound Too Ltd has spent £1.3m - part of it dedicated to a new Martin Audio sound system - supplied by LMC Audio and installed by Carl Broadhurst's CTS Productions.
When Sound reopened at the beginning of October it extended an 11-year association it has enjoyed with Leicester Square. In fact it was while working as a technician at the old venue that Carl first became acquainted with Roger Payne, nearly a decade ago.
The installer exclusively specifies Martin Audio for his commercial projects, and uses LMC Audio as his supplier. "I receive excellent back up from LMC and their service is impeccable."
Floors 3, 4 and 5 can respectively accommodate 400, 350 and 300 - but it is the lowest of these floors that hosts the punchy dance system. CTS - supported by LMC's technical sales executive Jeff Woodford - called on all their experience to turn the inherent reflections of the building's hard surfaces to his advantage.
The Martin Audio equipment is the mainstay of an intelligent installation which reuses, and integrates some of the pre-existing kit and places high emphasis on aesthetics. "The original idea for the club was for all the equipment from the old venue to be moved across. But when I introduced Roger to the Martin Audio speakers, he was quickly convinced, both by the sound and the aesthetics."
Four WMX bass bins, featuring the company's trademark Hybrid loading principle, are stacked in pairs either side of a large LED matrix wall; flown from the roof gantry above are two pairs of Martin Audio W8LMDI enclosures - the installation down-fill versions of the Mini Line Array - while on the same axis, the side-fills are provided by a pair of horizontally-mounted Martin Audio Blackline F12's, with the horns rotated.
The system is fed from a highly-specified DJ booth, incorporating Pioneer CDJ-1000's, Technics SL1210 turntables and mixed through an Allen & Heath XONE 464.
"We knew the coverage from the line array would be ideal for the space we were working in and the minimal concept. In fact four Martin Audio enclosures are achieving a higher SPL than the 12 cabinets were capable of in the old venue. We have just given the system a bit of top-end lift to create a nightclub sound."
The fifth floor Ivory Room features fine dining and spectacular views over Leicester Square. Here CTS have imaginatively installed 11 x Martin Audio AQ8's, mounted horizontally around the padded pillars using special custom brackets, to create 360° arrays. Since this room takes a feed from its own DJ system Carl Broadhurst has also made provision for a pair of AQ112 subs, and distribution to 100V line Martin Audio C6.2T ceiling speakers in the toilets. The upstairs system is optimised using Martin Audio's dedicated AQX processor.
Aside from the potent sound, back downstairs the main dancefloor is awash with moving head and scanner lighting from Martin Professional, Abstract and Pearl River, programmed onto a ShowCAD system with touch screen. The lighting system has three DMX lines that can be accessed via the patch panel behind the DJ booth.
With so much lighting the media displays also needed to hold their own. The main wall visualisations are fed from a PC via a matrix switcher, complemented by 50in and 42in plasmas and 20in LCD screens.
(Chris Henry)
