To create the ultimate in flexibility was the challenge handed to the Sound Division Group (SDG), which were recommended to parent company Old World Hospitality, and arrived on site soon after Rohit Khattar had purchased the former Millennium Club, in June 2005.
SDG MD David Graham opted for a BSS Audio Soundweb London solution to link the world of continuous Bollywood films upstairs in Sitaaray, with the flexibility of Tamarai. To create the functionality, he brought in former BSS Audio systems engineer and Soundweb London programmer Martin Barbour to work alongside project manager Jon Carey.
The design is based around a Soundweb London BLU-80 for all routing and processing responsibilities, with two BLU-32 devices providing CobraNet on and off ramps to facilitate the large number of inputs and outputs in the system. A BLU-10 remote is also supplied for local remote control of Sitaaray.
The venue is divided into 13 sub zones, three for Sitaaray and ten for Tamarai, allowing localised volume, source and processing wherever necessary.
Controlled by HiQnet, London Architect software, any sound source can be routed to any zone in the building. The inputs include: hard drive player; Sitaaray keyboard player; stage input; cinema DVD player; six further DVD sources from Tamarai and two from Sitaaray; multiplay CD player; VHS machine and Freeview. The video sources are switched via a Kramer 16 x 16 matrix unit and destinations include 15in LCD monitors in each of Sitaaray's restaurant booths as well as several 32in, 42in and 50in plasma displays downstairs.
Each input is either compressed or levelled before being sent to the distribution router, while each output has independent gain, parametric EQ and limiter processing. The main bar and cinema areas also include crossovers (since they use JBL AL6125 and AL 6115 subs).
The cinema area doubles as a dance-floor - switching automatically from mono mode to a true 5.1 surround sound system whenever the Cinema DVD player is selected as the input. A JBL Control 29AV centre speaker, positioned behind the main 10ft wide electric cinema screen, comes into play as a Lexicon MC4 surround sound processor decodes all the standard cinema formats.
A Soundweb London Control Port input, taken from the house fire system, mutes all sources in the event of a fire and provides clear status information on the Tamarai control panel, while Parameter Presets are used for time-of-day volume settings and global source switching for either Tamarai or Sitaaray.
Barbour says: "Whilst the CobraNet routing is not particularly complex here, the implementation of CobraNet within Soundweb London is probably the most user friendly there is. User-definable bundle names and node to node hyperlinks which allow you to jump from any transmitter to a receiver - and back again - make Soundweb London one of the easiest products to program a CobraNet system with."
BSS Audio DSP matrix control is at the heart of a Harman Pro installation, with Crown Xs amplifiers powering a combination of JBL Control 30, Control 29AV, Control 28 and Control 25AV.
"The DSP routing was the most complex part of the installation in terms of client requirements and budget," said SDG managing director, David Graham. "The client wanted to be able to show any one of the 16 video inputs to any of the 16 screens located around both Tamarai and Sataaray in any configuration. This was further complicated by the fact the client also wanted to be able to
