The multi-million dollar Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum is the brainchild of Nashville songwriter Joe Chambers, who also owns a chain of guitar stores in the area. The 2,800sq.m complex, located in downtown Nashville close to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Gaylord Entertainment Center and Ryman Auditorium, includes a 456sq.m performance hall, a 100sq.m screening theatre, music instruction rooms and a state-of-the-art recording studio.
The performance hall features a Turbosound Aspect series loudspeaker system comprising four of the new TA-500 three-way, full-range enclosures and four Turbosound TSB-118 subwoofers, with four TCS-30 two-way speakers for front fill. Stage monitors include six TFM-212 dual 12-inch and two TXD-15M single 15-inch floor wedges. The speaker systems are driven via Turbosound LMS-D26 2 x 6-way (for mains) and LMS-D24 2 x 4-way (for monitors) processors through the manufacturer's T-25 and T-45 amplifiers.
Renowned audio engineer TC Furlong of Lake Forest, Illinois-based, professional audio company, TC Furlong Inc. provided system design and supervised the installation of the Sennheiser manufactured and distributed equipment. Furlong, who also provided system alignment of the new TA-500s, was additionally on-hand to personally mix the opening celebrations. "This was the inaugural performance for the TA-500s in the United States. They performed very well and sounded terrific," Furlong comments.
The video theatre utilises a pair of Turbosound TCS-081C compact full-range two-way loudspeakers for playback. Ten Turbosound TCS-C50T flush-mount ceiling speakers, powered by Australian Monitor AMIS 480P four-channel 70V amplifiers provide playback in the exhibit areas. "They're not mounted in the ceiling. We made a platform and dropped them in each of the areas," explains Furlong. An Australian Monitor DigiPage facilitates multi-zone paging.
Noted Jeff Alexander, Sennheiser's vice president of sales and marketing, professional products, "The opportunity for SEC to be the official sponsor of the Musicians Hall of Fame is exciting on several levels. First of all, it's about time musicians were recognised for their contributions to the music industry. There are museums dedicated to rock n' roll, country, classical, folk and world music, songwriters and entertainers, but this is first museum to showcase the merits of musicians. It was so natural for SEC to want to sponsor the performance space with the gear musicians use and respect."
The ribbon cutting ceremony, held at the beginning of June, was followed by a two-hour Super Jam that included Vince Gill, Felix Cavaliere, The Original Funk Brothers (Eddie Willis, Uriel Jones, Joe Messina and Bob Babbitt), Will Lee, Danny Seraphine, David Hungate, Brent Mason, Garry Tallent, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns and numerous others. "I was mixing front-of-house, a feed for video and six monitor mixes from the same console," reports Furlong. "Fortunately, Bob Bloomfield was on hand to wrangle the stage, which was crucial to the success of the night."
The museum's exhibits will showcase instruments and artefacts of many of the most respected, talented and influential musicians of our time. Chambers has collected artefacts from rock, soul and pop history, making equal space for Detroit, Memphis, Los Angeles and New York.
