Renowned for its long history of lock manufacturing, Velbert is located at the centre of Germany's industrial heartland, surrounded by the cities of Bochum, Dortmund, Duisberg, Dusseldorf, Essen and Wuppertal. Built in 1979, Forum Niederberg is the city's main venue for entertainment and business gatherings. With a theatre and congress hall adjacent to each other, the venue hosts live music, drama, comedy, dance, conferences, exhibitions, other corporate events and private parties.
By last year, Forum Niederberg's old, mainly analogue audio system was in serious need of updating. The venue's technical manager and sound engineer Sebastian Groneweg asked Matthias Scheffe, owner of audio systems consultant and integrator Ton & Technik Scheffe, to suggest a solution which would deliver the kind of enhanced flexibility needed to satisfy the multiple modern requirements of the venue.
Matthias Scheffe suggested an IP-based Dante audio network, with Yamaha digital mixing and Nexo loudspeakers, as the solution.
The system features CL1 and LS9 digital mixers (the latter fitted with an MY16-AUD Dante interface card), three Rio1608-D i/o units and an MTX5-D matrix mixer for the theatre, with a CL3 console, Rio3224-D, Rio1608-D, Ri8-D and Ro8-D i/o units and another MTX5-D matrix mixer in the congress hall.
The congress hall also features a comprehensive Nexo loudspeaker system, comprising six S805 and one S830 line array modules per side, four RS15 subs, five PS10R2 loudspeakers for delays and NXAMP4x4s with NXDT104 Dante interfaces.
Matthias installed several RJ45 wall and floor sockets, linked to gigabit Ethernet switches, throughout Forum Niederberg. These allow any of the consoles to be located either in the control room or at a conventional FOH position on the ground floor of either space, while the stage boxes and delay lines - including the amping - can be connected at several positions in the congress hall depending on the seating configuration. In addition, should no performance be scheduled in the theatre, its CL1 console and stage boxes can be used to support a bigger live music event or a split room configuration in the congress hall.
"Yamaha's Dante-based equipment, in combination with Nexo PA speakers driven by Dante equipped NXamps, is a perfect solution for customers looking for the most flexible, cost efficient and easy to use technical setup," says Matthias.
(Jim Evans)
