Cube, Liverpool
Constructed within a traditional grade-two listed building, Cube is the latest addition to Liverpool’s mushrooming nightlife scene. The nightclub section of the multi-purpose venue consists of two dancefloors, for which its owners put no constraints on the sound system budget.

Cube marks the UK’s first club install of Tannoy’s revolutionary new VQ Series – as installed in Ibiza’s legendary Es Paradis night club earlier this year – carried out by renowned local company B&S Sound & Light, headed up by Billy Gillbanks, a long time fan of Tannoy, having installed systems in several Liverpool venues including the nearby Korova.

On each of the club’s dancefloors, two VQ Net 60 cabinets are flown on their sides around the perimeter, with a pair of VS218 DR twin 18-inch subwoofer cabs providing substantial low frequency reinforcement. In addition to the VQ system, Tannoy V8s are also located around the floor as fills and a V12 deployed in the DJ booth for monitoring.

The VQ Net 60’s remarkable sensitivity means that very high SPLs are achievable with a modest amount of amplifier power. A single pair of tops and bass bins can deliver club-standard volume levels. The Net 60 will produce 138dB (144dB peak) for just 200 Watts of amplifier power. Its high level of dispersion control – made possible by its advanced point source design, which aligns the acoustical centres of the transducers providing a single coherent wavefront – is particularly advantageous at Cube, where the industrial interior and an abundance of reflective surfaces such as concrete make the ability to direct the sound onto the dancefloor crucial.

A pair of Tannoy’s TDX1 digital controllers provide crossover, eq, delay and limiting functions, while affording some protection from over-enthusiastic DJs. A bank of Lab.gruppen amplifiers comprising four C-series 16:4 four-channel amps, two FP6400As and a single eight-channel C20:8X provide more than enough power for the two dancefloors and the venue’s two other floors, which feature a bar and restaurant, and are both served by smaller V-series systems.

Mecca, Prague
Established in 1998 in an abandoned fabric hall, Mecca is said to be a favourite venue of Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes and certainly would appeal to him in his most famous incarnation, Blade, with its black interior walls and dark, underground style.
Fittingly located in the industrial Holesovice district, Mecca is surrounded by factories and warehouses, which means it’s able to crank the volume right up without having to worry about keeping locals awake.

To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Mecca decided to treat itself and its punters to a brand new Funktion-One rig and promptly enlisted Citylight Slovakia to supply and install the system. Led by product installation manager Igor Horváth, the project took three days and began with the removal of the club’s original system, which, comprising EAW, Zeck and Crown components, was no mean setup in itself.

Brand new cable runs were laid ready for the installation and among them, three 32-amp power lines exclusively for sound – giving an early indication of the calibre of the system to come. Four Funktion-One Resolution 4s were then located at the corners of the dancefloor, with three F121 subs positioned in front of the DJ booth, providing an abundance of low end. Nearer to the club’s entrance, four more compact F81s and an MB212 bass extension box welcome guests with pristine yet slightly less full-on SPLs, and this is replicated in the VIP room.

Amplification is provided by Funktion-One’s OEM MC2 amps and comprises three E45s for subs and one E45, plus two E25s for Res 4s. Two E30s cover the entrance and VIP areas, while all other areas, including the chillout bar and DJ booths, are equipped with self-powered Resolution 2 cabinets. Main loudspeaker management is by Funktion-One’s OEM XTA XO4 controller, while an XO2 makes it possible to set the delay between the sound from the main dancefloor and lower SPL areas.

Ministry of Sound, London
Following the acquisition of its new signature Martin Audio six-stack system in late 2007, Ministry has further upgraded its setup with a state-of-the-art, CobraNet-enabled BSS Soundweb London network to provide site-wide digital control. By replacing its original BSS Soundweb processing with the new Soundweb London Blu series, the club will be able to operate over HiQnet, Harman Pro’s communications protocol.

The venue’s former head of production, Dave Bradshaw, now Sound Technology’s install ASM for the south of England, worked with his successor at the club, Alex Barrand, to finalise the spec, which comprised four Soundweb London Blu-800s, along with three Blu-320s and three Blu-10 remotes. These are linked to Cisco Ethernet switches to provide rapid site-wide signal transport.

 “Aside from the advantage of the failsafe facility, we are running the new Soundweb London set-up through CobraNet, which is now becoming the industry standard,” notes Barrand. “All audio channels are packaged into bundles for distribution around the club. This means that incoming broadcasters, such as the BBC, can literally hook into the bundles for instant audio, which makes everything a lot simpler. It was also a good opportunity to reconfigure the original Soundweb map and we now have so much more control, for example, that each speaker stack can be managed individually. Soundweb London gives us radio broadcast quality and we can push the system right up.”

The next phase for the Ministry will include replacing the amplifiers with Crown’s next generation networkable models, but in the meantime it has taken delivery of a new Macro-Tech MAi-5000i and MAi-1200i to replace their existing Macro-Tech Vz series. Barrand also plans to create a wireless platform through the entire venue while setting up the network’s eq settings in each room via Soundweb. “This also can be integrated with some other custom controls at a later date,” he says. “Watch this space.”

La Cova, Barcelona
Forty kilometres north of the Catalan city in the beach resort of Mataro, La Cova nightclub packs in an eager 800 revellers seven nights a week. Owners David Pecharroman and Coral Martínez had operated La Cova in a different location for
12 years, but when the lease ran out on their sister club, they were forced to move this spring to a nearby former industrial unit.

Within the long rectangular interior, Tony Espin masterminded the project, which was carried out by installer DJ Factory, to ensure even distribution and create a series of system presets to optimise the venue’s sound depending on whether it would be presenting live music, comedy or full-blown hard house from the high-spec DJ booth. Following a long and successful relationship with QSC, the proprietors opted for an Acoustic Design system, presented to them by Catalonia and Balearics sales manager Ezequiel Mayoral.

The all-white room has now been equipped with six flown Acoustic Design AD-S282H dual eight-inch enclosures and six ground-stacked HPR-151s as its main surround system. Two HPR-122s on chains angled over the small performance podium provide conventional PA, while at the rear of the room a pair of AD-S82Hs provide rear infill on delays, each one providing an output comparable to speakers with 12-inch drivers and compression horns. The passive speakers are powered by QSC RMX-1450 amplifiers.

Ezequiel Mayoral’s preset speaker settings and gain structures are programmed into QSC’s DSP 322ua, operating on the company’s proprietary QSControl.net platform, and these are accessed according to mode. Controlled over an Ethernet network using QSC’s Venue Manager software, the eight-in/eight-out DSP 322ua is fully configurable with all data stored in the device memory.

Vendome, London
With Vendome, founder Freddie Frampton and interiors guru Paul Daly set out to revive the disco atmosphere and bring punters back on to the dance floor. The focal point of the venue is a raised revolving DJ booth in the centre of the club, surrounded by a fully circular video interactive dance floor, the first of its kind in the UK, costing over a quarter of a million pounds and able to display film footage, graphic effects or logos – certainly not the easiest acoustic environment to design a sound system for.

London entertainment industry jack-of-all-trades, Viba Sound, undertook the complex task of installing the sound and lighting system and, from the outset, was under instruction from the club’s owners to specify a Nexo rig, which they asked for by name. Having Nexo systems at fellow London establishments Stringfellows and Mahiki however, Viba Sound was already very familiar with the brand and earnestly fitted feisty PS8 two-way passive, eight-Ohm full-range cabinets, mounted horizontally at ceiling height around the edge of the circular dance floor.

“This venue was formerly operating as a Pangaea nightclub, but the redesign process has caused the ceiling to be lowered and the floor raised,” explains Viba Sound director Hugh Sadleir. “The PS8’s rotatable, constant directivity, asymmetrical dispersion horn enables it to be used in a horizontal format, which allowed us to fit them in the restricted space.”

Sadleir specified 14 PS8s, primarily encircling the dance floor, but also reaching into the bar areas and beyond. There are also four LS500 bass bins in the system, all powered by the venue’s existing stock of QSC amplifiers and controlled by a BSS Soundweb, which also acts as a limiter to ensure compliance with noise regulations. According to Sadleir: “When it’s turned up, it really does sound wonderful.”

4rest, Pereslavl Zalessky
Located in the heart of Russia’s Golden Ring, 4rest opened in the summer of 2008, with a radical sound system – Void Acoustics’ Air Motion triple-horn loudspeaker and Paraflex low-frequency enclosure combination – earmarked as its major attribute.

The club’s whole design concept was subsequently based around the unmistakable aesthetics of the system, which was specified and installed by Iberi, Void’s Moscow-based distributor for the region.

Iberi became involved in the 4rest project during its construction stage, addressing all aspects of the dance floor area, including the loudspeaker and amplifier systems.
The main dancefloor rig was designed alongside the room itself and comprises four Air Motion loudspeakers, complemented by four Paraflex 360 sub-bass enclosures and two Paraflex 640 upper-bass units.

Void’s Air Series loudspeakers comprise the company’s signature, triple-horn Air Motion system with 12-inch, eight-inch and 1.5-inch transducers, each loaded by a separate isometric conical horn, complemented by the Paraflex low-frequency systems. Designed to work in pairs, for large-system coverage of the entire low-frequency spectrum, the Paraflex 640 covers the upper-bass region, with a 44cm piston, while the Paraflex 360 uses a single 18-inch driver to deliver a powerful LF performance down to 30Hz.

Alex Skan, director of Void Acoustics Ltd, comments: “Iberi’s prestigious installation at 4rest is one of the first in Russia to feature our loudspeakers. This combination of our Air Motion triple-horn loudspeakers and Paraflex bass enclosures is rapidly gaining ground as the definitive specification for high-end international venues, with this announcement closely following that of Matter, the new London club at the O2, which uses the same systems.”

Pacha, London
Multiple London venue owner Billy Reilly, known for legendary clubs such as The Cross and Canvas, recently focused his attention on the UK home of Pacha, Ibiza’s celebrated house music hotbed. With an £800,000 budget, he embarked on a wholesale refurbishment of the club, a large chunk of which involved the commissioning of Bernard Mani at Systems Etc to replace the old sound system with a new Martin Audio WT3 rig, processed via the company’s new Engineer 418 DSP.

Taking a less obvious club install route, Mani eschewed the company’s consolidated dance systems for the more transparent WT3, designed for greater vocal clarity, installing the system over a period of two weeks.
“Originally the club was spec’d with Martin Audio H3s but I wanted to achieve a more theatrical and accurate sound,” he explains. “I knew all the components of the WT3, so I was confident in what a fully active system would sound like – and that is predominantly a much smoother midrange and greater warmth.”

The compact three-way trapezoidal system’s mid-range and HF are generated by sophisticated compound mid-high horn configuration, designed to have matched constant Q, 65-degree horizontal dispersion patterns and bolstered by a powerful 15-inch LF driver. At Pacha the WT3s are configured in four arrayed pairs around the balcony of the main room, with low frequency extension provided by four ground-stacked pairs of WS218X subs.

Mani instinctively knew he wanted a more refined ‘adult’ system, sacrificing a few decibels in favour of higher definition, but at the same time had to meet club manager Alex Anderson’s brief to get a massive SPL of 120dBA on the dance floor without causing fatigue – more than sufficient to appease promoters of top nights such as Dusted and Def Mix.

Billy Reilly puts this into context: “Before we got the Martin system I would come into the club and immediately want to leave; it was just too toppy and muddy. Now we achieve 120dB on the dance floor with no distortion whatsoever. Bernard has given us a system which is just as loud, half the size of the previous system and much less obtrusive.”

Obsessions, Transylvania
While Transylvania is not a place that is renowned for high-spec, internationally-regarded night clubs, Obsessions is an establishment that’s put the north west Romanian city of Cluj on the superclub map. In the three years since its inception it has swiftly established itself as one of the country’s leading dance venues, attracting world class DJs such as Lee Burridge and Hernan Cattaneo.

To ensure that the club’s audio quality reflected its position as a superlative dance venue, the owners recently decided the time had come for a mammoth new Tannoy VQ sound system. The choice of brand is of some significance in a market sector that has traditionally been dominated by brands such as Martin and Funktion-One, in which Tannoy hasn’t been taken seriously in for some time, especially in countries like Romania. This goes some way to demonstrate the impact that the company’s latest speakers have had, but what sets this installation apart from anything else is its sheer size – bigger than anything else of its kind on the continent.

Specified by Romania’s Tannoy distributor, VH Electronic, headed up by Hari Dascalu, the new Obsession sound system comprises an incredible 16 VQ 60 units, accompanied by 14 VS218 DR dual subwoofer enclosures. These are all powered by a massive bank of 16 Lab.gruppen C-series amps with four Sabine NAV 4802 processors providing system control.

The club expects such high SPLs that it has also installed a pair of Tannoy IQ10s in the DJ booth in order to provide adequate monitoring levels, giving you an idea of the sort of levels this club is expecting with the new VQ system. This represents one of the biggest and most powerful VQ installs in the world at present, and certainly the largest for a dance club venue.