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Martin Audio/Bss Extend Network In Tasmanian Casino
Products from Martin Audio and BSS Audio have been used extensively as part of an ongoing audio upgrade at Country Club Resort, one of only two casino venues owned by The Federal Group in Tasmania, Australia.
As one of the largest, and longest-established electrical contracting companies in Northern Tasmania, Contact Electrical is renowned for its high standard of electrical installations as well as manufacturing PLC control switchboards distributed across Australia. Contact Electrical has for some time been a service provider to Country Club Resort, and Derek Philipson from their AV division has been working on a timelined project to upgrade the sound system across the entire venue including the main casino gaming areas, bars, restaurant, accommodation and leisure areas.
“In the early design stages I was given the task of taking the information from all 48 individual zones and putting together a system in which multiple sources could be selected in multiple areas, whilst other areas had a single source but were controlled with reference microphones,” says Derek.
With 20 years' experience in audio design in the UK, he chose Martin Audio loudspeakers after carrying out intensive research. Some 280 Contractor Series C115 and C516 were supplied by Technical Audio Group of New South Wales, Martin Audio’s territorial distributor. “The loudspeakers had to work against a high level of ambient noise at times and the Martin C516T I chose for its robustness and quality output at high levels, and its subtleness at low levels," continued Derek. "Throughout the venue, the Martin products proved to be easy to install, and above all very easy to EQ — in all instances the loudspeaker curve was virtually flat.”
Other loudspeakers provided a low-power/low-cost solution to upgrading areas such as accommodation and walkways.
As not all the areas received the same programme, Philipson needed a system where all signals were present in each area, giving him the facility to grab the signal wherever it was needed. He was also asked that the components be reliable, and should the configuration or firmware change, that this could be done without any system downtime.
“Soundweb offered me any amount of solutions in the early design stages, with the ability to set up different configurations in each DSP and toggle between each configuration to establish the best configurations for that area,” he said.
The music level is controlled in each of the 48 individual zones by a combination of reference microphones, 9012 analogue controllers and BSS’s flagship controller, the 9010 ‘Jellyfish’. This has the ability to control virtually any object in the Soundweb network by simply dragging and dropping items from any device onto each Jellyfish button.
Derek also had options of a single Cat5 cable or Fibre for future video utilisation. “The decision could not have been easier — with BSS fibre interfaces this made the task of getting video and audio around the venue a breeze, by using the Soundweb 9016 video audio matrix switcher.”
Presently, the system is controlled by six BSS Soundweb 9088iiMM networkable digital processors, positioned in three areas around the building, two 9088’s in conference and banqueting and two further 9088’s in the hotel area taking care of all the bars and restaurants; this is the central network area, supplying all music and paging signals to the other processors, linked via fibre optic cable and two in the gaming areas controlling all gaming, music, promotions and computer generated jackpot signals.
In Country Club Resort it is able to link conferencing rooms with other areas in a matrix arrangement — this will shortly be complemented by a 9016, enabling a full audio video matrix. The 9010 also has an onboard microphone enabling easy paging facilities without the mess of cables and external microphones. The recent upgrade saw the addition of two further BSS 9088iiMM digital processors, two 9010 controllers and five reference microphones to control the gaming floor and Watergarden functions, with audio links between.
With the overall levels controlled via reference microphones in the roof above the machine areas samples of the ambient level are sent to the DSP which then interprets the signal to ensure that music and announcements always override this level.
13th July 2004
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