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Marquee Audio/Production Hire fill Big Chill
Among the notable features of the new Big Chill House, spread across four floors at London’s Kings Cross, is the signature sound system of Funktion One. Co-designed by installation company, Marquee Audio, and Funktion One dealers, Production Hire, the reconfigurable Res4/F-218 ground floor system is a favourite of Chillfest’s Pete Lawrence.
Marquee Audio were introduced to the project as a result of installing the sound infrastructure at the original Peacock in Brick Lane, upgrading the venue when it was later taken over and converted into The Big Chill Bar. The festival promoters had started to get serious about venue development after merging with the Cantaloupe Group at the end of 2002, for whom Marquee Audio had also installed the high profile Cargo in Shoreditch.
The new venue occupies a large footprint on the Pentonville Road, giving them 1,246 sq metres of net operating space and a total capacity of 550. Variously known as the Crossbar, The Bell and more recently Sahara Nights, the building represents the merging of three original terrace houses and forms part of the Kings Cross regeneration process. It is also the original Kings Cross railway station.
With an interior design directed by Katrina Larkin, Marquee Audio have developed the first phase (Basement, Ground and First Floors) in conjunction with project manager Andrew Palmer (from the Dept of Design) and Tom Sweet.
“The requirement was for a live system that could double as a club,” said Marquee Audio’s project manager, Scott Wakelin. “We are delighted to have completed our first installation using Funktion One components.”
The system had become a favourite of Pete Lawrence while deejaying at Cielo in New York, and the familiar lilac and purple enclosures regularly appear in the club tents at each summer’s celebrated Big Chill Festival at Eastnor.
Working with Production Hire’s Mark Neal Marquee Audio have adopted Funktion One’s recommended signal chain of Full Fat Audio (FFA) amplification, this format alongside the superior audio generated by BSS Audio’s Cobranet-compatible Soundweb London DSP. “This has been our first opportunity to use the flexible Soundweb London BLU-80 on a “serious” installation, and by running full networking rather than a signal cable it marks a step forward in terms of audio quality,” said Wakelin. “There are not many live music venues based around network principles.” Having been impressed at trials, the installer has also debuted the new Klark Teknik SQ1D 8-channel dynamics compressor and SQ1G Square One dual 30-band graphic EQ.
Production Hire had already carried out an on-site demo of the Res 4’s for the client, and a pair of these either side of the stage are augmented by two F-218 subs. The skeletal Res 4’s rotatable mid-high section facilitates vertical or horizontal use; configured with a narrow dispersion pattern at Big Chill House they are perfectly matched with the double 18in-loaded F-218’s. As the room is L-shaped, four Funktion One F88 2 x 8in loudspeakers have been deployed as delays for live performance and a pair of Mini Bass bins incorporated to create a club sound when the venue converts to DJ mode.
Further F88’s provide infill sound in the downstairs 50-capacity Finlandia Cabin basement room while up in the first floor bar a pair of Res 1 (12in + 5in) speakers and a further Mini Bass have been specified.
Powered by a combination of Full Fat Audio FFA2000, FFA3600 and FFA 6000 the different loudspeaker configurations have been punched into the Soundweb BLU-80’s, with local control on the ground floor offered by a pair of BLU-10 remote wall panels and simple BLU-3 5-way switchplates behind the basement and first floor bars; there are live and iPod inputs along with DJ points (on each floor), with the live band mix generated from a Soundcraft 24-channel GB4. All feeds can be routed through the Soundweb matrix and sent to any destination.
On stage Marquee Audio have made provision for 24 mic inputs with hardwired eight returns and have wired four tie-lines to the stage box, two tie-lines to the ground floor DJ and two to the VJ — who will feature large at the House.
In addition, the company have supplied cabling for the external 100-capacity terrace area.
The development will have cost the Big Chill organisation £1.2m. “Everyone was nervous about the workload and it’s the biggest investment we’ve made,” said Katrina Larkin. “But we could only do it because of the confidence we had in the space.”
http:/wwwmarqueeaudio.co.uk
7th September 2006
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