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Sound Division’s London Network
BSS Audio has provided a versatile matrix control and routing solution for a sophisticated two-tier dining and corporate hospitality complex in London’s Drury Lane. With the opening of the Bollywood-themed Sitaaray restaurant above last year’s much-vaunted Tamarai, entrepreneur Rohit Khattar has completed his mission to combine a restaurant, 5.1 cinema, dance venue, art gallery and corporate entertainment under one roof.
To create the ultimate in flexibility was the challenge handed down to the Sound Division Group (SDG), which were recommended to parent company Old World Hospitality, and arrived on site soon after Rohit Khattar had purchased the former Millennium Club, in June 2005.
SDG MD David Graham opted for a versatile BSS Audio Soundweb London solution to link the world of continuous Bollywood films upstairs in Sitaaray, with the flexibility of Tamarai. To create the functionality, he brought in former BSS Audio Systems Engineer and ace Soundweb London programmer Martin Barbour to work alongside project manager Jon Carey.
The design is based around a Soundweb London BLU-80 for all routing and processing responsibilities, with two BLU-32 devices providing CobraNet on and off ramps to facilitate the large number of inputs and outputs in the system. A BLU-10 remote is also supplied for local remote control of Sitaaray.
The venue is divided into 13 sub zones, three for Sitaaray and ten for Tamarai, allowing localised volume, source and processing wherever necessary.
Controlled by HiQnet London Architect software, any sound source can be routed to any zone in the building. The inputs include: hard drive player; Sitaaray keyboard player; stage input; cinema DVD player; six further DVD sources from Tamarai and two from Sitaaray; multiplay CD player; VHS machine and Freeview. The video sources are switched via a Kramer 16 x 16 matrix unit and destinations include 15in LCD monitors in each of Sitaaray’s restaurant booths as well as several 32in, 42in and 50in plasma displays downstairs.
Each input is either compressed or levelled before being sent to the distribution router, while each output has independent gain, parametric EQ and limiter processing. The main bar and cinema areas also include crossovers (since they use JBL AL6125 and AL 6115 subs).
The cinema area doubles as a dancefloor — switching automatically from mono mode to a true 5.1 surround sound system whenever the Cinema DVD player is selected as the input. A JBL Control 29AV centre speaker, positioned behind the the main 10ft wide electric cinema screen, comes into play as a Lexicon MC4 surround sound processor decodes all the standard cinema formats.
A Soundweb London Control Port input, taken from the house fire system, mutes all sources in the event of a fire and provides clear status information on the Tamarai control panel, while Parameter Presets are used for time-of-day volume settings and global source switching for either Tamarai or Sitaaray.
An HP Procurve Ethernet switch in the main rack forms the basis of the network. This is split into two VLANs — one for HiQnet communications and the other for CobraNet. There is a link on the HiQnet VLAN to a Netgear PoE switch, which powers the BLU-10 for Sitaaray and provides a communications breakout for the laptop which allows further control of the restaurant AV system.
The Soundweb London logic system is used to control all 256 cross points on the 16 x 16 Kramer video switcher, with HiQnet London Architect again providing the user interface. The Serial Table logic objects have been programmed to transmit the Kramer RS-232 protocol thus providing complete video routing throughout the venue from a simple AV control panel, and obviating the need for a dedicated control system. Two control panels — one for Tamarai, another for Sitaaray — each have their own log in details which allow independent control of the two main areas.
States Martin Barbour: “Whilst the CobraNet routing is not particularly complex here, the implementation of CobraNet within Soundweb London is probably the most user friendly there is. User-definable bundle names and node to node hyperlinks which allow you to jump from any transmitter to a receiver — and back again — make Soundweb London one of the easiest products to program a CobraNet system with.”
BSS Audio DSP matrix control is at the heart of a Harman Pro installation, with Crown Xs amplifiers powering a combination of JBL Control 30, Control 29AV, Control 28 and Control 25AV (as well as the aforementioned subs).
“The DSP routing was the most complex part of the installation in terms of client requirements and budget,” said SDG managing director, David Graham. “The client wanted to be able to show any one of the 16 video inputs to any of the 16 screens located around both Tamarai and Sataaray in any configuration. This was further complicated by the fact the client also wanted to be able to cross-fade, mix and overlay these inputs.”
The complexity of the system would have been much more difficult to implement had the company not been involved in the project from the outset, he believes.
“We deployed a highly professional team on this job, headed by Jon Carey and Martin Barbour, who were excellent. What we have provided the venue with is ultimate flexibility, enabling it to display Hindi cinema, visual and still art, corporate events and imaginative audio and VJ mixing. This is the epitome of what a multi-functional space should be.”
15th February 2007
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