Mark Thornton of Hedlights puts Yamaha’s DME24N to the test at Belfast’s first Bollinger bar
Café Vaudeville is a Parisian themed café and late bar venue that has recently opened in Belfast’s Aurthur Street. The former bank has been transformed beyond recognition with an exuberant design scheme that brings turn-of-the-century Paris to the three tier venue. The original architecture, including high dome and classical columns, has been sympathetically preserved, the ideal setting for the second floor Bollinger Bar - the first in Belfast. This austere classiness is relieved with a mix of tropical plantlife and kitsch colour palettes, a mix to which Belfast has responded favourably.
The balanced and carefully crafted ambience is matched by a well planned audio solution that has seen a range of Funtion One speakers powered by Allen and Heath amplifiers and managed by Yamaha’s pro audio range of DSP controllers. The installation was carried out by Mark Thornton of Belfast-based audio and lighting installer Hedlights, and was specified to provide sound reproduction in three succinct zones: the restaurant area, ground floor bars and the first floor Bollinger bar. Most of the venue’s sound requirements are provided by the four Funktion One Res 2s perched high up in the main dome of the bank, whilst the ground floor bar areas are served by an Infrabass and five Funktion One F88s. Another six F88s have been positioned around the Bollinger bar. The venue provides a daytime and evening restaurant offer, whilst drinkers at the downstairs and Bollinger bars are treated to live jazz, DJs and satellite TV. The resultant need for separately managed sound levels in the different zones has necessitated a control system which is both comprehensive but simple enough for use by an untrained member of staff. To satisfy this brief, Thornton programmed and installed a Yamaha DME24N digital mix engine in the venue’s amp room, and two separate touch screen interface panels, the ICP1 and CP1SF, at the main ground floor bar and the Bollinger bar. The DME24N provides eight input and output channels, and a YGDAI (Yamaha General Digital Audio Interface) slot for a total of 24 inputs. Further units can be cascaded for potentially limitless sound configuration. For Cafe Vaudeville, Thornton connected the Infrabass, ground floor F88s and Bollinger Bar F88s to separate outputs, whilst the Res2s, forming the bulk of the main sound, are split over four channels to allow for stereo sound imaging around the lush interior. Preset patches or ‘scenes’ allow staff to recall the appropriate sound configuration for different times of the evening, whilst the rotary controls on the ICP1 and CP1SF allow for tweaking and fine tuning as needed.
The resulting installation provides the venue with a variety of different audio options to match each entertainment offer, with each configuration easily recalled and manipulated. Says Mark Thornton of the set up: “I was delighted with the results of the Yamaha range. I have used other products in the past, but having tested out the Yamaha kit at a demo, I found it to be a lot more intuitive. The processing is powerful both acoustically and in terms of ease of programming. The ICP1 interface allows the DME24N to be locked away in the amp room, meaning that the primary controls can’t be tampered with. “The Yamaha team were also excellent. As this was my first installation of the DME24N, they were really on the ball and checked over the algorithms that I calculated for the set up.” The venue has quickly gained a reputation as destination for the Belfast set on the hunt for a special night out.The combination of Yamaha and Funktion One has proved a vital component in the success of the venue, giving life to a dynamic, multi-functional format.
[This story was reproduced with the kind permission of NIGHT magazine.]
