Hard on the outside, refined inside
Form the outside, the factory building you pass just before you leave Vechtas to the south appears rather austere. However, as soon as you enter the bluish-grey building through its yellow framed glass door, it suddenly becomes clear why the young people of this Kreisstadt (county town) in Lower Saxony (pop. 31,000) descend in their hordes on the discotheque DON ("Delight Of Nightlife") and transform night into day.
With a good deal of enthusiasm and plenty of attention to detail, DON proprietor Andreas Grotegeers spent 10 weeks completely refurbishing the building. He managed to dispel the harsh industrial character of the inside of the building and replace it with a tastefully designed interior: wooden bars and rustic stools exude warmth; a 60s-style retro carpet provides the necessary stylish ambience. Numerous cleverly positioned gold-ornamented mirrors make the rooms appear larger than they are, while an ultra-modern PA system provides a real kick in the pit of the stomach.
At the outset the acoustic conditions for an acceptable sound were anything but ideal. Flutter echoes and standing waves caused by the unforgiving concrete and parallel walls throughout initially made it impossible to produce a powerful and well-defined sound source. Laying a sound-absorbing special carpet and the careful use of acoustic panels in the passageways between the three large event zones quickly enabled Grotegeers to get around the problems without seeing costs go through the roof.
While the so-called 'Main' zone with its large dance floor hosts the actual discotheque and gigs at the weekends, the DON also has a smart 'Bistro' featuring a long, friendly bar, and the 'Club', with a smaller dance floor, that can also host corporate events or birthday celebrations. Sound for each of the three event zones can be supplied independently, or jointly from any of the other zones. Audio signals can also be routed from anywhere into the entrance foyer and to speakers located in the WCs.
The technology in detail
All the routing and loudspeaker control is performed using a single Yamaha DME24N. The engine has a total of four stereo inputs coming from the three DJ mixers in the respective event zones ('Main', 'Club' and 'Bistro') and the Bistro CD player. Inside the DME the freshly digitised input signals are routed to a switchable digital matrix, from where they are distributed to crossovers and propagation delays, converted back at the outputs and transmitted via the Yamaha power amplifiers to the loudspeaker systems.
Amplification in the 'Main' zone is handled by a Yamaha P7000S amp, which provides power to four VMB Pro-208 speaker cabinets, and a P5000S amp that looks after a couple more Pro-208s. A Crest CA12 power amplifier drives a VMB 218-C2 subwoofer (2x18'') and two VMB 215-C2 subs (both 2x 15'').
The subwoofers in the 'Club' - two VMB 218-C2 systems - are driven by a second Yamaha P7000S amp, while as in 'Main', the four primary speakers in the 'Club' (also VMB Pro 208s) are linked to a Yamaha P5000S.
A 100V PA-4240 power amplifier also drives the T+M speakers that provide background music in the 'Bistro', the WCs, the large 'Main' bar and the entrance foyer.
Pan Music - the expertise behind the system installation
The system was installed by light and sound specialists Pan Music from the neighbouring town of Lohne. The company, run since 1996 by brothers Klaus and Michael Hünteler, has long been a reliable partner for Yamaha. It has now been selling, installing and servicing top-of-the-range complete systems and system components for ten years. In contrast to many other firms in which staff cutbacks have often left much to be desired in the way of support, the concept of 'Customer Service' is still taken extremely seriously.
Michael Hünteler of Pan Music on his installation
Michael Hünteler, whom we met in DON, is the genuine article as far as pioneers in digital technology are concerned. He specialises in PA equipment and has been using Yamaha digital desks for live mixing since the 90s, when he was often the object of a fair amount of ridicule. "Those days people sometimes used to tap their foreheads when I turned up at a gig with a Yamaha 02R. But the technology fascinated me right from the start." And Hünteler now knows how true it is: he who laughs last, laughs best. “The Yamaha digital desks were most handy compared to the enormous analog beasts around then. I could also leave some racks of external gear at home, so never had to cart so much stuff about."
Nowadays Michael Hünteler relies on Yamaha's new LS9 or M7CL live consoles and - as is the case at DON - Yamaha's all-purpose DME24N. Earlier, digital sound was unsurprisingly a matter of taste, admits Hünteler, "Compared to the analog systems, the sound of the first digital consoles had some drawbacks. They lacked a bit of warmth. But now that's just so much history, Yamaha's digital equipment sounds fantastic - extremely analog, very musical, and also crystal clear and noiseless compared to analog," enthuses Michael Hünteler.
The reason he chose a DME24N in DON as the digital matrix, crossover, signal processor and propagation delay is simple and telling, "Yamaha's DME engines can simply do everything, without compromising in the slightest. For instance, why should we install additional loudspeaker controllers when the DME24N has its own filters, crossovers and propagation delays? The DMEs can do just about everything so we're now only installing these engines - no exceptions! They're extremely versatile, dead easy to use, sound really good and help save the organiser loads of money, without him having - very important - to accept any compromises."
It's important that the version numbers of the Designer and the firmware in the DME are identical. "Both devices should always be updated at the same time, then there's never any problem." Another unrivalled DME feature is the remote diagnosis option. "When Andreas Grotegeers wants something changed at DON, all I have to do is hitch myself up to the DME from the office via the Internet and can do most things from there. This speed can be enormously important for clients in certain circumstances."
All at the press of a button: proprietor Andreas Grotegeers on his new system
The Hünteler brothers programmed in five presets for the various applications at DON. "Depending on the type of event, all I have to do is go to the DME in the engineering room and switch over the presets," says proprietor Andreas Grotegeers. "Really not a big deal. In addition to the disco and club we also put on concerts and after-work and company events. All the settings I need are there at the touch of a button."
Grotegeers is also more than satisfied with the sound of the system: "Stunning, awesome! I really can't put it any other way! Not just my opinion, incidentally, our guests and hirers are also mighty impressed and keep praising the system. I'm also dead pleased that the sound doesn't drop out when the presets are changed. Michael programmed some fades so that the transitions are nice and soft. And whenever I do need a bit more oomph, I can just tweak the DME and add another +6 dB."
Finally Michael, with an impish grin, demonstrated a gimmick that has meanwhile become the trademark of all Pan Music's installations: if there's no music signal on the background sound system, the internal Wave player in the DME outputs soothing birdsong to the speakers - a nice, cheeky message to all those who in the 90s thought that the digital freak was not quite all there.
Pan Music
PAN Music was founded in 1996 by the brothers Klaus and Michael Hünteler and has now been successfully selling professional light and sound systems for more than ten years. The company, based in the Oldenburg region, also acts a distributor for numerous other companies.
Over the years PAN Music has established itself in other lines of business involved in the service sector. It has acquired an excellent reputation in the installation and exhibition stand construction sectors and has a large and loyal customer base, attributable in large part to the excellent reliability of PAN Music.
As the core business is sales - and not, for example, rentals, PAN Music enjoys a high degree of acceptance from rental companies in the area, among whom the Lohne-based company is not viewed as a competitor, but respected as a professional advisor and dealer.
PAN Music's other areas of activity include the design of special installation solutions, preassembly of tour equipment and the repair of loudspeakers and moving lights.
Since 2005 PAN Music has enjoyed exclusive German rights to sell the products of the Spanish company VMB, a manufacturer of professional PA equipment (e.g. loudspeakers, loudspeaker controllers) and market leader in traverse lifts (www.VMB-Deutschland.de).
As PAN Music combines the skills of a PA equipment specialist with the technical knowledge of an electrical engineer, apprentices working towards careers involving PA equipment come here to enjoy the benefits of an extremely high-quality technical grounding.
Written by: Alexander Wuttke-Schulz
Alexander Wuttke-Schulz is a journalist as well as an educated sound engineer. For some years Alex has been applying his skills in both of these areas for Yamaha Commercial Audio. He translates manuals, brochures and news stories and writes his own articles about interesting installations featuring Yamaha's successful digital audio technology.
