Customer is king

The old adage that the customer is always right has led to a change of style for the sound system at the newly opened Zouk bar in Oman. The venue was designed to be a lounge bar with a well-tuned sound system that allowed music to be played as well as conversations to be heard. However, feedback from the customers suggested the desire for the sound to be changed to that of a club.

Zouk is the first entry into the Oman market from Elite Hospitality LLC and the company came with particular ideas about how it wanted its new venue to look and sound. To this end, the whole A/V system received a level of attention second to none. The sound system was specifically designed for a lounge rather than club environment, and the A/V install even spreads into the toilets with 7-inch TV monitors fitted into the back of cubicle doors.

Building the initial system

Sabri Al-Busaidi of Bright Lights LLC together with Akshay Khanna from Acoustics and Engineering Pty Ltd were contracted for the club’s A/V and acoustic requirements. ‘The main criteria when I was initially approached by Bright Lights LLC in conjunction with the client, Elite Hospitality, was to afford uniform sound propagation along the entire audible frequency bandwidth,’ explains Mr Khanna.

The sound field produced by loudspeakers in enclosed auditoria is highly non-uniform owing to the multiple reflections and diffractions caused by different surfaces and objects. After careful simulations and measurements at the club, the pair turned to a new method called Controlled Acoustic Bass System (CABS). This technique was conceived by Dr A Celestinos and Dr SB Nielsen, and had previously been applied to recording studios and critical listening rooms.

In addition, techniques based on the modal analysis of the effective advantage of passive EQ and placement optimisation were employed to ensure the system performed to its peak and got the best out of the venue as a lounge bar.

The 25m x 10.6m x 4.3m site had an initial acoustic composition of concrete walls and ceiling, and a marble floor. ‘During the initial stages of the exercises, a modal analysis as well as RT60 and speech intelligibility measurements were carried out using algorithms written purely in Matlab,’ says Mr Khanna. ‘Based on the acoustic profile of the venue, acoustic material composition was suggested and applied.’ 130 sq-m of acoustic dampening was applied to the venue to achieve the desired reverberation time. Absorbers and diffusers were placed on the walls and ceiling, and bass traps in the ceiling corners. The material was tailor-made in Oman by Bright Lights together with A&E, and Mr Khanna recalls constructing reverberation conditions in order to test then absorption coefficients.

In order to achieve the desired effect the system was designed employing four Ohm Moon Subwoofers. The placement of the subs was both integral and critical in order to obtain the desired positive cancellations from the rear-wall reflections, to deliver a linear sound field.

The system adopted by Zouk features Ohm Moon speakers, four BR6 cabinets and four Moon Subs powered by Lab.gruppen C-Series amps. A C10:4X handles the BR6s, the Moons are powered by a C28:4 whereas the Moon Subs use a C48:4. Control and DSP for the system comes from a Dynacord P64. At the heart of the system sits a Pioneer video mixer SVM 1000 with two DVJ-1000 DJ mixers. ‘It created a very nice airy sound, you could hear every nuance right down to the lowest frequency,’ says Mr Al-Busaidi.

On the visual side Bright Lights installed seven 50-inch Samsung TVs and a further 11 7-inch TVs. ‘Most of the 7-inch screens sit in the tables in the VIP room, but they also go into the lavatories,’ says Mr Al-Busaidi.  ‘They are all run through a video distribution system.’ Lighting comes from four Clay Paky Alpha300s driven by Nicoluadie’s Sunlite software run via a laptop.

The installation itself threw up several challenges for Bright Lights, not least of which was the pace at which the development moved. ‘We could have finished it in no time at all, but there were delays with the construction,’ explains Mr Al-Busaidi. This led to issues with sound checks as these could not be done while building work continued.

The delays also led to the lighting system not being installed until the day of the opening. ‘We finished programming the lights 15 minutes before people walked through the door for the opening,’ recalls Mr Al-Busaidi. ‘It was a bit of a rush, but ultimately successful.’

From lounge to club

The decision to move away from the lounge sound and towards a club feel was taken after the venue opened. ‘They set it up to be a lounge bar, but this has had to change due to the type of clientele they have,’ says Mr Al-Busaidi. This decision has meant the sound system has needed to be completely re-tuned.

‘We are taking the same cabinets out of the ceiling and placing them on the floor so you get the feeling of the bass,’ explains Mr Al-Busaidi. ‘We’re controlling the sound, but it’s completely different. It’s what you would call from a bass sound to a subwoofer sound.’

It has been a challenge for the Bright Lights team to change the sound within Zouk. It has involved several site visits for Mr Al-Busaidi to tune the system as he only has a two-hour window for the work before the club opens. ‘I try to calculate what the corrections should be before I go in there and attempt anything.’ But the end result is something that the customers and owners are very happy with. ‘To all intents and purposes, for the people there the sound is great.’

The project itself has been a challenging but rewarding one. It has seen novel techniques used to build the best system for a space and then a re-tune to build the best system for the market. For bars and clubs looking to make their names in any market, customer approval is vital. Meeting the needs of the clientele is key to ensuring a successful venue. Zouk may not have the sound system it initially wanted, but it now has one that its customers craved. In the long-term it is this that will make the club a success.

www.brightlightsoman.com

www.ane.com.sg