Audioserv Blog

Testbed (Leeds) Halloween Event

Halloween 2024 is a busy time of year for production companies and this year we provided full production at Testbed Leeds, Leed's newest large venue.

The system was designed to minimize unwanted reverb and increase intelligibility to sound excellent all the way to the back of the room. We installed the immense Funktion-One Vero VX array cabinets, with their F124 subs, as a time aligned broadside horizontal array.

Two sets of flown delays were Funktion-One's Evolution X loudspeakers, with the rear delays featuring ground stacked F121 subs in a cardioid ground stacked configuration. All powered by Linea Research.

Along the way there were some site design changes which resulted in changes to available locations for speakers and also what structure was usable.

Lots of @beamZ tight beams, LED/Strobe panels and blinders, as well as LED wash lights and a large mirror ball in pride of place giving our lighting engineer plenty to play with.

Visit Testbed Leeds Website

White Cloth Hall (Leeds) Audio Installation

When the operators of Meanwood Tavern and Whitelocks approached us to design an audio system for their newest venue, the White Cloth Hall in Leeds, a site visit ensued. It became obvious that it would be challenging to design a system with as few compromises as possible.

First opened in 1775, the red brick Grade II-listed building based on Crown Street situated just behind Leeds Corn Exchange has a rich history. In response to this, the refurb has been thoughtfully planned and executed and is home to WCH an all-day food and drink hall. It is really great to see this part of Leeds that has seen many closures over the past decade come back to life.

The venue's basic shape is a triangle and trying to develop a system with various different open areas, while keeping the audio coherently time aligned, was always going to be difficult.

Along the way there were some site design changes which resulted in changes to available locations for speakers and also what structure was usable.

With a background in manufacturing engineering and particularly steelwork, dealing with tricky speaker mounting situations is never too difficult as we can design and manufacture bespoke hardware. For WCH we fabricated custom flying hardware onsite for one of the flown sub positions to enable adequate low frequency in an area where no subs could be positioned on the floor, nor was there a ceiling to hang off.

The system consisted of a mixture of Audac speakers: Ateo 4M and 6M, Vexo 108 and 10 and Baso 10 and 12 subs, all powered by Linea Research 44C and 48C amplifier platforms. Routing and client control is via Symetrix Prism with a mixture of wall controllers and Symetrix's web-based control application.

Visit White Cloth Hall Website

Roxy Ballroom Audio Installation

Having worked on all of the Roxy Ballroom and Roxy Lanes projects over the last eleven years, we have developed a great working relationship with the Roxy Team. Sound system design for Roxy venues always follows the same theme; consistent audio coverage, so that every part of the venue has fairly similar audio coverage, but with an emphasis on the bar areas. To achieve this, the systems are all designed to have the different areas time aligned, so that there appears to be a common source and there are no audible regions of hearing speakers which are out of time with each other.

Subs usually present an issue on the ground as real estate is precious in every site, so where appropriate, we fly them to make use of better time alignment possibilities and to reduce floor clutter.

Some of the more recent additions to Roxy's collection of venues have walls or ceilings adjoining properties with potential noise transference issues. In a venue with bowling alleys, much of the problem noise is associated with the bowling balls striking the lanes, but the loudspeakers are also potential sources of noise nuisance to residents, or other businesses.

On such installations, we work closely with the site build team to ensure that all of the relevant speakers have suitable isolation to mitigate structure-bourne transference while making sure that all necessary speaker installation positions are installed in line with the venue's schedule of works to prevent hold ups to other contractors.

Carrying out this acoustic work at the installation phase is essential to allow each site to operate properly from the first day of opening and to ensure that other people in close proximity are all happy with the addition of a thriving new venue.

Visit Roxy Ballroom Website