110 VENUE
partying and drinking habits, the music tastes of our clubbers also changed with time. “We recognised the growing trend for smaller intimate spaces, be it dancefloor or mingling drinking spaces, thus the decision to split Velvet Underground into two new clubs, namely - Velvet Underground Dance and Velvet Underground Lounge. Velvet Underground Dance has, since its opening, seen some of the largest and up-and-coming international DJs like Maya Jane Coles, Tiger & Woods and Aeroplane take on its decks.” Following in the footsteps of the Zouk Main Room, Lincoln and Design Consultant Phillips Connor opted for a custom made, analogue audio system from Gary Stewart Audio (GSA). Lincoln continued: “There are many ‘out of the box’ sound systems that are popular on the market but after hearing them all, GSA’s analogue- inspired, digitally-corrected trademark style sound system stood out amongst them. Its massive power and warm crispy sounds are beautifully designed for today’s dance music. The warmth of their analogue system was far superior to any other system we had heard.” Ahead of the audio installation the room was acoustically treated. Rubberised acoustic absorbent material measuring 0.25-inch in thickness was used to cover all the walls. This, combined with the wooden floor and the high ceilings, produced a great sound absorbency platform for the sound system. The dancefloor system comprises four GSA customised Americana top speakers, which are hung horizontally from the ceiling. Each is equipped with two 15-inch bass drivers, a radial horn to look after the high frequencies and a high power compression driver for the mid frequencies. These are supplemented by two 18-inch horn loaded Bertha subwoofers, which are specifically designed for low frequencies down to 20Hz, ideally suited to the softer atmosphere of Velvet Underground. To complete the dance sound system, two GSA Tweeter Arrays were specified. Lincoln said: “As the system was customised and built from scratch, the output power and sound quality were not compromised. It was
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recalculated and redesigned and even the loudspeakers’ internal component driver throwing angle and degree was redesigned to focus the sound energy onto the dancefloor and minimise splashing into areas that did not require coverage.” The DJ has a separate sound system set-up including two GSA Cube loudspeakers and two Emerald single 18-inch horn loaded sub bass enclosures. Resident and guest DJs are equipped with an Urei 1620 rotary mixer and Pioneer DJM-900 Nexus mixer, plus Pioneer CDJ-2000 decks, which are used in conjunction with a Benchmark DAC1 audio converter. The main output sound is then routed to a dbx 3BX dynamic range expander. “Small details like DJ mixer control knobs were not left out, giving DJs the right instrument to weave their beautiful mix,” he continued. “Our DJs can rock on either one of our GSA rebuilt, re-engineered Urei 1620 mixers or they can choose whatever mixer they desire for their performance. The signal then flows to a custom built patch bay for signal distribution into the amplifier room connected to our amplifiers and then to the final stop of the four GSA Americana speaker cabinets, two Bertha sub bass horns and two strategically placed Tweeter Arrays. This GSA system pumps out a warm and well-balanced sound throughout the entire dancefloor.” All of the loudspeakers are powered by Crown CT Series amplifiers with built-in fourth generation PIP-USP4 modules. The modules allow the amplifiers to connect to an Ethernet network, which in turn means the system can me remotely controlled and configured by HiQnet System Architect software. “At the same time, it allows monitoring of each loudspeakers level, speaker load, thermal condition and AC power requirement. This product made setting up and tuning the system a lot easier and faster with extreme accuracy,” said Lincoln. A Yamaha 01v96 VCM was chosen to look after mixing capabilities. Lincoln described the advantages of the desk: “The Yamaha 01v96VCM offers a very clean sound that has excellent effects, plus expandable I/O. It has been designed as a compact rack-size mixer with maximum portability. It exceeds expectations to handle
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