Overview

 

Located in the basement of the five star Kurhaus hotel in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, lively bar Crazy Pianos is unique in that its evening entertainment is provided by pairs of pianists who play requests from the classics to rock'n'roll, urge the audience to sing along, and generally clown around.

The entertainment might be light-hearted, but the Crazy Pianos audio system is very serious indeed. A Yamaha DME24N and DM1000 console are at the heart of a remarkably flexible system that is designed to give the club's clientele the best possible audio experience.

The system was designed by Jeroen ten Brinke of Audio Design International and installed by More Stage Services. Crazy Pianos manager Bjorn is a serious audiophile, so updating the venue's eight-year-old sound system had to be done to the highest possible specifications.

Location:

Scheveningen, The Hague 

Web site:

http://www.crazypianos.com 

Installed Products

Mixers:

DM1000

Processors:

DME24N

Details

From Rented Gear to Audio of the Highest Quality

"When Crazy Pianos installed the first sound system eight years ago, they didn't know how successful the bar would be. So they rented the equipment," says Jeroen. "But with the bar proving extremely popular, the owner Bjorn wanted to buy a system. And because Crazy Pianos has been such a success, it had to be of very high quality."

Jeroen chose a Yamaha DM1000 digital console and a DME24N Digital Mixing Engine driving JBL VP series self-powered loudspeakers via a CobraNet network running at 1.33ms/ 96kHz. "It's the first such system in the world!" says Jeroen.

Presets Match the Mood to the Time of Day and Clientele

The system uses a simple MIDI controller on stage to select eight presets "levels" which are pre-programmed into the DME24N and DM1000, setting up the entire system for appropriate operation according to the time of day and clientele that is in the bar at any given time.

During the day, the system is set to play recorded background music from an MP3 player. In the evening, when the pianists perform, the system can then be switched through six more setups, depending on how busy the club is. For example, "Level One" is for the beginning of the evening, with perhaps a few customers eating meals but no great amplification of the piano and vocals needed. Levels two through six then raise the volume as more people come in, up to a sound level of around 105dB for when the place is packed.

"The DME is the brains of the system and allows us to make complex system changes very easily," says Jeroen. "For example, with Level One the loudspeakers are all at the same level throughout the venue. But as the levels increase, the amplification is increased more in the speakers which cover the dance floor than in other areas of the club."

He continues: "We also use a lot of the effects in the DME — especially multi-band compression, delays, and reverb to heighten the atmosphere. There are also ambient microphones in the club that, as the levels increase, are fed to loudspeakers on the terrace outside the club along with the main mix. This means that customers on the terrace enjoy the full ambience of what is happening inside, not just a dry mix of the music and vocals. It makes it a much more inclusive experience for those who want to sit outside."

The final (seventh) system preset is used when Crazy Pianos is hired for corporate events. Opening the vocal microphones for speeches and presentations, it kills all the reverbs and monitors, and also mutes the ambient microphones as well as those on the drums so a presenter doesn't have to battle feedback or the rattle from the snare drum, etc. It also opens lines to MiniDisc, DVD, and CD players in the system rack, for use in presentations.

"Using this simple MIDI control, the entire system is switched by those on stage, but it also features a large display which makes it easy for the Crazy Pianos management to see which state the system is currently in," says Jeroen. "That's where the Yamaha DME24N really comes into its own. Without it, it wouldn't have been possible to do such complex switching and level changing from such an intuitive user interface.

"It is small in size, easy to operate and it works at 96kHz sampling rate, which we specified. It's the only machine that could do what we wanted."

No Resident Engineer Required

The system is also deliberately set up so that no resident sound engineer is required. "Bjorn wasn't keen on having a resident engineer," smiles Jeroen. "His view was that if you employ one, you will need two because of the long working hours. And one of them will want to go on holiday or will be off sick at some point, so you have to employ three. And so on."

"Then one might mix better then the other and there will be discussions! Bjorn's feeling was that if it doesn't sound good without anybody mixing, it has to be the musicians that don't sound good!"

Therefore the system itself is locked away, the only part that can be seen and touched by staff is the MIDI controller and display. However, the system can be fully remotely controlled by Jeroen from anywhere in the world using an Internet connection to ‘take over’ the desktop of a PC which is connected to Studio Manager, to the DME Designer software, and the Hi-Q network. "I can monitor and, if necessary, take control of the entire system with streaming audio from the PFL bus," he says. "I can also talk back to the club! It's very useful if there are any little problems."

"The club is very satisfied," he concludes. "Bjorn has very high standards when it comes to sound, and he says it sounds perfect. Everybody's really happy with it, the reaction has been universally positive."

System Designer/Integrator/Supplier

Audio Design International

Country

Netherlands

Web site

http://www.adigroup.net

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