Martin Audio gets versatile in London

30 September 2010

Shaka Zulu is an African themed restaurant and late night venue in North London. CTS Productions was hired to provide an audio system that centred around Martin Audio equipment.

Shaka Zulu is situated in Camden’s Stables Market and its opening was graced by HRH King Goodwill Zwelithini, the Zulu king.

The venue, costing an estimated £5.5 million, is spread over two floors occupying approximately 27,000ft², and features hand carved exotic wood walls, elaborate furniture and dominating statues, both over the main entrance and within the premises itself.

The scale of Shaka Zulu within the premises provided the installer with a real challenge. Carl Braodhurst, of CTS said: “Our initial brief was to provide our client with a sound system that could remain refined, almost HiFi whilst the venue was operating as a restaurant, yet retain the ability to provide a potent high SPL dancefloor for those that prefer their evenings late and loud.

“We also had to consider what requirements corporate events would place on the venue as well as making provision for future live music projects, seeing as the Camden location is in the heart of London’s live music scene.”

The dancefloor, situated on the lower level of the two floors, features the potent W8VDQ differential dispersion cabinets — flown as a left / right arrangement. These cabinets were chosen for their high SPL and ideal characteristics for the low ceiling height and requested ‘minimal’ look the sound system should accomplish. They are complemented by a pair of flown Martin Audio Blackline F8+ cabinets, in a horizontal orientation, providing rear fill, and a pair of wall-mounted F12+ cabinets proving additional coverage to the left hand edge of the large area.

Low frequencies are augmented by a pair of WS218X 2x18” cabinets, which on the opening night caused enough vibration in the office space that they manoeuvred several expensive bottles of wine from the desk to the floor.

Upstairs, a pair of Martin Audio F15+ cabinets, flown in a horizontal orientation, provide an enhanced volume to one space, designated as a potential additional dancefloor. Thirty-six units of the compact, wide dispersion AQ5 provide even coverage for most of the restaurant-only seated areas in the venue, while additional bass response is provided by four AQ112’s (two of which are concealed within the fabric of the building to keep the sound system as discreet as possible).

Martin Audio’s Engineer 818 8-in / 8-out DSP-based system controller, provides the front end to the system, performing input matrix, zoning and initial processing before supplying feeds to an Engineer 418 and a pair of DX1.5s, that provide the individual loudspeaker processing and time alignment.

“The ability to schedule the whole system is essential as it reduces user intervention to a minimal level and the ‘engineer’ algorithm applied to the music server ensures that the music content remains consistent in volume whilst retaining its dynamics and tone,” said Broadhurst.

User control is provided via two of the Engineer Remotes that allow selection of the ‘Restaurant’ ‘DJ’ and ‘Live preset zones and also control the individual zonal volume levels.

The system has a variety of inputs available, the first being the DJ booth, featuring Pioneer CDJ2000s, a Rane Serato interface and a DJM 800 mixer with a pair of Martin Audio F8+ providing monitoring. Two stereo inputs are provided in different locations in the venue for live events and the final input is the music server provided by 8Track Music Solutions, a specialist digital music provider.

Supplier LMC Audio’s London branch trade counter team were integral in finalising the design of this system, with Jeff Woodford providing input to several aspects of the job including the choice and configuration of the system processing.

CTS Productions has now commissioned the installation but will continue to provide a full support package for the sound system but also the technicians for special events.