Kennedy’s has been an Irish bar on this site for a number of years. Recently it acquired an adjoining property and a planned extension was underway. The extension involved a complete refit and would increase the capacity to around 350 -400.It’s a busy town centre position and has full panoramic folding doors spilling out on to a pedestrian area, making the bar even more vibrant
Live music has always been at the heart and focus of Kennedy’s. This was going to increase to 4 to 5 nights a week of a lively mix of Irish folk solo acts, to full on bands playing a whole variety of music. Because the venue is on a pedestrianised street and gets extremely busy, the venue wanted to avoid the visiting artistes having to bring all of their own equipment. This was a logistical nightmare, plus took up valuable floor space. It was the venues desire to have an installed sound system that didn’t consist of stacks of speakers around the stage area, but was more subtly distributed around the 3 main areas, or zones
We’d already established that the venue’s brief was a great sounding, compact PA solution. We discussed the numerous speakers that are out there on offer, many with dubious specifications regarding their performance and alarmingly, supposed wattage and SPL (sound pressure level, measured in decibels). We decide that a true rating from a British manufacturer called Logic Systems ticked all of the boxes….Sound quality and value. To the main front of house, adjacent to the fairly compact stage area, we flew a pair of Logic Ci12 enclosures and supported these with several Logic Ci10 enclosures strategically placed to give maximum coverage to the rest of the bar area. We installed a Logic Ci115 sub enclosure under a seating area. This enabled the bass end to be felt and not seen! Equally important was that it didn’t take up valuable floor space or serve as a glass collection area as is often the case!
A further Ci10 was installed in a dining area, which was essentially an open plan space that became part of the live area after food had been served. A smaller compact 8” by Audac Audio served the rear ‘snug’ area. That area sometimes didn’t require music at all. Because of the various requirements within the 3 specific zones, it was important that input source control and volume was controlled easily from behind the bar. For this, we installed the new Optimal Audio Zone 4 system. This is a matrix that is run from the office storage area via a single Cat6 cable, to a single double gang size wall plate. This wall plate is smart and intuitive. A simple push button dial and LCD screen enables volume control to each zone and control of the input source, which in this venues case was 1, the live stage input, 2, the general music within the bar and 3, the TV screens, of which there are around 8. We added a twin XLR plate to the stage area, for visiting artistes to plug their mixer into, and a Bluetooth receiver and 3.5mm auxiliary input behind the bar
The amplification chosen was Crown Audio XLS series amplifiers, 4 in total. Although the Optimal audio matrix has DSP( digital signal processing) per channel, we also added external processing via a Citronic DSM6-2 processor, to be on the safe side. All of the amplifiers and matrix were housed in a locked cabinet, safely out of the way in the office.
Although we didn’t supply the TV’s, we installed those using HDMi splitters and switches, and connectivity via Fibre Optic HDMi cables.
”I have to admit to panicking! 2 weeks before opening our proposed PA install plan went pear shaped and one of our regular entertainers suggested we try Music Gear, based in Nottingham. He’d been shopping with them for many years and said their service and advice was second to none. On the Monday (10 days to opening!) Ryan and Mick visited the venue, by Tuesday I had the quotation. The following week, the team had shifted a few things around to fit our installation in. Ryan even came back on the day of the opening to change a few things around. Great service and the system is spot on!
RebeccaPub Manager
