E10, Leyton's Premier entertainment venue and Bistro Bar, had us back to refurb the ground floor's Audio-Visual Systems. The brief was reasonably straight forward, in that club level sound was required in both bars, with complete control of source and volume to be controlled locally behind each bar. Alongside this, club grade lighting was required, as well as a simpler interaction with the Video system, as the current video switching was too complicated and in the wrong location. However, in order to keep the system very simple for the end user/bar staff to use easily, took a lot of thought and very careful problem solving.

The Bistro and Front Bar

Audio wise, due to the large number of sound sources, the large amount of processing involved to control and tailor the harsh room acoustics, and the limited rack space available to us, we choose the Allen & Heath iDR range of products. This gave us complete control of all audio on the ground floor, powerful outboard processing and routing, and very simple, intuitive control plates for the bar staff to interact with. The system was based around an iDR8, with the expansion iDRin, giving 7 balanced stereo inputs alongside a paging mic input. We used a combination of PL4 and PL7 plates to give interactive control for the bar staff.

The Amp Rack.

Amplification was an easy choice, using the QSC RMX range, giving 2KW of output in each room. Speaker choice was more difficult, as Club level was required, but from tiny discrete cabinets! We opted for Deltec's new range of CX10, 500W RMS, 1x10" cabinets. These, along with powerdrive wall brackets, were colour coded to suit the décor of the venue. These, coupled to the huge grunt of the RMX4050s and the control offered from the iDR8 system, gave an awesome sound from very compact speakers.

Allen & Heath PL7 Display, loaded with a PL4 control interface.

Lighting was a straightforward choice of Abstract Power Flowers which, with there discharge lamps, give great colour and activity, with low maintenance and running costs. We also reused some GLP junior scans 2, which, once we had supplied the appropriate GLP controller, gave a great show, whilst being very easy to use and control.

VIP Bar

The major headache came from the Video system. Each bar has multiple screens, with 7" LCD being fitted in the bar pumps, so you can carry on watching the football, whilst you order your drinks. Very civilised!! Each room has to be independent, but their existing solution of having to go "out the back" to change TV source or Sky channel was not very user friendly.

We opted for a system of Harmony programmable remotes to control, via infra red repeaters, two separate AV switchers. This allowed the bar staff to change source, or Sky channel, whilst still looking at the screens. All the actual sources and switch-gear are safely tucked away in the Amp Rack, meaning no equipment is on show, which would get in the way of the aesthetics of the bar.

Colour coding of both speaker and bracket

One of the 4 bar pumps with built in 7" LCD screen