MADE is as much an art gallery as a collaborative platform to serve and inspire the creative minds. It can be used as one large room for art shows and concerts and at other times, it can be divided into five separate areas to accommodate other functions. All interior walls are movable and removable and the furniture can be rearranged to accommodate any room configuration. For sound reinforcement, Til Schwartz and Ivo König of Berlin's IT Audio created an equally versatile Meyer Sound system.
IT Audio specified five groups of four MM-4XP miniature loudspeakers, three MM-10XP miniature subwoofers, and a Galileo loudspeaker management system with two Galileo 616 processors to create a distributed sound system that can play back multiple program material in the different smaller rooms simultaneously. During concerts for a larger audience, all of the loudspeakers work together as one integrated system. The loudspeakers are custom-painted in cream colour to blend into the architecture.
"We have been asked to design a very flexible system that is tailored to the room and is as multipurpose as the venue itself," says Schwartz. "The loudspeakers had to be unobtrusive and the virtual audio source should be localizable in any place of the venue. Therefore we created quite a number of presets in the Galileo with different delay times and levels feeding the loudspeakers with each one getting its own signal. And without the small self-powered MM-4XP, this would have been a very complex and costly task."
Since its installation, the system has been used for events and exhibitions that include musical performances by recording artists Aloe Blacc and Erykah Badu, and Moby, among others.
"The small and unobtrusive Meyer Sound loudspeakers blend perfectly into our architectural concept and support our various events and exhibitions flawlessly," says tadiROCK, pop artist and founder of MADE. "We want to give artists as well as visitors a unique experience and Meyer Sound is a part of this effort."
(Jim Evans)
