Running parallel with the upgrade at the Racecourse’s bars, restaurants, function rooms, private boxes, conference and exhibition facilities, was the construction of a new stand. But Race-Tech’s head of sound, Robin Dibble, noted that the entire complex - including all the bars and leisure areas - had been refurbished. "It’s been overhauled from the ground up," he said. The audio system replaces what he describes as a 'home brew' design, based around a 4 x 10 push-button matrix. But since the overall requirements did not change, Race-Tech have simply upgraded the concept. "We just have more power and more flexibility now thanks to Soundweb."
Soundweb is used for routing, level control, dynamics control and EQ. "It enables us to start from a blank sheet of paper," adds Robin. "Because of its open architecture we’ve been able to design it the way we wanted - and above all, it’s easy to use."
One Soundweb is assigned to each of the four floors, with the fifth dealing with all the external circuits. Interfacing with Soundweb, each bar and function room has an eight-position source select plate, custom-made by Kelsey Acoustics, to allow switching between BGM sources (CD player and tuner), race day PA and Satellite Information Services (SIS) betting. Paging stations have priority over the local inputs and control. The Soundweb engines are complemented by four 9010 BSS Jellyfish remotes, again programmed by Race-Tech. The system will be entirely power backed up from a 10kVA UPS to allow usage in the event of a power failure for evacuation purposes, although it is not specified as a voice alarm system as a separate fire alarm system is installed. In the Surrey Hall Soundweb also controls the sound in the large exhibition area allowing source selection and level control for the three sections of the Surrey Hall from the local paging station.
Owned by the Racecourse Association, RaceTech are responsible for upgrading and maintaining the public address systems throughout all the UK’s racecourses.
(Ruth Rossington)
