"One of my conditions before agreeing to come onboard was that they would redo the sound system," says Matthew "Smitty" Smith, the programming director and venue development consultant for The Starry Plough. "Now when I'm booking national touring acts I can say, 'The money and the hospitality may be the same as the other clubs, but our sound is better.' When I tell bands that we've put in this Meyer Sound system, I get their attention."
A cornerstone of the Bay Area music scene since its debut 35 years ago, the 250-capacity Starry Plough had fallen into a state of disrepair. The Starry Plough's performance space now resonates with the clean, focused performance of two Meyer Sound CQ-1 loudspeakers, a 600-HP subwoofer, four UM-1P stage monitors, and a UPA-1P loudspeaker for delay-fill.
"Our room is extraordinarily live, with brick walls, brick floors, 20ft ceilings, and very little sound insulation," Smith explains. "We found the clarity of the Meyer CQ-1 to be just astounding. It's very vocal-centric, with the ability to pull the vocal out over a loud guitar amp, without being overly piercing. The wide throw on the horns of the CQ-1 is also phenomenal. If we were using a rig from another company, we would need more loudspeakers to get that same coverage."
Having a reliable sound system has also allowed the venue to focus on bringing in new acts of different genres to The Starry Plough. "I really love the Meyer gear because it's internally amped," says Smith. "We get a lot of guest engineers, and we had a long-lasting problem with people blowing out our speakers. We don't have that problem now."
Meyer Sound's Technical Support staff worked closely with the venue throughout the audio upgrade, including the final commissioning of the system. "Meyer's technical team has worked with top artists such as Metallica, Prince, and Stevie Wonder and we felt really good having their ears and expertise," Smith concludes. "We really appreciated everything Meyer Sound did for us. They're a huge reason why The Starry Plough is back on the map."
(Jim Evans)
