It was the latter who introduced Rea Sound to the contract, as the quest began for a system that could reproduce the hard R&B-flavoured music favoured by the clientele. Visits were arranged to Fabric in London - as well as premium Martin Audio sites in Northern Ireland - by Rea Sound’s Sean Gallagher, and Peter Collins also paid a visit to the PLASA Show in September before making his commitment. Collins confirmed: "It was the experience of Fabric that led me to Martin. That was the benchmark sound, and suddenly it all just fell into place.
Club One is situated on a single floor, with two rooms linked by a tunnel. "Due to the design of the tunnel, there’s practically no sound seepage between the two rooms," records Sean Gallagher. On the main dancefloor Rea Sound have provided a four-way active system, comprising a Wavefront W8C flown in each of the four corners, with three WSX sub bass ground-stacked on either side of the dancefloor (after the original power requirement had been upgraded); 12 Blackline F10s are used for off-floor infills and the system management is via XTA processing.
High priority has been given to the DJ monitoring environment, with a pair of Martin Blackline F12s flown left and right of the DJ booth, with a Blackline S15 sub located underneath. The booth also contains an option of Rane MP44 and MP2016 Rotary mixers (fitted with XP-2016 EQ module) and Technics SL1210 Mk3 and Pioneer CDJ-1000s for playback. Multiples of Martin Audio amplifiers are used to power the system - three MA4.2s driving the subs in the main room, MA2.8s handling the low mids, MA1.6s the high mid/highs and 10 MA1400s dedicated to the DJ monitors, the subs and all the sound in the small second room.
The sound system serving the auxiliary 200-capacity room - which is geared more to Hip-Hop - comprises six Blackline F12s flown around the floor and six ground-stacked S15 subs. A pair of Blackline F10s are used as DJ monitors and the booth also houses Allen & Heath Xone:2 62, Denon DN1800 and a further pair of Technics decks.
For the lighting, the client requested slow moving beams, wall and floor washing through a Jem Stage Hazer, and so eight Martin Pro MAC250s and 12 Robocolor 3s make up the entire lighting plot, while ‘non-neon’ is used for decorative effects. Similarly, in the second room there are no pulsed effects, but simply 12 Martin Pro CX2 colour changers.
The final word goes to Peter Collins. "When we were stripping out the venue we couldn’t bear the idea of putting the lap dancing pole in the skip - so we gave it to the local biker club - as a goodwill gesture!"
(Ruth Rossington)
