Soundweb London effectively manages the sound in a truly multimedia environment where Steve Martorano moves from celebrity chef to house DJ, without ever leaving the kitchen
Café Martorano at the Rio All-Suite Hotel in Las Vegas is not your everyday restaurant; chef Steve Martorano is also an accomplished DJ and had a DJ booth installed in his kitchen. During dinner, the sound system is constantly playing dance and R&B music classics, and after peak hours, Martorano moves from behind the stove to behind the turntables, where he shows off his DJ skills, playing hip-hop and R&B as dinner turns to dancing. A sound system for such a unique establishment needs sophisticated management and processing capabilities, and that is why Sound Stage Systems, the audio designer and integrator at Martorano’s restaurant, turned to BSS Audioâ„¢ Soundwebâ„¢ London.
Café Martorano serves up rule-breaking Italian-American cuisine in a vibrant atmosphere. The restaurant also features popular mob movies and music from the Rat Pack and classic Motown as diners enjoy a dynamic, regularly changing menu. Making the sound work in this churning environment was a challenge. But, says Karl Kieslich, President of North Haven, Connecticut-based Sound Stage Systems, “We use Soundweb London on a daily basis for many of our installations. It’s the most reliable and configurable speaker management technology out there. It’s essential to have a flexible, dependable speaker management system, as that is the heart of a sound system. And that’s exactly what BSS Audio delivers.”?
Kieslich is proud to point out that at Café Martorano, there’s not a bad seat in the house when it comes to audio or food. “The challenge was to make the system able to go from dining to dancing seamlessly, and to let diners feel the music while eating but not let it overpower them,”? he explains. According to Jim Crombie, Sound Stage Systems’ Chief Engineer and Programmer, they used two Soundweb London BLU-80 devices for matrixing and system processing, as well as speaker control in conjunction with Crown XTI amplifiers, all linked via Harman Professional’s HiQnetâ„¢ protocol. Crombie then combined the powerful resources of Soundweb London and HiQnet London Architect programming interface with Sound Stage Systems’ own Omnidimensional Spatial Positioning (OSP) concept, in which speakers are laid out three-dimensionally: left/right, front/back and up/down. This speaker configuration is based on Ambisonics, a concept that posits that sounds arriving from all directions are treated equally, as opposed to most other surround systems that assume that the main sources of sound are frontal and that rear channels are only for ambiance or special effects.
“We can direct the stereo signal anywhere in the spherical array of speakers,”? Crombie explains. “It creates a kind of hyper-stereo, the impression that you’re wearing headphones. It’s a huge image and you feel it, but it’s not overpowering.”? Crombie says this could not have been accomplished without the power of the Soundweb London system. “It’s all programmed through HiQnet London Architect, software that offers resources like being able to drag-and-drop devices on the interface and letting you use multiple mixers. This is just not possible with other systems.”? In fact, the HiQnet London Architect programming interface enables Crombie to program video switching into the system, sending serial text to a Knox switcher. “The power that Soundweb London offers is really amazing,”? he says. “Anything you conceive of, it can let you do.”?
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