A landmark on the Belgian coast overlooking the North Sea at Middelkerke, the Silt complex is an architectural ‘landscaper’ completed earlier this year. Built and operated by Middelkerke’s municipality as part of its restoration programme for the area, it is a multipurpose event venue as well as hosting a restaurant, hotel and casino run by different operators.
The artificial dune has spectacular views across the beach and sea. For advice on sound reinforcement in the event hall, the City Council brought in Stephan Bohez of SBE, a Martin Audio partner ofr 25 years standing who also co-owns StarTechnics with Danny Debock. Bohez has staged events for the client over a number of years.
‘They already knew the quality of our service and the fact we are always ready to solve any kind of programme,’ he says. ‘I was asked what they would need for an event hall that could perform a number of functions – not merely operate as a concert hall, but something that would work in 90 per cent of cases.’
StarTechnics steered the design through a numbe of iterations as ‘they were initially unsure in what direction they would be going with the venue, whether concerts, seminars, conferences, awards shows or banquets’. Martin Audio’s WPM emerged as the preferred system.
Bohez solution was to equip this empty white box with a modular set-up that could be brought in and reconfigured at will. The only items permanently rigged would be eight elements of Martin Audio’s small footprint, scalable Wavefront Precision WPM a side, with four SXP218 active subwoofers that can be deployed as required.
Complementing this is a delay of four Torus T820 8-inch constant curvature loudspeakers, providing defined 100° by 20° coverage pattern in the meeting areas at the mezzanine level, while four auxiliary CDD-Live 12 can be used as in fill or out fill as required. Martin Audio’s Adorn 5.25-inch ACS-55T ceiling speakers are set underneath the mezzanine to provide main system delays, or for independent use when this space is separated from the main hall.
The mezzanine space can also become a dedicated single room hall, whose orientation is then rotated through 90°. In this configuration, two further delayed Torus T820 are rigged under which is a Martin Audio SX115 subwoofer. This small, dedicated area has already hosted DJ-run events and a live concert.
The entire set-up is served by a pair of Martin Audio iKon iK81 DSP amplifiers supporting VU-Net, in two-box resolution. These take care of all the processing other than the CDD-Live 12, which is under the management of a dedicated DX4.0 processor.
Bohez was assisted in the installation by FACE Audio Solutions Advisor Jimmy Koninckx, Martin Audio’s Belgian distributor who supplied the equipment. He ensured the order was fulfilled and later provided technical support, including optimisation and programming.
‘Most of the work was in getting the delays set correctly,’ he says, ‘but we are fortunate in that Torus sounds similar to the WPM.’
Further adjustments, such as system presets, will wait until a routine trading pattern has been established. ‘We want to see what settings are likely to be most common,’ says the installer.
Following the opening, Bohez has been retained as onsite technician and sound engineer. Meanwhile, the operator is said to be delighted with the quality of the sound system, and the flexibility it affords.
