Aiming to transform the local music scene with its live music, single-origin coffee and food offerings, the Pune Region, Soundtrack Café in the heart of West India has installed LEA Professional Connect Series amplifiers to help achieve its goals.
Opened in 2018 and co-owned by Rajesh Patil and Peeyush Singh, the concept of the café has evolved over time, shifting from a professional audio showcase venue to a popular spot for food and live music. The café takes pride in being ‘deliciously awesome’, as well as being the first – and so far and only – independent music café in India.
The café stages independent Indian artists, ensuring the soundtrack at Soundtrack Café complements its eccentric atmosphere. In addition to regular indie performances, the venue hosts poetry soirées and gives young artists exposure through its Indie Stage kids’ open mic nights.
Patil and Singh are also co-owners of audiovisual integration and consulting specialist Audio Technik India, with offices directly above the café. To meet the present demands of the café, Audio Technik India collaborated with Generation AV on its audio provision. Together, they selected LEA Professional Connect Series 354 amplifiers for both background music and live performances.
‘We needed a system that could provide exceptional sound quality and smoothly transition between background music and live shows,’ Patil says. ‘The scalability capabilities of the Connect Series made it the ideal solution for our needs, and the ability to monitor and manage the system remotely through LEA Cloud provides us with peace of mind. Even when we aren’t physically present, we know the system is operating flawlessly.’
By using LEA Cloud and SharkWare software, the café’s audio system is fully accessible remotely. This is a significant feature for Rajesh and Peeyush, who frequently manage Audio Technik projects from offsite locations. With remote monitoring capabilities, they can easily oversee system performance, troubleshoot issues, and make adjustments from anywhere.
The Soundtrack Café is divided into multiple modes, creating a unique and varying experience throughout the week. During weekdays, it offers a relaxed atmosphere with a distributed sound system that ensures balanced audio coverage both indoors and outdoors. The café features a carefully curated playlist with diverse genres, including classics, rock, fusion and folk, providing patrons with an enjoyable audio backdrop.
When the weekend arrives, the café shifts to using FOH speakers for live performance. This transition enhances the experience for both guests and performers. The audio system helps transform the space into a lively centre of music and enjoyment.
One of the greatest challenges the café faced was managing the changeovers between background music and live performances, a problem solved using the signal-sensing override feature on the Connect Series 354, allowing the transition to be automated. Now, when live musicians perform, the system automatically prioritises the live audio feed, ensuring a seamless switch without any manual intervention.
The success of the Soundtrack Café installation has established it as a blueprint project for Audio Technik India. Since its completion, Rajesh and his team have incorporated LEA Professional amplifiers into several high-profile projects, further building LEA’s reputation in the region.
‘Soundtrack Café demonstrates the incredible power and versatility of LEA Professional amplifiers,’ Patil says. ‘This project helped us gain confidence in adopting LEA’s technology for future installations, and we’re excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.’
