With ambitions to become the ‘home’ of London’s music industry, Tape London is an exclusive nightclub offering ‘an elegant party experience for an elite, global crowd, attracting influential members of the music industry and music fans alike’.
Combining a nightclub, recording studio and members lounge in London’s Hanover Square, the venue hosts sets from internationally renowned DJs attracting members of the music industry and music lovers. Inspired by Grammy-award winning producer Dallas Austin, the 250-capacity nightclub also has a full-sized stage for live performance.
The design brief for SSE Audio Group was for a high-quality audio system to serve the main and private members bars that would support both live performance and club nights. The club’s recording studio is seen as an integral part of the audio installation, with the capability to record artists from anywhere in the complex, including the studio itself.
SSE Audio opted to use DiGiGrid hardware and a SoundGrid network as the platform to distribute audio throughout the venue. DiGiGrid is a collaboration between plug-in manufacturer Waves and console manufacturer DiGiCo. It enables high channel-counts to be run over extremely long distances with ultra-low latency via simple Cat5e/Cat6 cable infrastructure and provides processing and networking solutions based on the Waves SoundGrid platform.
‘DiGiGrid enables us to connect all the IO and processing devices over a SoundGrid network and has several benefits,’ says SSE Installations Director Emma Bigg. ‘It means we can have strategically placed I/O units throughout the venue so that the whole club or individual parts can become part of the studio. This offers music producers and artists many options for where and how to record music. SoundGrid basically enables us to route any input/output to any other input/output on the network. So aside from the recording aspect, we have a high capacity channel network and this means the venue can be reconfigured very easily for any type of event.’
For sound reinforcement throughout the venue, SSE used four arrays of two d d&b audiotechnik Y-8 cabinets flown around the dancefloor, with two of the arrays doubling as LR hangs for live performances on the stage. Four Y-Subs sit on the stage apron with four B6 Subs placed at the rear of the dancefloor. Additional infill throughout the main room is provided by d&b E8s with E-12X Subs hidden under the seating. All amplification is housed remotely in a comms room.
To accommodate live acts, SSE supplied a DiGiCo S21 digital mixing console at FOH, linked to a D2-Rack on the stage. The stagerack features three DiGiGrid IOX units, each providing 12 analogue inputs and six analogue outputs on the Soundgrid network. A 48-way input panel splits the first 36 inputs to supply both the Soundgrid and the D2-Rack with Input signals from the stage with the remaining 12 patched directly to the D2-Rack.
A single DiGiGrid IOX provides access to the Soundgrid network, but all system control is handled by two Soundweb London Blu-100 units, which provide EQ and level control for 13 d&b D12 amplifiers.
For the recording studio, an SSL Matrix 2 console was specified, along with an Avid Pro Tools Omni and a Magma Roben storage system. A DiGiGrid DLS server provides the multichannel interface between Pro Tools and the Soundgrid network. A DiGiGrid IOC provides additional control room I/O direct to the Soundgrid.
‘The whole concept of Tape’s studio is to give incoming producers a high-quality set-up, but one that can be customised very quickly to match their ideal configuration’ Bigg explains. ‘The flexibility of DiGiGrid and the SoundGrid network allows Tape London to provide superb recording facilities for the venue’s visiting artists.’
Tape London opened in September 2015, and has quickly become one of the most fashionable nightspots in the capital, attracting high-profile guests and artists.
