TEMPE, AZ – A new nightclub, 910 Live, is close to Arizona State University and neighboring Tempe Town Lake, with a stage where, under previous ownership, bands like Weezer, Modest Mouse, Jimmy Eat World and The Specials have performed.
The club's nondescript façade belies the hip, high-tech, and spacious digs within. The comfy, intimate indoor lounge is well appointed with dozens of large-screen LCD displays and state-of-the-art sound courtesy of EAW loudspeakers and an Avid Venue Profile System. An expansive outdoor patio area behind the club more than doubles its capacity.
Matt "Mookie" Thayer, president of Presentation Management Systems (PMS), was involved in the system design, and noted that going with the Venue system was both practical and economical.
"The club hosts a wide range of music-everything from rock to reggae to retro-and we knew we wanted to create a system that could handle it all," he said. "We've got a limited amount of space at FOH, and when we started looking at the feasibility of an analog console and several racks worth of outboard gear, it made so much more sense to go with the Venue, in terms of cost, space, and even the amount of power required to run the system."
The availability of such a wide range of plug-in processing was a factor in going with Venue. "The idea of being able to put a compressor on every channel is phenomenal in itself," Thayer said. "That alone would have run into thousands of dollars and required several racks worth of space."
Favored plug-ins include JoeMeek compressors for bass DI and guitar and Pultec EQs for drums. Thayer is also a big fan of Echo Farm and Avid's Eleven guitar amp emulation plug-in. "Sometimes guitarists come in with pretty beat-up amps-blown speakers, horrific ground hum-and they're just blown away when we have them just plug into our snake and offer them a selection of great sounding amps in the monitors."
The club's Venue system is integrated with a full Pro Tools|HD setup that enables multitrack recording of any show. "Artists can hook up a computer or a spare hard disk and come away with a live recording," said Thayer, "and the quality doesn't get any better than in a studio. It's a great extra to be able to offer them."
The area's long hot summer nights are perfect for evening shows on the outdoor patio, and the Profile console's portability makes it easy to move the action out back. "We can carry the console out to the patio, plug in a couple of cables, and boot it back up in a matter of minutes," said Thayer. "We can recall all of our settings and reconfigure everything with a couple of button presses. It's such a convenience."
For more information, please visit www.avid.com.
