Duke Studios installed the flexible Pioneer Pro Audio system

11-Dec-2018

Recently, Duke Studios installed the flexible Pioneer Pro Audio system, to handle everything from live music and comedy to conferencing and dance music events. The system was installed by The Audio Group.

Sheaf St is the public area of Duke Studios, a hub of creative work spaces in Leeds in the UK and comprises a cafe, bar, event space and outdoor terrace. These spaces create a 400-capacity warehouse venue that can accommodate everything from live music and comedy to conferencing and dance music events.

The director of Duke Studios took the decision to upgrade the sound, light and projection facilities in Sheaf St to support a flexible and adaptable approach to staging every kind of event possible. He thought that the long-term ambition of Sheaf St would only be fulfilled by delivering excellence across the board.

The director of Duke Studios, Abbot-Donnelly decided that Pioneer Pro Audio best understood the needs of the project and also that its range of speakers perfectly fitted the brief.

The Audio Group installed systems into Sheaf St’s three distinct areas, with the provision of their independent function or be used in tandem across the spaces to suit any given event. The system was installed in the main Events Space and the Cafe-bar and the outdoor ‘Yarden’.

With all of its spaces fully covered by Pioneer Pro Audio’s XY and XPRS Series speakers, Sheaf St found itself fielding a sharply increased demand for its facilities.

A look at some of this summer’s highlights gives an idea of how Pioneer Pro Audio systems were at the heart of a diverse range and number of Sheaf St Events.

The flexibility of the XY and XPRS systems ensure crystal clear speech reproduction and easily deliver the headroom for comedy and talks. Up-and-coming comedians can perform with full confidence that every detail of their material is being heard.

Another feature of the Sheaf St calendar has been the increased number of talks taking place at the venue. Specialists from the design, technology, creative and digital industries have delivered presentations. Film presentations are also part and parcel of the Sheaf St experience and clearly benefit from the flexible audio provision on offer.

Paul Adamson, managing director of The Audio Group, commented, “Looking back on the fully completed installation and the success that Sheaf St has enjoyed since, we’re very pleased with the part we played. We recognized very quickly that whatever went in had to work with, not dictate to, the requirements of the brief. The flexibility offered by the Pioneer Pro Audio set-up is absolutely key to the range of events that can be staged at the venue – one look at the program in the months since it’s been up and running tells you all you need to know about just how well it measures up. The control software allowed us to program the system to take care of the diversity of applications and once designed, the installation was pretty straightforward. It’s clear that a lot of thought went into Pioneer Pro Audio’s flying and mounting solutions – the whole thing looks and sounds fantastic.”

Abbott-Donnelly said, “Our set-up allows us to be highly flexible and stage a whole range of events, during which we are able to switch very quickly between requirements. That removes so many limitations on what we can take on. The initial brief was to install a system that could cope with everything we could throw at it, be sleek, tidy and discreet for events such as talks, comedy shows and conferences, yet have the ability to become a full professional club-grade rig for performance and DJ events. The Audio Group did an exceptional job installing exactly what we wanted. The set-up allows us to have several events running alongside each other and is adaptable enough to cope with the British weather. The Yarden space surpassed our expectations in terms of its use this year and we plan to build on what we’ve learned to work with The Audio Group in further developing the system in that area. We’re also planning to try out new configurations in the event space.”

(Image Courtesy - AV Magazine)

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