WSDG-E Upgrades Audio at Swiss Music Hall

	The dance floor at Club Atlantis

Commonly known as "'tis" to six generations of fans, the Atlantis Basel's has been one of Switzerland's largest and most popular music halls for 63 years. Founded as a café in 1947 by explorer Paul Seiler, 'tis moved to Basel's Klosterberg district in 1957 as a unique jazz restaurant. In 1975, 'tis morphed into a rock club featuring concerts by Black Sabbath and other mega stars. In the late '90s 'tis revitalized for the DJ generation while concurrently enhancing its reputation for fine dining. Today, the Atlantis continues to cook as a club, lounge, and restaurant,

To modernize and maximize its acoustic potential, Atlantis host Jürg Wartmann and resident DJ Cedric Eichenberger were committed to replacing their ten-year-old audio system. Their goal was not only improving the sound in the club but feeding the music to the popular upstairs gallery and other key zones. Beyond club nights, a full range of concerts, carnival, and business events needed to be accommodated. Equally important to sound quality the system in the restaurant area needed to be as unobtrusive as possible. Dirk Noy, general manager of WSDG Europe, explains, "To properly address a multiplicity of issues, we initiated an early planning round table with Jürg Arpagaus, from Audio Partner, a specialist in noise limiting and recording, and Alain Müller and Christoph Ritter, from system installer M&R Multimedia Productions. Requirements were defined, and a comprehensive sound system design was developed by WSDG engineers Gabriel Hauser and Carlo Fickler."

The most visible (and audible) components of the new system are the loudspeakers. The front system is comprised of two JBL AM6212s and a 12''/ 3'' Application Engineered Series two-way speaker which was determined to be optimal choice for the application in a comparative hearing and measurement test. The gallery -- critical for ceiling height -- and the auxiliary zones are covered by a total of 12 JBL AC 28/26 systems -- very compact, horizontally installable dual 8''/ 1'' two-way systems. Kling & Freitag 15" subwoofer systems were installed under the stage. Electronic signal processing and distribution is handled by a BSS Soundweb London processor with a BLU-160 and BLU-BOB Break Out Box. Various distributed zone volume controls and a selector switch for operating mode are provided for simple system control. The amplifier rack is stacked with eight Crown I-Tech HD devices.

Graced with beautiful, centuries-old architecture, 'tis is a privileged place. However, this historic distinction is accompanied by certain sensitivities. "The beautiful old buildings in the immediate neighborhood are residential," Noy points out. "And, while no one can expect total silence in the midst of a city center at night, Jürg Wartmann was concerned about maintaining a neighborly peace and quiet."

To accomplish this, WSDG recommended the Martin Audio Engineer -- an audio processor, which employs Residual Pitch, a proprietary psychoacoustic effect that permits the audience to discern low-frequency energy not actually produced by the system. The overtones of this missing, suppressed or phantom fundamental frequency lack a specific sound component but the brain perceives the pitch of a tone by the ratio of its higher harmonics. Ultimately, listeners in the club are unaware of the Residual Pitch effect, but the club's neighbors benefit from a subtle adjustment in volume. The installation is a first for the processor in Switzerland.

As a fail-safe loudness emergency brake, the install includes a Cesva LRF-05 processor/limiter which receives its sense input from a black box that provides isolation from audience noise and simultaneously records noise levels for logging purposes, a legal requirement in Switzerland.

Because 'tis is open six nights a week, the install by M&R Multimedia Productions had to be meticulously planned and implemented. M&R project manager Christoph Ritter reports the primary challenge was the time constraint -- the entire installation had to be accomplished within 48 hours. "At 5am, when the Saturday club night ended, we started rocking. At 7am Sunday morning, we began dismantling the old equipment. By mid-afternoon, all the loudspeakers and old amplifier racks were dismantled. Then we immediately started the installation of 18 new loudspeaker systems. By early Monday morning, despite a sleepless night, we had set up and rewired all the new amplifiers and system racks. That afternoon we began running tests and fine tuning," Ritter says.

WSDG, M&R, and Audio Partner collaborated fully on the system calibration and measurement. "Despite the extremely tight schedule we managed to play background music as early as noon on Tuesday and launch Friday Club Night with full power," comments Müller, of M&R.