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€3.5m DUBLIN TRIPOD REOPENS WITH A PAIR OF VENUES
At the end of an arduous 14 months spent rebuilding Ireland’s famous POD entertainment complex, the final vestages of the 3.5 million euro budget were last month allocated to arguably the most important items: the FoH and monitor mixing consoles.
That owner John Reynolds chose two Digidesign VENUES to take pride place for the newly-named TRIPOD live theatre (the name indicating that three venues share the same building) should come as no surprise.
The entrepreneur, who was involved in the early career of boy band sensation Boyzone and annually promotes the mecca for Irish festival goers, The Electric Picnic in Stradbally, is nothing if not enterprising. Within a month of taking delivery of a 48/8 D-Show at front-of-house and 48/24 for the monitor booth he is already talking of ramping up from Pro Tools LE system which the system presently embraces, to a full HD recording capability.
The consoles and Sidecars were supplied as part of a fully-redundant system that included stage and FOH racks with two DSP mix engine cards, Pro Tools HDx interface card, iLok and digital snake, bny Digidesign’s long-term territorial distributors, Big Bear Sound.
The decision was a formality once sound system installer Niall Shortall of NJM had been treated to a demonstration at Digidesign’s Irish HQ, the Abbott Building in Sandyford. Said Michael Browne, who runs Big Bear Sound, “This is unquestionably what sealed the deal.”
Both Shortall and consultant Liam Rabbitt of Acoustic Audio (who supplied the Funktion One RES-2 sound system) were unfazed at giving an installation debut to the highly-regarded VENUES. “We have seen all the PR and know how much exposure this is getting on major tours,” said Shortall. “This is the best on the market; the sound is incredibly clean and produces exactly what you put into it, whereas we had issues with other consoles we auditioned. We have installed a lot of Pro Tools and the fact that VENUE supported Pro Tools coupled with the sound quality and ease of use capped it.” It will only be a matter of time, he believes, before VENUE becomes the industry standard.
Thearrival of the VENUES also caused a buzz of excitement among resident sound engineers, front-of-house technician Evin Doyle and monitor engineer Vivien Casagrande. “By the time we reopened in November we knew we were in spitting distance of a new desk,” recalls Evin, who had already carried out some research of his own.
Other digital options he said were still born “either because the price had gone through the roof or there were technical drawbacks — such as the parameters on the compressors being disappointing.”
Expecting to have to put all the training he had received at Big Bear Sound into operation, the sound engineer — who cut his digital teeth on the venue’s old resident AMEK 501 by Langley recall desk — said that babysitting visiting engineers has become simplicity itself. “My biggest worry was I thought I would be tied to the desk but I can wander around and leave them to it. Where there had been questions every five minutes on the old desk I now simply get worn out by amazed engineers asking‘what else will it do?’ I’ll run through the plug-in options but generally give the engineers a choice of reverb.”
What are the benefits as far Evin Doyle is concerned? The engineer is unequivocal: “It’s the many access points the desk gives you and its sheer ease of use — when you go into the matrix section you can just find what you want, as it’s set out in a logical fashion; there are no surprises and sonically it’s fabulous.”
The venue itself is housed in a landmark building — the stone fortress of the old Harcourt Street railway terminus, built in 1859 before closing almost 100 years later. Up on the second floor, the former Red Box dance venue has been extended over a former car park to create the 1200 capacity Tripod. The impressive balcony offers tremendous sightlines and is complete with theatre-style boxes, 300-capacity bar and 50-capacity VIP room. The complex also holds 800 people downstairs in Crawdaddy — another live venue and bar — as well as the original Pod and the Lobby Bar (occupying the arched vaults originally designed as a bonded spirit store under the engine shed). At full stretch, some 3,000 people can be dispersed within the three-storey operation.
Designed by Keith Hobbs, who runs the portfolio-rich United Designers, the space is pierced with a central architectural core around which the building’s other three venue spaces function. The aesthetic plays on the fusion of styles in an ‘industrial chic’ package, the shell being a celebration of the original building (remains of the old train line were found during the excavation) and the new architectural insertions juxtaposed with this.
John Reynolds’ idea had simply been to create the best mullti-functional club and live music venue in Ireland aiming at higher status DJ’s, circuit bands and their sound engineers. Hence he knew that both the sound and lighting infrastructure (masterminded by event production company Just Lite) had to be top drawer. Aside from being able to offer bands and their techs top spec, Tripod now boasts luxurious dressing rooms and air conditioned bathroom with shower.
John Reynolds recognised the importance of a generous provision of analog patchbays and splitters to create flexibility — as well as offering DJ’s a choice of kit which would be able to satisfy any rider. Top techno DJ regulars like Dave Clarke can not only have the playback gear he wants but also he knows he will get the same sound mix when he returns, since Doyle has already stored not only defined room parameters but gain structures for specific shows on VENUE and can bring up the required processing blocks on demand.
He also has a different bank of graphics and compression for the different room configurations. “I have it all in memory so I can tweak all the rooms in the building and file the EQ settings. As for the Funktion One PA that is just time-aligned and set on the crossover — with a couple of tiny crossover notches on the Focusrite EQ, which is all it needs.”
Tripod will cater for a broad spectrum of performance — from techno and hard house DJ’s to Romanian wedding bands, Celtic folk groups and brass heavy outfits like the Quantic Soul Orchestra — and Doyle is already looking at creative ways in which he can use processing tools like the Voce Chorus Vibrato, Joe Meek compressors, Pultec EQ and Mooger Fooger.
In summary, he says, “VENUE is a wonderful machine; visiting engineers have been able to take shows away on memory stick and despite the fact that most engineers had not previously used VENUE they love it.”
French-born monitor engineer, Vivien Casagrande, who has worked with sound companies across the world, shares his colleague’s enthusiasm. “I am familiar with many digital desks — but I love this desk, and the speed with which I can create sub-mixes using the Groups and 16 aux busses. To be a monitor engineer you have to be fast and this console certainly has plenty of auxes and available onboard FX.”
The Digidesign consoles are clearly in safe hands with these two experienced sound engineers, who are already planning to start recording the live shows that take place at Tripod, each Wednesday through Saturday, until 2.30am.
ENDS
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