The Pickle Factory preserves the peace with d&b
In a corner of East London brothers Dominic and Jordan Gross, together with Director of Operations Jett Glozier, have opened The Pickle Factory, a multipurpose venue of intimate proportions. “Utilization is key,” explained Dominic. “Club evenings, Friday and Saturday night, and one or two live concert events during the week are the core. But we also expect to do a lot of daytime and evening events, product launches, conferencing, training sessions, even weddings and bar mitzvahs. It’s almost a hotel function room environment, but with a difference. The quality is a step higher. Key to that quality is sound.”
While acoustically isolating the venue from its surrounding neighbours would help avoid one of the most contentious causes of club shut down, the team also aspired to establish new standards in quality of sound. Technically savvy, they already knew what was required. “The Pickle Factory needed a two system installation so we could run concert style or full-on club nights with what we call an ‘immersive system’.”
They turned to a freelance sound engineer whose work they liked. “I had just done the Sound System Optimization seminar with Oran Burns at d&b’s UK base in Nailsworth,” said Adam Dickson, “so the timing was perfect.” Already well known to both Dominic Gross and Dickson was audio installation and live production specialist Southby Productions, who had previously provided technical support at the brothers’ Oval Space venue across the road. As a d&b Sales partner they were a natural choice when it came to engaging directly with the job.
The final dual system uses elements of Y and V-Series. The end-on concert system playing down the length of the room has a single V7P on two V-GSUBs left and right and E8 centre fills. Delays for the concert system also form part of the second, so called, immersive system, a combination of Y10P and V10P; these are inward facing along the long sides of the room. Additional elements of the immersive system, primarily rear fills, also use V10P, while the low end performance is augmented by Bi6-SUBs. Both systems are driven by d&b’s dedicated installation amplifier, the 30D. “When it came to commissioning, this was a very easy system to tune,” said Dickson. “I’m a fan of how d&b voice their systems, I find using them second nature - I was really happy with the way the Y and V integrated.”
Southby was asked to test the efficacy of the sound insulation; Project Manager Chris Jones: “The system is intended to run at around 96/97 dBA (slow), but for the test we pushed it to 106 dBA so we could conduct listening tests outside. We did this during normal office hours and there is a large office building right across the street. Within ten metres outside the venue the mids and high were not discernible, but you could hear the lows around 32-50 Hz; but once you moved out to 20 m they were undetectable. The work of acoustic consultant Michael Guerra has really proved fantastically effective.”
Just as well. As Dominic concluded, “Yes we have over spec’d, but that prevents us from ever damaging the system and it means we can have it as loud as we are ever likely to want. That’s without ever exceeding headroom capability or upsetting the neighbours.”
