The venue is part of a visual arts and film centre based in the centre of Manchester.

For 25 years this café/bar based on two floors has been the hub and meeting place for the creatively-minded folk of the city – providing an oasis of calm and culture in amongst the rain-soaked, mill-lined streets.

With a bohemian clientele, regular art exhibitions on the walls and also used as the reception area for the on-site cinemas the atmosphere had to be relatively low key and unobtrusive. Music is mainly background with the main concern being even coverage across the full extent of the two floors. We installed a system that utilised the corner-mounted Canon V100 speaker, which has a discreet and stylish look and also provides great coverage in tight areas.

Sound Limiting - Most of the time the system is fed straight from a background music source but on weekends and special events they have DJs playing to add atmosphere and create a vibe. However, this can cause a slight problems with sound leaking into the cinema theatres located on the floors below. To avoid this conflict we installed a Formula Sound Sentry into the system.

The Sentry acts by constantly monitoring the sound levels in the venue, using a built-in microphone. It then uses this information to show the level of the sound on a large ‘traffic-light’ display on the front of the unit. This is fitted in full view of the DJ so that they are always aware of how loud they are playing. If the sound goes over a preset limit for more than a few seconds the Sentry automatically cuts the power to the DJ equipment, preventing the DJ from creating enough volume to cause problems downstairs. After a few seconds the system can be reset and the power returns, leaving the DJ looking a bit sheepish but the cinema goers undisturbed.

This system puts the emphasis on the DJ or musician to ensure that levels are maintained correctly and punishes them if they don’t. It creates a solid ‘ceiling’ which cannot be broken through for those situations where a specific level must be complied to.