COMPLETED PROJECTS - TOXIC 8
CP Sound has completed a major sound, lighting and video installation at the new Toxic8 club in Cambridge – the latest, trendiest, high-tech entertainment destination to open in the town.
With a stunning interior design
by Steve Howie of Howie Designs, the club’s visual inspiration drew on
the imagery of Fritz Lang’s nightmarish, futuristic and controversial
1927 masterpiece movie Metropolis. However Toxic8 is anything but silent!
Audio throughout was designed by CP’s Colin Pattenden with lighting by CP’s Russ Evans. CP Sound won the technical design and installation contract amidst stiff competition. The club is independently owned by Jeremy Gredley, Terry Lake and Robin Taylor who also own DeNiros and Pacinos, two nightspots in Newmarket installed and work on by CP Sound . |
Toxic8 is centrally-located,
situated adjacent to the Corn Exchange in the Guildhall Chambers, a former
dole office. The building totally gutted from it’s previous incarnation
(also a club) and re-opened with an increased capacity of 500 and considerably
well-endowed with style and panache as Toxic8.
| Toxic8 is constructed on four levels with the ground floor/street level walk-in area featuring a café/bar called Bar 8 – because it’s the eighth bar working downwards from the top of Toxic8. This feeder area features music and visuals controlled from behind the bar via a six-way switch and volume control which CP Sound installed, together with three Sony K5 televisions and six JBL Control 28 speakers. The picture source is selectable between cable TV and video, and music is from an 110 disc CD player. All inputs are remotely controlled from the amplifier room on the floor above. |
Additionally, a mobile DJ set-up is available for special events in this area and the top floor. This consists of a Denon 2000 Mk 3 twin CD player, Citronic 10/4 mixer and mic, all flight-cased. The mobile unit plugs into two XLR sockets situated behind the bar – and is ready-to-roll with minimum fuss.
The first and second floors have been fused into one nightclub area, connected by a tall space cutting through the two storeys. CP Sound’s audio spec here includes another Citronic 10/4 mixer and Denon 2000 Mk 3 twin CD player, two Technics 1210 decks in the DJ box and a customised CP 10/1050 DJ monitor.
Dancefloor speakers are two
twin 15” 1200 Watt JBL i-746 cabinets, and for the mid range, JBL 300
Watt MS112 tops, hung in the corners of the void area. One twin 15 inch
bass bin is secreted in a brick bunker below the DJ box, with another
under the stairs.
| Dancefloor lighting is scattered around
the room and includes three Solar 250 projectors with red infused
oil wheels and eight MADScan 411 APs in the void, pointing up and
down. Control is a Pulsar Masterpiece 216. On the second floor, above
the void area, the lighting truss is twisted at a 45 degree angle
- into a diamond orientation juxtaposed with the room.
High impact fixtures were chosen, including
two 1500 Watt ANYtronics Megastrobes, four additional MADScans,
two ITM 250 MADScans and four ITM 250 MADStars. Another three Solar
250s with oil wheels are focussed on the walls. |
At each corner of the lighting truss is a 300 Watt JBL MS105 cabinet, pointing outwards to blast audio above the void.
Four structural columns piercing
the entire building are exposed in the first and second floor void area.
Each is circled with six rings of DMX controlled neon, supplied to CP
Sound and installed by Simply Neon. Each arc of the bar fronts in this
room also features a neon strip shape.
|
The two Sony K5 televisions here are also fed from the downstairs picture source. Atmospheric lighting comes from another four Solar 250s with oil wheels – creating a liquid, fluid, mysterious look, congruous with the many thematic contradictions of Metropolis. |
CP Sound also designed the sound and rigged Control 25 speakers in Toxic8’s two stairwells - ensuring that music is everywhere - even in the toilets, which feature Paco 8 inch ceiling speakers.
All speakers throughout the building are driven from the first floor amplifier room containing a host of control and processing devices including a full selection of RSE amplifiers. This is CP Sound’s amplifier of choice for an installation such as this, where reliability, robustness and low maintenance are key issues.
The biggest installation challenge for CP Sound was the usual one of working on-site amidst the chaos of builders and other contractors, all fighting to fit everything into the space and the tight build schedule!
The club launched in time to catch the new academic year where it should prove a popular haunt for the students, who when they have finished debating the schizoid postmodern dialectics of Metropolis, can pepper their studies with some serious partying!