Okay, so heres my little report on Room Nine. First, the space is pretty nice overall. I think the bar is well done. They only have one gluten-free option - Angry Orchard Cider. Wish they had Noble Cider, but maybe Trevor can get them to give his stuff a go. There is a large visuals panel behind the bar run by a computer in the booth. Thats pretty cool and adds a nice touch. Yes, they are running QSC K-Series full range speakers hanging from the ceiling, but they could have used KW series subs. The bottom is okay in the room, but if it were a little beefier and warmer, it would certainly be better - especially if there were 300 people in the room. People are going to eat up the sound. The more you put in there, the more the subs are going to be minimized. Interested to see what happens when that happens. Also, clubs will usually put two monitors over the DJs head, hanging from chains from the ceiling, but here that doesnt exist. Youve got one small monitor in the booth that can be moved, but thats not optimum. The light show is a little on the cheap side. There is no lighting controller that I know of, which is a problem, because once you turn them on, they just run and not to the beat of the music or any control that makes sense. Maybe I didnt see it, I dont know. But you dont built a nightclub without a lighting controller and hire a qualified lighting tech to run the light show or train someone who wants to do it. That is part and parcel to the experience of a nightclub. This just shows that when they were developing the club, they either didnt care to ask or simply didnt know. This is what happens when you build things without having asking qualified DJs what they need first. For instance, I noticed they put an extension onto the shelf in the DJ booth, because when I first saw it a few months ago, it was so narrow, you couldnt put CDJs on it. If youre going to build a nightclub, then get DJs feedback. It just feels like they didnt care to. That they felt they knew what they were doing and the DJ is the afterthought, instead of the performer who drives the revenue for the venue. The dancefloor is certainly big enough, which is fine. Nice hard wood floor looks good. They have a lounge room in the back, but instead of it really being a nice place to relax with possibly its own DJ, its simply a bunch of arcade machines and a pool table. You can put a nice bar in the back there with some lounge chairs and have a different chill-out vibe, but its like a cheap arcade. Okay, so I did play Mission Control, but I didnt really need to. Would have been cool to have a different experience in the backroom. There is no real DJ booking strategy. They seem to want to do EDM on Saturdays and line dancing on Thursdays, which shows that as a booking strategy, they are all over the road. What do you want to be known for? When opening a club, you have to set the expectation that youre going to be known for a certain sound. That youre going to be define a sound and experience. Also, each DJ had to shut down their gear while transitioning to another DJ. There is no strategy for keeping continuity. One guy brought his Ableton rig. Sai Ofninth brought Traktor and an Akai APC 40. I love that they are exploring this gear and its not their fault, but to turning off the music for 10 minutes while you switch DJs isnt going to work on a Saturday night. Unless Im missing something here. Maybe the DJ as performer, similar to a band, is the experience here. You switch off and there is some down time. But in the north east, the next DJ jumps on and keeps the dance floor grooving. I guess thats difficult when every DJ is using something different. But there should be turntables and CDJs in the room, with a Pioneer or Allen and Heath mixer. But there isnt. Every DJ needs to bring their own gear, so you have this transition in the booth after each DJ and that...well...is not optimal. No sound in a nightclub is kind of weird to me. I guess Im getting old!
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:02:39 +0000