Size is not everything!

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“Wow look at that speaker! We’re not a nightclub!!!”

I have heard this and similar comments time and again when designing a sound

system for a client for the first time.  A regular misconception is that the physical

size of a speaker is directly proportional to the volume or loudness of the sound

system, but that is generally not the case.

It’s true that you will need larger speakers to produce sound for a live concert

than you would need to install in a restaurant, but as sound gets quieter, there

is a minimum speaker size that you will reach, after which you start

compromising on sound quality.

Sound reproduction is all about moving air particles or vibrations.  In a

loudspeaker an electromagnet is attached to a cone which amplifies these

vibrations as it moves forwards and backwards, making sound waves in the

surrounding air and pumping them towards your ears.

So how do we hear music which is made up of lots of different sounds? Without

going too deeply into the science behind this, the frequency of the vibrations

(the number of sound waves that go past a fixed point say every second)

governs the pitch of the sound produced.  To faithfully reproduce all the

different frequencies of sound in a piece of music, good quality speakers use

different sized cones dedicated to high, medium and low frequencies, hence

the need for a minimum sized speaker to accommodate these. Generally in

each speaker cabinet there will be a bass driver (for low frequency sound

waves) and tweeter (for high frequency sound waves) and these will ensure

that sound from all frequencies is covered.

High frequency sound waves generate small movements of a small loudspeaker

surface area (the smaller tweeter cone) and lower frequency sound generate

large movements of a large surface area (the larger bass driver cone).  Basically

the lower the pitch of the sounds you want to replicate, the larger the surface

area of the cone and the larger the cubic volume of the speaker box you will need.

Sound volume (measured in decibels) is actually down to the amplitude of the

sound waves.  The amplitude of a sound wave (or the maximum distance moved),

is a reflection of how much energy it carries, the more energy it has the more air

particles that are moved for longer and the greater the sound we hear.

So, if you want a warm and full sound system throughout all the areas of your

venue, then you will need to have enough surface area of loudspeakers to excite

the air in the space and enough cubic volume of speaker cabinets to enable a

warm and comfortable sound to be generated in all areas.  This will be delivered

through a combination of; the right number of speakers of the right size installed

in the right locations.

Here at CGA Integration we generally use the smallest speaker cabinet required

to deliver a good full range sound in the required space, often in many multiples

to ensure that the distance from the customer to the speakers remains as

constant as possible as they move around the space.  This is explained in

"why so many speakers?!" on the CGA Blog.

Here you will find lots of articles dealing with speaker solutions including

“design led sound solutions” where we explain how to minimise the visual impact

of speakers whilst still generating superior sound & “speaker location; a sound delivery”

which considers the different types of speakers available and where they can be

installed for maximum audio effect.

To sum everything up, if speakers are too small or too few are used, this can

lead to issues in sound reproduction and quality, which will affect the

ambience of your venue.  Just remember, your AV design is created that way

or a reason, as “you cannot change the laws of physics!”

Design Led Sound Solutions from CGA Integration

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Holistic visual design
Have you ever been frustrated that your interior design is being compromised by the functional requirements of services? Do you have an eyesore of a white grill on a coloured ceiling, black boxes on white walls or maybe too many controls on the walls, with staff unable to get the consistency you planned and designed for?

If this sounds like an experience you are all too familiar with, CGA Integration can help you to address these aesthetic issues, whilst still enabling you to deliver the functional design that your client’s venue demands.

CGA can deliver speakers and grills resprayed to any RAL colour to ensure the integrity demands of your design, even after the services have been installed. With this available from CGA for all services, not just for sound equipment, we can help you to deliver a truly holistic visual design.

In addition, the control systems that CGA deploy not only deliver great sound but can also control; lighting, video, blinds, air conditioning and a whole range of other services. This enables you, the designer, to deliver a control platform for the whole environment, rather than creating a wall full of buttons to control varying parts of it!

So rather than planning how to layout a wall of switches, let us help you to change the conversation to talk about integration in the plant rooms and colours and fonts for the iPad control screens.

Addressing the soundscape
Taking things one step further, designs that encompass all the senses create a truly holistic guest experience. Although the visual design creates a wonderful first impression, hearing is one of our primary fight and flight senses; get the sound wrong in a venue and guests may never be comfortable in the space, no matter how wonderful it looks!

To generate the best sound, you need to ensure that the correct speakers and reproductive equipment are installed for the space. Not every sound system will deliver the right sound. How you hear sound in a space changes considerably with decorative finishes and also once it is occupied. CGA can help by creating the best sound system for your space, choosing and fitting the right equipment to deliver what your client needs it to do, throughout the day, every day.

Designed for the future 
Once you know that your design will both look and sound how you envisaged, how do you ensure that it stays that way, whilst still allowing flexibility and future proofing for your client?

Here at CGA we always plan for the future. With every sound system we create, we ensure spare cable runs to allow for changes to systems without the need for rewiring and we install digital control platforms which allow equipment to be monitored and tested by us remotely, (in real time), to ensure that all hardware is at it’s best at all times. These same digital control systems also allow systems to be reconfigured and reprogrammed easily with no hardware changes to repurpose or refresh a space for added peace of mind.

Why not talk to us about getting the sound system right for the space you are designing for. This might just add that final edge to your design; keeping your client’s guest’s spending and your client coming back to you for more great designs.

CGA Integration … Making hospitality sound great!

Creating the right soundtrack for weddings

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Weddings in the UK are big business, with couples and their parents spending thousands of pounds on their big day.  Organising a wedding is a very stressful event, in surveys it’s up there with death of a loved one, divorce and moving house!  What should be a very joyous occasion, is often overshadowed by all the little details the happy couple need to consider, coordinate and arrange.  

Choosing a venue for both the service and the reception is a key decision for every bride and groom.  Selecting somewhere which offers the right mix of facilities whilst creating the right atmosphere for their big day is paramount.  Music is one of the key strands to run throughout the day, from the arrival of the first guest, to the service, into the reception & wedding breakfast with speeches, to the first dance and into the evening entertainment.  Helping your guests by offering them all the AV facilities they need will make their lives easier and make them more likely to choose your venue over others.

Music is so important.  Helping your guests to create the soundtrack for their special day is a vital part of a successful wedding.  When we hear songs from the past they can stir up powerful emotions and transport us back in time. Like stepping into a time machine; you can feel everything as if you were actually there. The Bride and Groom might want to capture memories from special events at their wedding; music which reminds them of when and where they met, their first date or the proposal.  The relationship between music and memory is powerful, which is all the more reason to get the right associations for every wedding day.  Deliver this in the right way to ensure that wonderful memories of the wedding, at your venue, continue to be conjured up in the minds of the happy couple and their alike guests for many years to come.  

What music and technology do I need to offer my guest?

AV requirements for a wedding will vary throughout the day and will depend on if your venue is licenced to conduct the wedding service as well as hold the reception.  To help you to make sure that nothing gets missed, here is a helpful checklist to ensure that you, and any events companies or DJ’s you may employ, have everything you need to make your guest’s big day sound just how they want it to.

(i) Ceremony music

Many of your Brides and Grooms may choose to bring their own music for their service.  As such you need to let them know what format this needs to be in and ensure that you have a connection point in the main ceremony room to enable them to play pre, post and during ceremony music.  This either needs to be accessible and easily operated by someone in the wedding party, such as an usher, or by a member of your staff if necessary.  If the Bride and Groom opt for live music during the ceremony, you will also need to ensure that you have got microphones or power for instruments available.

In larger rooms a microphone and possibly an induction loop might also be needed to ensure that the registrar can be heard by all the guests.

(ii) Before and after the ceremony

Your Bride and Groom may request that you play their own background music either before or after the ceremony, during any reception drinks and possibly in the dining area where the wedding breakfast is served.  Ideally all these rooms, if there are more than one, should be linked to enable the same music to be played throughout.  This creates the same mood for all the guests, allowing them to all feel part of the same event.

It is possible that the Bride and Groom may request live music to be played after the service during the drinks reception, maybe a piano with or without a vocalist or even a saxophone or string quartet, so again microphones and power for certain instruments might be required in another area. Whatever the music choice, it's important that guests don’t mingle in silence, as it can make people feel uncomfortable, equally the music that they hear needs to be appropriate, and played at a suitable volume, to ensure that it doesn’t overpower their conversation.  

(iii) The Wedding Breakfast

From the toastmaster through to the speeches after dinner, it is key that everyone in the wedding party can hear what is happening during this equally important part of the day.  A good speaker system in your main dining or events space is key to this, you deliver the same quality food & service to all your guests and they should also expect to receive the same quality audio.  

Considering the all important speeches, make sure that everyone can be heard by ensuring that microphones are available if necessary.  Some guests may be hard of hearing or some speakers might be too embarrassed or emotional to really deliver clearly throughout the whole of their speech.  To help everyone, It is always best to have a microphone and suitable speakers on hand so that every guest can hear all of the proceedings and really feel involved in the day.  The best and most aesthetic delivery of sound will always be from an installed ceiling speaker system that is specifically designed to cover that room.   If you do not yet have this facility at your venue and the DJ is to be in the dining room after the wedding breakfast, it might be possible to use the DJ’s speakers for the speeches.  It's worth remembering however that these might not fit with the decor and ambience of the wedding breakfast and the sound will not be best balanced this way.

With the rise of multimedia, do you have a projector and screen to allow the speakers to show the guests any photographs?  From baby photos to selected images from the stag and hen parties, your speakers may want some visual cues to help them deliver their speeches, (and jokes), sharing images and memories.  This may be something that you use an external events company or the DJ for, as many DJs now use video screens to show video clips and pictures, but either way it may well be something that you are asked if you can provide.

Using digital signage can help to direct guests around your function spaces and signpost what is occurring in different areas as well as helping to personalise the event to help to celebrate the day.

(iv) After dinner entertainment

Although a playlist can be very personal and work to create a mood as background music during the drinks reception or the meal, it is very difficult to predict which songs will work well at what times during a party.

As an ex-DJ, I would urge you to encourage your Brides and Grooms to hire a professional DJ or entertainer.  For a DJ, a wedding reception can be one of the hardest gigs, as the audience you have to engage with is truly diverse: from grandchildren to grandparents, ballroom dancers to ravers and everyone in between!  Pleasing everyone and keeping the dancefloor full can be a real challenge, but  when you get it right it's very rewarding.  

A good DJ will be more than someone who just plays a compiled playlist, they should read the crowd and respond to their mood and dancing preferences, cracking appropriate jokes and creating a memorable party atmosphere along the way, which a predefined playlist just cannot achieve. A real professional will mix selected tracks in with the dancing so that it means something to the Bride and Groom and yet the rest of the crowd, who may be too young or too old to remember your special tracks, can still have a great night.

As a venue owner you need to see how you can make the DJ look like part of your venue for the day to come together seamlessly.

In an ideal world you would have the DJ set up prior to the ceremony and reception drinks so that the set up is not seen, although with some venues resetting rooms for dancing after dinner this can be harder to accomplish.  If this is not possible, think about hiding the DJ equipment behind a curtain or screen or even under table cloths so that the turnaround is faster and boxes do not have to be carried through the venue, breaking the mood of the day which everyone has tried so hard to create.

(v) What is better, owning or hiring?

There are certain items, which as a quality venue you should own, to ensure that they are available to offer your guests at all times, but other equipment you may wish to just consider hiring.  The table below should help you to prioritise your choices.

Items	Use	Own?	Facilitate?	Hire?
Speakers in dining & events spaces	Speeches & background music	Yes, this should be a minimum requirement	N/a	N/a
Radio Microphone	Enabling speeches in any location within events spaces	Yes if demand is high enough		If you find the use of this is infrequent then hiring makes sense
Music player socket, input in function space	Play ceremony or pre and post ceremony music	Yes, this socket should be located in a logical place for guests and or staff to connect and play back music	Yes	N/a
DJ equipment or Band equipment	Wedding evening party	No	Yes, allow for the use of power sockets, set up space, limiters, etc	Yes, hire in a professional from an agency or from the Bride and Groom’s personal experience
Screens	Best man's speech, memory images, etc	Yes, if you have enough storage space and regular use of these.  They can also be used as meeting screens.	Yes, allow for power sockets around the venue	Yes, hire from local events or AV providers as and when the need arises.  This allows you to hire a screen appropriate to the size of the event.

(vi) Managing music volume

If wedding guests are also staying at your venue make sure that where possible you place the guests most likely to be disturbed by a noisy DJ at the other end of your venue, put the best man and bridesmaids in the bedrooms over the dancefloor, as they are most likely to need to change or freshen up and are most likely the last to bed! If this is not possible, try to work with the DJ to maintain a sensible noise level.  Limiters can be fitted and the Environmental Health Officer may insist on these, but try to avoid this route if you can as they can create a poor guest experience, causing the sound to cut out just as the party gets going which equally may mean that the DJ will not want to play your venue again! Some sound limiters have a traffic light system, which if managed correctly enable the venue manager and or DJ to see when the music is getting too loud and to take action to address this gradually and in a controlled way without actually killing the ambience of the evening.

By considering all of this you really should be well on the way to helping your prospective Brides and Grooms create the perfect soundtrack to their wedding.  With music being so closely linked to evoking memories, getting it right through for your guests will mean that you can create the very best memories of their special day at your venue.

For further information about AV equipment and installations for weddings and all other events please call CGA Integration to discuss how to make the most of your venue.

Making Sound Improvements; Reviewing your AV for maximum impact

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When was the last time you reviewed your AV?  Does it always creep down the agenda as budget gets allocated to other projects?  

Making sure you are getting the most from your AV doesn’t have to mean a full scale refurbishment project.  By appointing a specialist AV consultant to carry out a review, quick fixes can be identified to help you to get the most from the AV you currently have, both for your clients and staff alike.  An AV review will also identify how things can be improved further with more investment over the longer term, to really make a difference to your venue and the customer experience that you offer.

Do I really need to review my AV?

Ask yourself a few simple questions;

• Is your current AV problem free?  
• Do you know what AV systems you currently have?  
• Do you still talk with the contractor who installed your AV system?
• Do your staff have the correct training to get the best from your current AV system?  
• Are you fully embracing new technology in your conference and meeting rooms?  
• Is your AV giving you the edge on your local competition?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘No’, then you could definitely benefit from an AV review.

For example, if you offer meeting and conference facilities you will realise that modern delegates are very technologically savvy and have a lot of AV requirements.  Are your conference and meeting rooms offering the facilities to enable;

• BYOD capability
• HDMI connectivity
• HD resolution projection
• Interactive presentation facilities
• Collaborative meeting spaces
• Audio for conferencing from both phones and mobile devices
• Projection bright enough to view without dimming the lights, enabling delegates to still view their note pad
• Loud, even and clear sound and vocal reinforcement throughout a room to hide external sound sources and create the emotional impact required by the speaker or presenter?

An AV review can help you to determine how to offer all of these facilities effectively to business guests, helping to ensure that they continue to choose your hospitality venue.

What can I expect from an AV Review?

CGA Integration are specialists in sound.  We can attend your venue, survey, test and quantify the AV systems and review the hardware you currently have. We specialise in AV for restaurants, bars, spas and hotels, where we design, install and maintain AV systems across all hospitality areas from conference and meeting rooms through to lobbies and ballrooms.

As experienced installation and service engineers, CGA Integration will look holistically at your AV systems and review them, not just as a stand alone systems, but also as part of your overall trading system and how it currently sits with market requirements.  We will consider all aspects of AV requirements including those that affect both your staff and your customers relaxation and business needs.

An AV review by CGA Integration will ensure that;

1. Your AV systems are working as you expect
2. You are offered best options and paths for upgrades to maximise your AV effectiveness
3. You are offered the best and increased levels of support

Here at CGA Integration, we have often found that all some AV systems need is a little TLC.  With a few minor changes to facilitate new and additional functionality, existing AV systems can often offer our customers key differentiators to really help them to sell and upsell their hospitality venues.

So why wait?  Please get in touch to release the full potential of your AV systems and make a sound investment for your hospitality venue.
Info@cga-integration.co.uk

Why buy a Radio Microphone licence?

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Act now to prevent ‘Silent Nights’ this Christmas

With the deadline for operating UHF wireless microphones using channel 69 swiftly approaching, users need to think quickly about obtaining a microphone licence and check that they have all the compatible hardware they need by the end of 2012.

Do I need a microphone licence? 

The answer to this frequently raised question is generally yes!  Anyone who is using a microphone be it for a company presentation in a hotel function room or a sermon in a Sunday morning church service, needs a microphone licence to safe guard the quality and reliability of their broadcasts.

Why should I buy a radio microphone licence?

Holding a microphone licence guarantees your use of a designated frequency to broadcast on without the concern of others being able to legally utilise that channel and interrupt any presentations or broadcasts you may be making.

Why the change now?

Recently the government sold off may frequencies which people were broadcasting on, including channel 69.  As many users were broadcasting illegally or without licences, the number of active users was masked and it appeared that the sale would affect far less people than it actually has.  Subsequently many users have had to replace their hardware to continue to broadcast as these channels will no longer be available after 31^st December 2012.  Moving forward, if all users hold a licence this will clearly demonstrate the number of active users and help to prevent this from happening again in the future.

What about other users in my venue?

Hotel function rooms and church halls are often used by DJs for corporate or private functions.  DJs can broadcast on licence free channels and these will not interfere with the licensed frequencies you want to broadcast on.

What about the hardware?

Generally the equipment needed to operate on licensed channels is of a higher quality, with more accessories, which in turn provides superior performance.  Typically licensed hardware includes;

• A rechargeable battery system so you know your microphone is always ready for use and you do not have to constantly buy new batteries.
• External and specialist aerials to ensure that you have a perfect reception in all areas.
• Rack mountable accessories to ensure that you equipment can be stored neatly to improve its longevity and give good ROI, (return on investment).
• A good range of interchangeable microphones and heads for all types of voice and sound reinforcement applications.

What do I need to do?
If you are unsure about how to proceed to ensure that you are ready for the switch over at the end of 2012, please contact us at CGA Integration and we can talk you through all your requirements and the steps you need to take to make sure that the transition is seamless.