Just a few months after opening, the Halcyon club in San Francisco has been rated as one of America’s essential underground music venues by the 6AM group.
The brick and steel beamed warehouse set in the Soma neighbourhood of SF, is in close proximity to business and residential premises. Halcyon has a 24Hr music license and owner / founder Gina Milano wanted compliance with the cities article 29 regulation on noise abatement and happy neighbours. She enlisted the expertise of sound engineer Andy Kayll to design and tune America’s finest sound set up.
Kayll, known by many as the wizard, with talents bordering on alchemy, crafts some of the worlds most renowned sound systems including the world famous DC10 in Ibiza which he has nurtured since 2000 and Rich Walsh has assisted him since 2015
Milano, planned to bring Kayll’s expertise “Out West”.
Kayll contracted Townshend Audio to design and supply Custom Seismic Isolation Bars to virtually eliminate structural resonances by totally decoupling from the ground three Pioneer XY-218HS subwoofers mounted side by side, two Pioneer XY-215S subwoofers mounted side by side and the XY-118S subwoofer in the DJ booth.
The TA Isolators stopped the steel beamed structure from generating the tell tale kick back “Thunk” and wooly bass that untreated large venues often create when ground borne vibration is enough to set the structure resonating.
The units were put in place by Don Lynch.
Here is Don’s story:
“I am the owner and founder of Commercial Audio Video Solutions, Inc (CAVS). We specialize in installed sound systems for nightclubs, bars, restaurants, and other hospitality applications.
In the Halcyon project, I was responsible for the initial design, selling, and installing the sound system, then worked with Andy on the final design. Pioneer was eager to earn the business so I played the middle man between Halcyon and Pioneer.
Gina brought in Andy & Rich to assist with the system installation and tuning as they were experienced with the acts that Gina would be bringing into the venue. Rich now runs the system on a nightly basis as my role in the project has now been fulfilled.
I personally was extremely impressed with the level of isolation the isolation bars were able to achieve. They are by far the best product I have used in the pro audio world for this purpose.
The building was very challenging to begin with. There are multiple sources of vibration that could cause undesirable acoustic effects and residential properties on all sides of the space.
Using the Townshend Audio isolators we were able to increase the dB level on the dance-floor without disturbing nearby neighbours or creating resonances in the building itself!”
