Wednesday, September 30, 2015

GC Pro Makes Lights Shine Brightly for TRU Night Club

TRU night club Las Vegas, lighting, GC Pro
Las Vegas night club TRU, featuring lighting solutions sourced through Guitar Center Professional, bringing to fruition the lighting designs of Neil Kull. Photo courtesy of Neil Kull. © 2015.

— New Las Vegas dance club acquires brilliant yet cost-effective lighting through GC Pro’s extensive inventory, including LED and other fixtures from American DJ, which let lighting designer Neil Kull pull out all the stops on a fixed budget —

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 29, 2015 — When TRU Night Club opened on East Flamingo Road in Las Vegas earlier this year, its location just off the busy Las Vegas Strip told you a lot about the new dance spot: it would be intimate and apart from – yet close to – the action of Sin City. Naturally, it features the same level of audio and lighting that clubgoers have come to expect: Funktion-One and EAW Avalon sound systems in its two main rooms, and with the assistance of Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts, a dazzling array of lighting from manufacturers including American DJ and Elation. These include 16 American DJ Quad Gems, five LED tri-color scanning heads, eight pixel-pulse bars, and four Monster Quad Moonflowers as well as the Elation FLEX CHANNEL™ line of aluminum tracks. These systems are already lighting the room up for resident DJs Vixen and David Serrano.

Lighting Designer and Creative Director Neil Kull was tasked with making TRU a winner by club operator Disco Group, headed by Peter Arabo, a noted Detroit DJ whose clubs there, including Envy, Plan B, Confidential, Centre Street and Vision, set the stage for his first Las Vegas venture. In addition to specifying the club’s audio components, Kull — formerly lighting director of Light Group and a veteran of the Chicago underground scene with 23 years of nightlife industry experience — looked at TRU’s lighting as not only its biggest challenge but also what would be its signature statement, describing it as “a 360-degree omnidirectional show, a more traditional nightclub style that immerses the audience from all sides. TRU’s show will look complete from every point of view in the room. The audience becomes the star.”

Kull says he had a very specific budget to work with, and he turned to GC Pro to help him source the right elements to create a memorable lighting narrative that would also stay within the allotted budget. “He says he was familiar with the American DJ brand from twenty years ago, but after talking with GC Pro Account Manager John Stevens at the GC Pro Las Vegas office, he took a look at the American DJ products. “It’s amazing how much the technology has changed and how much I was able to accomplish with the American DJ fixtures,” he says. “Now that it’s all LED, the maintenance factor has been reduced to virtually nothing, and that’s a big thing for me. I was able to find the unique fixtures I needed to execute the design completely.”

TRU night club, Las Vegas, lighting, GC Pro
Las Vegas night club TRU, featuring lighting solutions sourced through Guitar Center Professional, bringing to fruition the lighting designs of Neil Kull. Photo courtesy of Neil Kull. © 2015.

GC Pro Account Manager John Stevens says such collaboration is the foundational model for all of GC Pro’s relationships with customers. “I worked with Neil and Peter on getting them the type of lights they needed to fulfill the vision, while also staying in their budget,” he says. “As such, I was able to get a majority of their needs fulfilled using mostly American DJ products and used Elation on some very specific higher-end models that were must-haves. I worked a solution between TRU and my American DJ contacts directly to help fulfill all their lighting needs.”

And as always, Stevens put the emphasis on the personal rather than the transactional nature of these relationships. “We met at a nightclub and bar expo earlier this year, and that helped solidify the relationship between myself, TRU night club and American DJ in person to make sure all their needs were taken care of,” he recalls. “It was a great collaboration between all parties to help fulfill Neil’s vision.”

Kull is appreciative of GC Pro’s attentiveness, not just to the sales side but also to any follow-up needs. “It’s inevitable that when you’re working with thirty-plus fixtures, one or two will be non-working right out of the box, and when that happened, John had a new unit ready for us on site the next day,” he recalls. “When it turned out the Quad Gems were back ordered, he made sure we were at the top of the list when they came in. American DJ and GC Pro kept us on schedule and within budget, and in Las Vegas that’s pretty amazing.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Bellevue Christian Center (Bellevue, Nebraska)

Bellvue Christian Center photo of stage #1
The Bellevue Christian Center, in Bellevue, Nebraska, featuring new audio, video and lighting solutions sourced through Guitar Center Professional and installed by Whiteley Solutions.

— AV systems integrator Whiteley Solutions relied on GC Pro to execute a lengthy and varied equipment list for a Nebraska church that needed to renovate two auditorium spaces over a strict timeline —

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 24, 2015 — The Bellevue Christian Center, in Bellevue, Nebraska, had a big project to tackle: the renovation of an auditorium that would be used as a temporary sanctuary so its existing sanctuary could also be renovated. It was a huge project, one that generated a lengthy equipment list for audio, video and lighting, and one that would require every item from that list to arrive exactly on time, to keep to the project timeline and to assure that the congregation would have a suitable sanctuary every Sunday during the renovations. That’s why the AV systems integrator on the project, Whiteley Solutions, turned to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. “We knew they’d have what we needed, and they’d have it on site when we needed it,” says Zach Anthony, the Senior Systems Engineer at Whiteley Solutions.

The equipment list was substantial and included lighting systems from Martin, Chauvet, Altman and Elation; audio products from Yamaha, RCF, Sennheiser and AKG®; and video platforms from manufacturers including Vaddio, Blackmagic Design and Da-Lite. The project was scheduled for two phases, the first taking some audio and acoustical products into the church’s auditorium to allow it to be used to hold Sunday services. Once that was done, the work switched to the existing sanctuary, where the vast majority of the equipment purchased through GC Pro would be utilized.

GC Pro’s depth of inventory and logistical capabilities were crucial to the project’s success, says Anthony. “We’re a young contender in the AV industry,” he says, referring to the very recent merger of Whiteley Solutions with another regional AV systems integration company. “What GC Pro gives us for complex projects like this is a one-stop vendor that can supply us with everything we needed on this job — every part, every product, every bolt. And they can do it at competitive prices. And on a project like this, time is critical. They simplified the process for us and the client.”

Bellvue Christian Center photo of stage #2

Bellvue Christian Center photo of stage #3

GC Pro also supported the project by taking care of the logistics, arranging for shipping from Dallas to the suburban Omaha job site. Jeff McDaniel, the GC Pro Account Manager that Anthony worked with, says this is what GC Pro does every day. “We have the broadest selection of equipment in the business, so even the esoteric items are able to be sourced immediately,” he explains. “And GC Pro has locations all over the country, so getting it to a remote job location on time isn’t a problem. There’s no other company that can offer that level of service.”

Zach Anthony agrees — the Bellevue Christian Center project was scheduled to finish on time, with the opening on June 7. “I’ve been working closely with GC Pro for five years, and they have never let me down,” he says. “It’s been a rewarding relationship, for me and for my clients.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Monday, September 14, 2015

Las Vegas: Audio Alchemist Event Coming Sep 24


Have you ever been to an Audio Alchemist event? If not, let us fill you in: it's an evening where you get to taste-test some of the world's best audio gear, while you're also tasting craft beer and Thai food. Hosted by respected experts in the world of studio recording and attended by your colleagues in the art and profession of audio, the only thing that could make an Audio Alchemist event better is if it were free. And it is, friends, it is.

The next Audio Alchemist event is being held at Studio at The Palms in Las Vegas on September 24, from 7-10PM. Attendance is free, but please RSVP by contacting GC Pro below so we can ensure your spot. Things to look forward to at the upcoming event:

•Discover why a hard drive is the inviolate caretaker of your personal creative real estate and that all hard drives are not created equally; nor are they insured against cataclysm by warranty and data recovery coverage like Glyph Technologies.

•Audition Retro Instruments’ effortless tone. Explore the true legacy of vintage audio NOS tube technology fused with modern custom wound transformers that will improve your vocal, instrument, soundscape and song every time.

•Learn why Dangerous Music's monitoring management is the most critical component of your system: “Because you can’t mix what you can’t hear”. Discover how analog summing with a 2-BUS+ or D-BOX will breathe your mix to life.

Audio Alchemist
Thursday September 24, 7-10PM
Studio at The Palms
4321 W. Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV 89103

To reserve your spot at this special Audio Alchemist event, call GC Pro at 877-687-5404.