Installations, System Upgrades at Chicago-Area Restaurants

Red Star Cocktail Lounge in Chicago’s south side, featuring sound and lighting design from Guitar Center Professional in collaboration with GC Pro affiliate Accutronics.

— GC Pro brought its sourcing acumen and pricing power together with a trusted installation and integration partner from its Affiliates Program to provide the owner of The Island Sports Bar & Grill and the new Red Star restaurant and lounge with the kind of sound and lighting that helps set them apart —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, April 11, 2016 — Adam Shorter thought he needed a few speakers for his new Red Star restaurant and lounge on Chicago’s storied South Side. What he ended up with was a sound and lighting design for both Red Star Cocktail Lounge and his existing Island Sports Bar & Grill that puts both venues miles ahead of the competition, done on time and within budget, thanks to the resources of Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts.

“Adam came into the Chicago Guitar Center store looking for help with his new bar, Red Star, which was then under construction,” recalls Ryan Nigh, GC Pro Account Manager based in Chicago. “He needed a sound system very quickly and was going to just purchase a few speakers when the store associate told him about Guitar Center Professional and our installation services. We scheduled a meeting with Adam, brought in Accutronics, one of our long-time Affiliate partners, and together we designed a custom PA solution that we were ready to install in less than a week.”

Mike Love, Owner of Accutronics, says Shorter appreciated the nuance he was able to bring to the project. “We want the sound to be great but not to interfere with the look of the venue, so we did things like using the JBL Control 60 series pendant speakers that are suspended instead of attaching speakers to the wall on brackets,” he explains, noting that the system is powered by Crown XLS amplifiers and controlled through a dbx® Driverack, all supplied through GC Pro. “GC Pro was able to get every piece of equipment we needed to the job site on time or even ahead of schedule, so that we were able to make Mr. Shorter’s grand opening date in early December.”

In fact, the project was going so well that Shorter asked GC Pro and Accutronics to upgrade the lighting in his other venue, the Island Sports Bar & Grill, in Blue Island, also on Cook County’s South Side, including fixtures from American DJ, Chauvet and Elation.

Shorter says he was extremely pleased with how GC Pro and Accutronics approached his venues’ needs. “They were responsive, always there, and they took the time to explain in detail everything they were recommending, so I never felt like I was out of the loop,” says Shorter. “And the results are fantastic. When I start getting ready to open my third location later this year, I’ll be doing that with GC Pro. I couldn’t imagine not using them again. That’s how good this experience was.”

“By using GC Pro services, both of his clubs have a professional setup that was designed specifically for the space, and both locations were completed before Christmas,” says Nigh. “What I really appreciated is that he embraced the idea of a first-rate sound system for Red Star. We put a VRX sub, which is JBL’s touring sub, in the ceiling, so it’s a sound system that really stands out in terms of quality. In a lot of ways he is the perfect customer, because he understands quality. And that makes GC Pro the perfect vendor for him, because quality is all we know.”

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.

Seacrets: King of the Virtual Beach

Seacrets, a nightclub, bar, restaurant and concert venue located in Ocean City, MD, recently upgraded with audio and lighting systems sourced through Guitar Center Professional. Photos courtesy of Jason Cruz/Seacrets. © 2015.

— Sprawling Ocean City, Maryland entertainment venue Seacrets renovated their music stages over the winter in preparation for a big summer, and GC Pro was their go-to source for audio, video and lighting —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, October 20, 2015 — Seacrets is a nightclub, bar, restaurant and concert venue located in Ocean City, MD, beside the Isle of Wight Bay. Opened as a “locals only” bar in 1988, it has since grown exponentially, now consisting of 16 bars, four performance areas, a clothing boutique, and an FM/Internet radio station located on the property, all with its “Jamaica USA” theme still intact. And the aesthetics of the place match that: live reggae DJs start at 10 a.m. every day, the restaurant features plenty of jerk chicken, and every year dozens of palm trees are planted and maintained for the summer season. In fact, summer is Seacrets’ biggest season, running each year from St. Patrick’s Day through Halloween, and this year’s summer sounded and looked better than ever, thanks to audio and lighting systems sourced through Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts.

Using GC Pro’s extensive inventory and resources, AV Manager Jason Cruz was able to acquire all new systems for the Beach, Old Main Bar and Pier stages. These include a 64-channel Soundcraft Si Performer digital console, four new Crown XTI 6000 series amplifiers to beef up the existing PA systems, JBL Control series in-ceiling speakers and ASB subwoofers to extend the reach and range of the music, a Shure ULXS wireless microphone system and wireless PSM in-ear monitors, dbx® DriveRack DSP, Chauvet Rogue spotlight, Elation moving-head fixtures and American DJ Vortex moving washes. It’s a long list, and only GC Pro was able to provide a one-stop source for all of it.

“I have to replace some products and systems fairly often because the sand gets in there and it’s brutal on some pieces of gear,” says Cruz, who started at Seacrets in 2009 as a DJ and now supervises the AVL for the entire operation, even as he keeps his hand in spinning records at times. “Having GC Pro as a partner is a necessity, to be able to get what we need, when we need it, at a good price.” But GC Pro is more than that for Seacrets and Cruz. “I totally trust Mitch to let me know what the best product and system choices would be for any of the venues,” he adds, referring to GC Pro Account Manager Mitch Shaivitz at GC Pro's Baltimore-area office. “As the AV Manager, I’m expected to know everything about everything, and that’s impossible, so I rely on Mitch to fill in my knowledge gaps.”

Seacrets, a nightclub, bar, restaurant and concert venue located in Ocean City, MD, recently upgraded with audio and lighting systems sourced through Guitar Center Professional. Visible are JBL Control series in-ceiling speakers. Photos courtesy of Jason Cruz/Seacrets. © 2015.

One example of how GC Pro made a difference instead of just a sale is Shaivitz’s recommendation of the Shure in-ear monitors to replace stage wedges at the Beach stage. That not only eliminated another piece of equipment that would be exposed to the wear and tear of sand but also helped bands keep their stage volume in check, keeping the sound inside the venue and away from neighboring houses. “He also helped us make the transition to LED lighting, which resists sand better than conventional lights,” he says. Seacrets’ next season will also see a trip to GC Pro over the winter for new Crown amplifiers for the main concert hall. “GC Pro has made my life easier and Seacrets’ experience better,” says Cruz. “It would be hard to be this good without them.”

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.

GC Pro Makes Lights Shine Brightly for TRU Night Club

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.”

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.

Bellevue Christian Center (Bellevue, Nebraska)

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.”

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.