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.

===

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.

===

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 Professional Helps Strike 10 Roll a Perfect Game

Strike 10 Bowling & Sports Lounge in Hallandale Beach, Florida, featuring fantastic sound and lighting, thanks to Guitar Center Professional and GC Pro Affiliate Program member Automated Interiors Inc.

— The GC Pro location serving south Florida brought its powerful sourcing and Affiliate Program to bear on a novel concept that synthesizes a Miami nightclub with a bowling alley, giving it a South Beach-style touch for sound and lights —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, June 24, 2015 — Strike 10 Bowling & Sports Lounge is the latest addition to the sleek and sprawling Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Florida. By day, it’s a family fun center, a hub for children’s birthday parties and bar/bat mitzvah celebrations. At night, it can transform into an experience attraction for adults, with a full bar and DJ booth as well as bowling. But whatever mode it’s in, Strike 10 Bowling & Sports Lounge is awash in fantastic sound and lighting, thanks to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. The Hallandale office of GC Pro, which serves all of south Florida, brought its huge product-sourcing capability to bear on the sound and lighting for Strike 10, in addition to its Affiliate Program, which matches clients and projects with the most appropriate AVL systems integrators to install and commission those products. In this case, GC Pro brought in Automated Interiors Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to install sound equipment, including 44 JBL Control Series ceiling speakers and subwoofers powered by Crown CDI 1000 and CDI 2000 amplifiers, and a large array of lighting including Chauvet® Nexus LED washes and LED displays, a Gobo Shot LED projector and a Rouger moving-head fixture. Live bands will also be able to crank it up at Strike 10 thanks to the comprehensive Acousti-Block sound management materials installed at the lounge.

“Fantastic is the word I would use for how this turned out,” comments Moises Jafif, part-owner of Strike 10 and part of a team that pioneered the bowling alley/lounge concept at several locations in Mexico before bringing it to the U.S. with the 15,000-squre-foot Hallandale site, which opened in March of this year. “The experience of working with GC Pro was spectacular from day one. They really know their stuff.”

Jafif says that while the main components of Strike 10 are the same as the locations in Mexico, he wanted to adapt the theme for the Miami area. That’s where GC Pro came in. Working with sources at HARMAN and Chauvet, as well as Automated Interiors, GC Pro Account Manager Ricardo Cintron-Jimenez chose products that would realize Jafif’s vision for Strike 10. For instance, a key strategic idea was the decision to install all-white furniture, floors and walls — even an all-white bar — which literally creates a blank canvas for the Nexus wash lighting fixtures, allowing the space to change hues and create entirely new environments to fit the moment, whether it’s a kids’ party or late-night ladies-night out. “It’s a unique feature,” says Cintron-Jimenez. “The all-white furniture, bar, floors and walls acquire the color of choice, from the Nexus lighting fixtures, changing the atmosphere at will.” GC Pro also supplied backline equipment for live music and for a DJ booth, which the acoustical treatments will also enhance by controlling the volume.

The bar at Strike 10 Bowling & Sports Lounge in Hallandale Beach, Florida, featuring fantastic sound and lighting, thanks to Guitar Center Professional and GC Pro Affiliate Program member Automated Interiors Inc.

Daniel Roller, President of Automated Interiors, says the project turned out so well thanks in large part to GC Pro’s depth of inventory and access to a wide range of brands. “The client was adamant about wanting Chauvet lighting,” says Roller. “And GC Pro has a huge array of brand choices when it comes to lighting and everything else, so we were able to get the client exactly what they wanted. It’s one of the things about working with them that makes my job easier.” Roller was also enthusiastic about his ongoing relationship with GC Pro’s Affiliate Program. “We’re mutually supportive of each other,” he says. “We find ways to create more value than by working alone, which was evident on this project, which really turned out cool.”

Jafif agrees. “It has the flash you need for Miami,” he says, “And the place sounds as good as it looks. Ricardo was always there for us. He took us to different showrooms so we could check out equipment. We have eleven lanes — the idea is to keep it feeling very exclusive and special, and GC Pro picked out products that were in line with that goal. The customer service was spectacular. We actually became pretty close with the staff at GC Pro.” That’s good, because GC Pro is a national presence and Jafif plans to open additional Strike 10 venues, already scouting locations in the South and the Northeast. “We’re really comfortable with GC Pro, so they’re the ones we’d turn to,” he says.

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

===

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.

Best of AES 2014: Mackie DL32R

GC Pro has returned from a tremendously successful 2014 Audio Engineering Society (AES) show, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center not very far from our headquarters in Westlake Village, CA. We'll be taking a closer look at a number of products that we found especially interesting, useful, or just plain cool. Here's a new product that encompasses all three qualities: the Mackie DL32R 32-channel wireless digital mixer with iPad control.

Everything from Anywhere
We live in amazing times, especially if you work in pro audio and live sound. Take the Mackie DL32R... a 32-channel digital mixer that you control via your iPad. But wait; it's also a direct-to-drive multitrack recorder/playback tool. But wait; it's also jam-packed with digital signal processing. But wait; the whole thing is contained in a 3U rackmount enclosure. So while we were a bit skeptical toward Mackie's "Control everything from anywhere" claim with the DL32R, we have to admit: that's pretty much exactly what it does, and now your live sound venue, house of worship, or studio can do it too.

32-channel wireless digital mixer
The DL32R starts with 32 Onyx+ recallable mic pres with wireless control. It's got the professional interfacing you need, including 14 fully-assignable XLR outputs and a stereo AES digital output. All settings on the DL32R can be recalled for future use. Its 3U rackmount design is perfect for both touring or a permanent installation, and it has an expansion card slot.

Wireless Mixing: the FOH mix position is now wherever you are
You can ditch that cable snake, because you're not going to be tied down to anything with the DL32R. The reason? It operates wirelessly, giving you complete control from your iPad. Need to walk around the room and check null points and dead spots? Carry your iPad and adjust your mix while you move through the room. Need to set up a personal monitor mix? You can use multiple iPads, iPhones, or iPod touches (up to 10 separate iOS devices at once), and let the performers tweak their own IEM or stage wedge mix. Now your only question is where to put that mixer (answer: wherever you want).

Multi-track recording & playback
The DL32R offers 32x32 USB 2.0 audio interfaces for Mac or PC, as well as 24x24 recording/playback direct to USB 2.0 hard drive. Do you get wireless control over all direct-to-disk recording/playback functions via the iPad? Of course you do. And how can you use this capability? How about recording your live shows for later mixdown? Or perhaps playing back intermission music and backing tracks? Or doing virtual sound checks to tune the venue before the band has even arrived? This capability might allow the DL32R to be the centerpiece of your studio. You can even use Mac or PC audio plug-ins in a live environment.

DSP? Yeah baby!
The DL32R is packed with digital signal processing and flexible routing that you'll need for live sound, including 36 input channels with 4-band PEQ + HPF, gate and compression. You also get 32 stereo-linkable input channels, 28 output busses with 4-band PEQ + HPF/LPF, 31-band GEQ, comp/limiter and alignment delay, and much more.

Master Fader control app
Your main way of connecting your ears and your brain to the DL32R is via the Master Fader app, an intuitive and easy-to-master app for your iPad. You get fast navigation with view groups and overview, and a quick setup with tons of factory and user-definable presets. You can limit access as needed to prevent any unwanted adjustments (like, by the guy who wants to use your iPad to update Twitter). And like any app, Mackie can quickly offer updates via the Apple App Store.

About the only thing you need to provide to take advantage of the DL32R is an iPad and a Wi-Fi router. Along with those, you really can control everything from anywhere. Well, reasonably speaking. Don't try and mix a show in Cleveland from Chicago. That's just bad form.

GC Pro Knows Live Sound!
From bars and nightclubs to restaurants and houses of worship, GC Pro's representatives are experts on helping you put together the ultimate live sound system within your budget. The Mackie DL32R seems like an excellent addition to just about any live sound environment, so contact us now and get more information, or pre-order it today!