Heroes Camp Recovers from Devastating Windstorm Damage

One of the basketball court spaces at Heroes Camp in Mishawaka, Indiana, featuring gear sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

— Faith-based sports ministry suffers massive damage as a result of a severe windstorm, and GC Pro and its AV integration affiliate Accutronics step up and stay with the organization through 15 grueling months of rebuilding, culminating in a joyful reopening in September —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, October 6, 2015 — The winds came on the night of July 1, 2014, and what they left in their wake was devastating. Heroes Camp, a sports ministry in Mishawaka, Indiana, that for 26 years has provided guidance and activities for area youth with its three basketball courts, a kitchen, locker rooms, a recording studio, and even a barbershop, had its ceilings torn down and its floors flooded. Over the next 15 months, Heroes Camp battled back, culminating in a grand reopening on September 12. Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts, along with its Affiliates Program partner Accutronics LLC, was happy to be part of that miraculous comeback.

GC Pro sourced a wide variety of audio, video and lighting products and systems, including a QSC PA system, Da-Lite projection equipment, Shure and Sennheiser microphones, Atlona video products, Rapco cabling and Mid Atlantic racking. Many of these products were delivered through the Mishawaka Guitar Center store, which had long been a supplier for Heroes Camp’s MI needs, and they were installed and integrated by Accutronics.

Ryan Nigh, GC Pro Account Manager, remembers that he, Accutronics Owner Mike Love and Heroes Camp Executive Director Patrick “P.J.” Perri were just about finished with the paperwork for some upgrades to Heroes Camp’s existing systems along with some new products when the winds struck overnight. The next morning revealed the extent of the damage. What had been a relatively small upgrade project now turned into a recovery and rebuilding task, with substantial support from the community that Heroes Camp had been part of for a quarter of a century. “PJ had sent me a video of the damage and it was terrible,” Nigh recalls. “We all got together and determined what could be salvaged and what needed to be replaced. We were putting together a plan that would get them back to where they had been before the storm and then some, as cost-effectively as possible, because throughout the entire time they were also battling with insurance companies.” Nigh credits Toby Klingler, Manager of the Mishawaka Guitar Center store, for giving local store support, and logistics coordinator Jon Newby, for handling all of the special orders and shipping. “Everyone gave a hundred percent to get Heroes Camp back on its feet,” he says.

The recording studio space at Heroes Camp in Mishawaka, Indiana, featuring gear sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

PJ Perri concurs, citing GC Pro’s experience dealing with insurance issues. “They understood the critical difference between contents and structure,” he explains; how, for instance, a speaker on the floor can be considered in the contents category but once it’s hung from a wall or a truss it becomes part of a building’s structure — a critical distinction to an insurance adjustor eyeing liability limits. “I was very impressed with the knowledge and insight they were able to bring about insurance matters. That was very helpful.” And Perri was also happy with GC Pro’s choice of integrator, noting how Accutronics’ Mike Love was able to make the facility’s recording studio look better than ever. “It looks as good as it sounds,” says Perri. “He hid the wiring very artfully and everyone who comes in comments on the sleekness of the studio. Everyone involved was just awesome.”

“I was happy to help,” says Ryan Nigh. “GC Pro has been around a long time and we’ve accumulated a lot of experience – not just in professional AV but in everything connected with it,” he says. “But it was especially gratifying to see Heroes Camp come back, and see how the community and companies like Nike, Foot Locker and even the Chicago Bulls come together to help, because this was all for a much greater cause. We were glad to be part of that.”

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.

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.

ESPI 10.29 Studios in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico

The main control room at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

— Equipment purchase and installation was carried out by GC Pro Affiliate Program member Malvicino Design Group —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 26, 2015 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, recently collaborated with GC Pro Affiliate Program member Horacio Malvicino of the New York-based Malvicino Design Group, on the design, outfitting and commissioning of the private production facility for Mexican regional music star Espinoza Paz. The vast majority of the multi-room facility’s audio equipment was sourced for the Malvicino Group through Javier Willis, Account Manager at the San Diego, California GC Pro office. The facility, named ESPI 10.29 Studios, is located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The new three-story construction houses Paz’s private offices, a lounge and a large kitchen and dining room seating two dozen on the ground floor; two control rooms and a large tracking space with three isolation rooms on the second floor; and guest accommodations on the top floor.

The main control room is outfitted with a 48-input Solid State Logic Duality mixing console, a 48-track Avid Pro Tools|HDX3 system and a Studer A827 Gold Edition 24-track analog tape machine, Ocean Way Audio HR2 main monitors and racks of outboard processing. The second control room houses a 24-fader AMS Neve Genesys mixing console and another Pro Tools rig.

Views of the 24-fader AMS Neve Genesys mixing console and other gear in the second control room at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

“My idea was to come up with a studio on par with anything in the U.S. I think it’s some of my best work,” says Malvicino, who has more than two decades of experience providing acoustical, architectural and technical systems design to recording studios and other production facilities around the world. Malvicino says that he was given carte blanche by the artist regarding equipment choices as well as room layout and technical, acoustic and interior design.

“I’ve been in the Latin music business for many years and I’m connected with a lot of producers,” Javier Willis reports. “In 2013 one of my producer friends brought me to Espinoza’s manager, who was in the process of shopping around. We hit it off and started ordering the equipment. We then brought Horacio in for the studio design and the equipment integration and installation.”

Malvicino notes, “Banda music requires a lot of people playing live, so I wanted to build a room that allowed a lot of people to record together, with variable acoustics. The panels on the side wall swivel; they have absorption on one side and reflection on the other side. You can change the RT [reverberation time] in the room by about 25 percent.” TADI, the Mexico City-based exclusive manufacturer of acoustic treatments for Malvicino’s projects worldwide, supplied the acoustic treatment at this new facility and additionally acted as the general contractor and interior designer. “The live room ceiling is 21 feet high, so we outfitted it with condenser mics hanging in specific locations so that they can not only use close miking but also the room. And they can bring in a couple of large format P.A. speakers, feed them the mix, crank up the listen mics and use the studio as a live chamber,” he said.

ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

A view of the tracking room (background) and console (Solid State Logic Duality mixing console), main monitors (Ocean Way Audio HR2 main monitors) and other components in the main control room, at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

Malvicino elected to install Ocean Way Audio HR2 monitors, driven by Lab.gruppen and QSC Audio amplification, in the main control room. He consulted with Ocean Way founder Allen Sides to ensure optimum performance in the space, which is 32 feet deep with a 21-foot ceiling. “That’s the first time I’ve done soffit-mounted Ocean Way monitors,” says Malvicino. “They sound incredible—so good that the engineers are having a hard time working on the near fields.” Both control rooms feature Neumann KH 310 near field monitors with KH 810 subwoofers; ADAM and Yamaha NS10 speakers are alternatively available.

“The outboard gear is what you would expect,” he continues, including rack units from Empirical Labs, GML, TubeTech and Universal Audio. “They like a warm sound so I included a bunch of Chandler EMI compressors and mic preamps. There’s Bricasti and Lexicon reverbs, and a lot of 500 Series modules—API, Burl Audio, Grace Audio, Little Labs and SSL.”

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.

Metro City Church Expands with D.A.S. Audio

The view from the front-of-house position at the new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 24, 2015 — Several years ago, Metro City Church, located in the Detroit metropolitan area, outfitted its 900-seat sanctuary with a system of Aero Series 2 products from Spanish manufacturer D.A.S. Audio with assistance from Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Building on the success of that project, the church recently returned to GC Pro to purchase a second D.A.S. system for a new campus and its touring praise band.

Metro City Church is a very modern organization, employing the latest technology and media, especially music, to engage its congregation, which reportedly numbers about 1,500 people each weekend. According to Paul Johnson, GC Pro Senior Account Manager in Detroit, “Music plays a vital role in their worship services because it’s a great way to be relevant to their congregants. They have a praise band—Alive—that reaches out to hundreds of high school students.” Alive is also the name of the church’s high school division, which meets every Sunday night and addresses the local Downriver community of ninth through twelfth grade students.

Toward the end of 2012, Johnson, together with Paul Long, a Guitar Center Sales Associate based at the Southfield, Michigan store, in collaboration with Steve Trimble, D.A.S. Audio Regional Sales Manager, designed and installed a new sound system for the church after carefully considering the available options. Long, who is also on staff at Metro City as the church’s lead sound engineer, explains, “The church is very active with music, bringing bands in as well as it sending its own bands out, for probably 10 years now, so we see a lot of the equipment that’s being used. There were really three major companies—the top three brands that we’ve worked with on tours—that we were looking at, including D.A.S.”

The new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

The sanctuary at the church’s original campus in Taylor, Michigan, features D.A.S. Aero Series 2 powered line array components flown in an LCR configuration—three cabinets in the center with six hung at either side of the stage. Two D.A.S. LX-215A powered band-pass subwoofers and eight LX-218CA dual-18-inch high performance powered subwoofers are stacked to the left and right and are configured in cardioid arrays in order to reduce standing waves on the stage. A similar setup was ordered for the church’s new campus, located in the southern Detroit suburb of Riverview, including a total of 15 D.A.S. Aero 12A line array modules flown in an LCR configuration, and 12 LX-218CA dual-18-inch subs, along with dbx DriveRack VENU360 speaker processing. The systems at both the Taylor and Riverview campuses are similar, says Long, “But one thing that is a bit different is that we originally sold them Aero 12As and they have since modified and upgraded the system to include Aero 38As as well as Aero 12s. So it’s more of a hybrid system now.” The powered three-way Aero 38A module houses two 12-inch and two 10-inch speakers plus a 1.5-inch high frequency compression driver.
The latest upgrade also includes four Sennheiser G3 Evolution 900 series handheld mics, a pair of G3 wireless body pack transmitters and rackmount receivers and three DPA d:fine 4088 miniature cardioid headset mics. This purchase also includes band equipment, including Meinl cymbals and an Ampeg SVT head, and a variety of instrument microphones, most notably Shure Beta52A, Beta56A and Beta91A dynamics and an Audix DVICE drum mic mounting system.
In appreciation, the church made its facilities available to Guitar Center for multiple GC Pro Live Sound Expos in 2014 and 2015, featuring the latest products from many high-end manufacturers. “Metro City Church was the first to partner with us to do one of those events,” says Johnson. “That was a big deal—they opened up their church to us.”

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.

House-of-Worship Technology Seminars: Chicago, Detroit

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 12, 2015 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, is holding a series of seminars across the country focused on audio, video and lighting for house-of-worship facilities.

Upcoming events include two scheduled for September. The first, serving the Chicago area, will take place in Palatine, Illinois, at New Life Church (1200 W. Northwest Hwy.) on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The event serving the Detroit area will take place in Taylor, Michigan, at Metro City Church (21080 Penn St.) on Friday, September 11, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Join us for a technology seminar, covering the latest techniques and products in stage lighting, sound reinforcement, audio mixing and video for house of worship live production. GC Pro personnel will be on hand to lead the event and answer questions.

There is no charge and everyone is welcome to attend.

For more information on Guitar Center Professional's House of Worship events, visit this link.

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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.