AES-NYC, March 9, 2009 @ Le Poisson Rouge Standing, L-R: David Kotch, David Bialik, Richie Clark, Sandy Macdonald (this is the correct spelling) Sitting, L-R: Joe Caruso, Justin Cantor, Joshua Morris
Our meeting was a technical tour of Le Poisson Rouge, one of New York's newest entertainment venues.
Located on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, it occupies the space of the legendary "Village
Gate" nightclub which flourished throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties. The new club is billed
as a "multimedia art cabaret' offering a mix of classical and popular music. Art exhibitions and films
are also presented.
Co-owner Justin Cantor explained that both he and partner David Handler are classically-trained musicians.
They wanted to build the right setting to hear music of all kinds, which proved to be a big challenge in many
ways. Not the least of these was maintaining a friendly acoustic relationship with the ten floors of residential tenants who occupy the rest of the building, while presenting both acoustic and amplified music at "appropriately loud" levels. The most recent nightclub on the site had been shut down due to numerous complaints of high noise levels throughout the rest of the building.
Joshua Morris of Walters Storyk Design Group was project manager and one of the designers. He mentioned that WSDG principal John Storyk had fond memories of the original club and wanted to preserve that vibe.
Morris said that new support spaces were added to the 1958 design, including a bar/lounge adjacent to the stage but acoustically isolated from it. The existing columns defined the configuration of the new adjustable stage as well as speaker locations. The club features a speaker system which is adjustable from 2.0 through 7.4 channels from the corner-stage position. Many techniques were employed to acoustically isolate the club from the rest of the building, such as installing sound locks, filling in voids, and making curtains available at the back wall of the stage.
David Kotch supervised acoustics and sound system design for WSDG and also served as project manager for the installer, Masque Sound. Low-frequency transmission was a primary concern, as the previous night club in the space had violated municipal noise ordinances. The elevator shafts were the primary culprits, and were treated with new doors. New partitions, mechanically isolated from the floors, were provided throughout the spaces. The new sound system design criteria spanned presentations ranging from unamplified classical music through hip hop and cinema. 48-channel ProTools recording capability as well as iPhone-based DJ facilities were provided. The adjacent lounge can be running in DJ mode while the main space has a rock act in progress with no acoustic crossover. Kotch noted that the original overhead rigging capability was compromised by poor holding strength. This determined new speaker locations. I beams were added for speaker support, and a 48 by 3 splitting system was installed at the main stage. There are 32 speaker positions throughout the venue. Various methods were employed to yield a clear, well-imaged sound presentation with no unwanted vibration.
We heard playbacks demonstrating 2.0 and 5.1-channel projects.
—Report by Joel Spector
