Design Technik Delivers The Pinnacle of Acoustic Performance for Flagship AEG VenueAEG Presents, the live music and event division of global entertainment and sports powerhouse AEG Worldwide, extended its portfolio of dozens of active tours, more than 30 festivals and nearly 50 performance venues with the debut of its flagship venue in Nashville, The Pinnacle. Now celebrating a highly successful first year of business that saw artists ranging from Eric Church to Paul McCartney grace its stage, The Pinnacle is located in the cosmopolitan Nashville Yards mixed-use 19-acre urban development zone. The 4,500-seat venue is a premier space for the presentation of a full range of concerts from solo acoustic nights to bluegrass, country, rock and EDM, plus spoken word, award ceremonies, showcases and private events. Acoustics and architecture specialists Design Technik were tasked with ensuring that interaction with the room did not compromise the sublime sonic potential of The Pinnacle's flexible, powerful L-Acoustics professional sound system. Cameron Marcotte, VP of AEG real estate development, guides design and construction for all AEG Presents projects. "Specifically on The Pinnacle," she shares, "I had a hand in initial site selection all the way through handing it over to our tenants. In between, I'm selecting our vendor partners, such as Design Technik to guide us in acoustics, and ensuring that we're meeting our end-use programmatic goals." The choice for audio provider was a no-brainer, says Marcotte. "L-Acoustics is a premium creator of professional sound technology, and just a fantastic company to work with. They are actually our neighbors in Nashville Yards." In addition to The Pinnacle, AEG built an adjacent 10-story office building with AEG Presents sharing the fourth floor with L-Acoustics' new operations and creative hub for the Americas. Design Technik, rapidly emerging as an acknowledged innovator after building a devoted client base across near 20 years of business while refining its unique approach and solutions, was one of a select few acoustics firms being considered. "We go into each market focused on a singular venue," says Marcotte, with a tailored approach for the locale. "We like a smaller, nimble company," she says of vetting the firms. "We want a company that can grow with us because we're growing so rapidly as well. Design Technik had no lack of knowledge or know-how, are absolutely smaller and nimble, while having done such large projects." Bonus elements for AEG were Design Technik's having local personnel and its belief in the importance of its clients' understanding both the steps and techniques that would be implemented to reach the design goals and their scientific basis. "It's a different level than I've seen off of people's cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf solutions," says Marcotte. "Whether patron or artist, everyone who stood on that stage or heard the room has said, 'This sounds fantastic'." Design Technik collaborated on L-Acoustics' own demo and training space at Rock Lititz, as well as the new Americas regional headquarters in Nashville. L-Acoustics' sonic design philosophy, as shared by BJ Shaver, director of sales at L-Acoustics, is to "provide a blank canvas that allows the engineer to translate the artistry of the performance on stage. The room should be the support or easel for the artwork." Leading the realization of that blank acoustic canvas was Design Technik's CEO and founder Kevin Lee Hughes, bringing his 34 years of deliberately cultivated experience and his drive for every job to advance the knowledge and skills to be brought to the next. "This kind of venue," says Hughes, "is designed for modern music, amplified sound - very loud amplified sound, potentially -- we measured 123dB peaks at 40-50Hz for an EDM show. Shows here can range from intimate to powerful." While bass traps were installed under the front of the stage to neutralize the hollow space, Hughes reveals that "decades ago, I would have put bass traps in the rear of the hall and used traditional acoustic panels elsewhere. The technology that we developed and now use allows us to tune from sub-low through high frequencies, controlling the room's response using the whole surface of a wall." There are also, he adds, "parts of the room that we strategically left a little or a lot more alive, so the audience has a natural, comfortable feeling as we strived to harmonize sound and space." "Our technologies were developed to transform the wall into a holistic acoustic solution," says Hughes. "We're looking at every surface and considering what do we do to that surface to achieve our goals -- asking 'How do we maintain the aesthetic integrity of the space while actually doing something beneficial?'" On stage, Design Technik's proprietary system of treatments wraps the full stage to deck. "For a modern high-SPL live venue, it's important to control stage volume and absorb the sound energy projecting off the back of the PA, including cardioid and end-fire systems. This approach helps to present a clear coherent sound to the audience. We achieve full-range control on stage with minimal loss to space. For The Pinnacle, we really worked to minimize sound reflecting off the stage walls back to the audience. In the case of that space, there's no benefit to it." Into the hall, the approach was to "make the full-range sound pressure of the sound system breathe effortlessly through the room," Hughes explains. "Each end of the room is not anechoic, but as close as we should get. We don't have low-range main or sub energy reflecting off the upstage wall and interfering with the PA. We don't have the same issue with the venue rear walls canceling low-frequency and interfering with the audience's experience. EDM music punches all the way to the back of the balcony and doesn't come back. With bluegrass double bass, you have a balanced, full-range and effortless push to the rear of the hall." Every seat, Hughes says, has a similar experience. "What the sound engineer hears and what the audience hears is very close to the same." "On a project like this," elaborates Luke Lasater, senior design engineer at Design Technik, "to control the frequency bands that are particularly problematic, we need to cover large surfaces. One of the ways that we do that is by installing the acoustic system into the building itself, directly onto the studs." The acoustic solution thus becomes the visible finish of the surface, which can even save a project money. Part of the job, says Lasater, is "making sure that those acoustic finishes blend in with the interior design vision of the space." AEG's Marcotte describes the final results at The Pinnacle as "such a clean looking install. You really don't know it's there. It just goes away. And that's exactly what we want out of our acoustical treatment. It looks great. It sounds great. What more could you ask for?" Lauren Laramee, senior production manager at The Pinnacle, relocated from Red Rocks to Nashville to manage the space. "This is the flagship for AEG, the actual pinnacle for AEG," she concludes (noting the pun). "The feedback from artists and engineers has been overwhelmingly positive -- not only for audio clarity, but also for comfort and feel of the room. It's the gem of Nashville. We are the talk of the town." The sound system at The Pinnacle is a substantial L-Acoustics rig. The main left/right hangs are 12 of L-Acoustics "extremely rider-friendly" per Laramee, -- K2 four-way cabinets per side with eight double-18" woofer KS28 subwoofers flown behind each K2 hang. L-Acoustics' new LA7.16i 16-channel, 2RU power amps, with integral DSP, drive the system, delivering the resolution to "tailor the vertical coverage to the audience geometry," says Shaver, "which means the front to back tonality is a lot more consistent." A host of additional L-Acoustics loudspeakers is said to ensure even coverage throughout the venue and stage monitoring as needed. The video wall and L-Acoustics hangs are on trolleys to be able to adapt for any type of event, or moved out if a band is carrying their own PA. Steele Beaty, application engineer at L-Acoustics who's focused on the Midwest and Southwest regions, says he's followed up on L-Acoustics installations in quite a few Design Technik rooms this year, including The Pinnacle. "There's a thoughtfulness to them when you walk in," he notes. "There's a lot of science behind them. To get a room to behave - full bandwidth, full spectrum -- that's not an accident. It's art. It's science." An early date as The Pinnacle opened its doors featured Eric Church performing, live for the first time, material from his latest album, Evangeline vs. The Machine. The show comfortably accommodated a huge stage presence with Church's band, string and horn sections and a live choir, all captured by a sizable video crew with a multitrack audio recording. Benjamin Rigby, front-of-house engineer for Church, says that from his initial listen, "it was pretty evident that the audio team had put in a lot of work." And he was equally pleased with the rig. "It's always a good day when you have L-Acoustics hanging," he continues. At soundcheck, "It was quickly dialed in and when the band came in, I was able to focus on them." "The system had "tons of headroom," Rigby says, and "minimal coupling with low end when you walked the room. It's not all building up at the front of house." "This new album is just so delicate and had to be represented," he says. "The crowd," he says, were "able to hear every little detail like the shakers and the trumpet fills, the French horns. It was a great experience." "We had a lot of open mics on the stage," shares Nathan Lowe, the monitor mixer for Eric Church and his band. "The choir was all on individual handhelds, the string mics... and even with all that, it was not too difficult to get the kind of isolation we needed. The acoustics were really stable; it wasn't too live. We weren't getting any weird reflections off the back wall on stage or anything coming down from the roof." "I've got a lot of audience mics in Eric's ears as he likes crowd interaction. There's a lot of call and response type stuff. If it's a really live room or the acoustics are poor, you get more of the PA slapping back on stage than you do the actual audience." At The Pinnacle, "it was much easier to hear the crowd when Eric was performing. He's always happy when the crowd is like in his face in his ears." 
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