Comfort & Confidence
Wider in its balcony section than on the main floor, the 9:30 Club is unique in its line array configuration.
“What’s different about this PA hang is that it’s inverted,” Vitale points out, noting that the d&b boxes with wider horizontal coverage are mounted at the top of the arrays rather than at the bottom to better match the natural contours of the floor plan.
“The system wasn’t really specified to be built that way,” he continues, “but I suggested the possibility to Eighth Day Sound during the build and they were game for trying it.”
“Since the farthest throw to the back wall is about 60 feet, we reasoned that we could put more effort in expanding the horizontal coverage where it was most needed. As things turned out, it worked.”
While Vitale admits that the club could probably have been well-served by enclosures more compact than the J Series, there have been no regrets about the choice.
Instantly recognized by most visiting artists, the cabinets provide a level of comfort and confidence onstage requiring no explanation or further discussion.
“Depending upon the music, with some more subs this rig could easily do a small shed,” Vitale notes. “For this room, the scale is such that we met our needs when we first installed it, and will have plenty of room to grow.”
In the current cratered economy, the rig has additionally made even more sense as touring bands do everything they can to cut production costs to the bone, bringing fewer and fewer semitrailers up to the loading dock.
Knowing that everything they’ll need will already be in place at the club when they get there, it’s an easier choice to make when they decide to leave their own gear behind.
Flexible Arrangement
To address the individual needs of the various- sized shows passing through, the 9:30 Club system gains added flexibility thanks to an inherent nature that is adaptable, scalable, and moveable.
Spanning almost 28 feet from floor to ceiling, the room has plenty of exposed structural steel of its own to offer a multitude of flypoints.
Conversely, the house system’s own aluminum truss is hung via chain motors to a pair of moving beam crawlers, which can be used to pull the entire assembly up to 20 feet forward from the back wall using two unpowered dollies to support the upstage sections of the entire affair.
Set to roll with the flow on their own dollies, the subs obediently follow wherever the main arrays may need them.
Not to be left out, the stage itself was also built to easily be rolled along the same path everything else takes.