Albatross Leisure - Lighthouse - Edinburgh

The Lighthouse is the newest and trendiest waterside bar/restaurant to open in Edinburgh’s lively, regenerated Leith docklands area, now a buzzing social hub in the north of the City. Locally-based audio installer SI Sound & Light was asked by the venue’s owner, local entrepreneur Robert Orr, to design, specify and install sound throughout. To help achieve the desired high quality sound results, SI’s Neil Silver turned to both Arbiter Pro Audio for JBL speakers, and ADLIB Audio for their AA enclosures to supply specific equipment to the different areas.

The venue is divided into two totally separate spaces - downstairs is a mezzanine restaurant and different bar areas, and upstairs there’s a function room suite available for private hires.

Downstairs:

Downstairs at the Lighthouse is an open plan design with large windowed frontage onto the street, overlooking the water. At the back are two more secluded rooms with seats and tables, and up above on the mezzanine level is a restaurant, serving modern European cuisine. Neil has worked on several other projects with Orr in the past, and the client believes ‘good sound’ is at the essence of creating the right ambience in his various night establishments across the city. With SI Sound & Light known for their attention to detail in sound designs, there’s a winning combination at work! Neil chose JBL Control 25AV speakers to distribute sound downstairs – 29 of them in total, together with seven JBL Control 23Ts. The Control 25 AVs were selected because of the small size/ample power ratio. Neil sought a tightly focussed full range box, so it could appear that every table in the seated bar areas and restaurant has it’s own individual speaker. “The 25Avs are unbeatable for this type of installation” he comments. The Control 25Avs also have an inbuilt transformer aloowing them to be run as 110 volt line, and adding to their dynamic as a distributed speaker. Naturally, aesthetics were equally as important as quality! Downstairs sound is configured into 8 zones and controlled very precisely via an Allen & Heath iDr system. The music-scape is tightly controlled throughout the day, varying in the different areas of the venue, and specific to the time of day and mood and nature of the clientele. Each zone and area has its own precise localised EQ, volume and other system controls, and the A & H system generally has also enabled them to optimise the JBL speakers ever further.

Upstairs:

The upstairs is available for all types of private hires – from weddings to corporate parties - and has already proved popular as an after-show venue for several film premiers at the Edinburgh Film Festival. The intimate space features a bar, seated area, small dancefloor and DJ booth. The main challenges fo sound were to keep the different areas – all in very close proximity – separated. Here ADLIB Audio supplied SI with a selection of their own speaker brand, including two FD2P top boxes and six AA15BP bass enclosures. Neil then added some JBL Control 30Avs. Six of the stalwart Control 25Avs are used for fill in the seated area. The largest of the JBL ‘Contractor’ series, the 30Avs are used for fillers in the stage area, picked for their solid, “healthy” sound throughout the range elucidates Neil. The beauty of the AA15BPs explains Neil, is their compact size – for a bass speaker – which enables them to be slotted under the low stage, tidily tucked out the way. The two top boxes are flown left and right of the stage, positioned to serve as PA for a live act, or be panned out to fill the dance floor during a DJ set.