The VLVT underground
Published: ASIA
Mongolia has achieved its first Funktion One installation courtesy of Ulaanbaatar’s VLVT Members Club, but the installation was challenging...
VLVT Members Club arrived in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, in September, with the clear objective of offering something never before seen in the country. For the owners, it’s all about delivering a unique experience – through the venue’s different spaces, distinctive service, luxurious décor and its cutting-edge technology. For each element to reach its true value, every other element has to meet a particular standard. Which is why, when a top-end sound system was being sought, the first port of call was ‘local’ Funktion-One distributor, Edelweiss Audio.
However, the word ‘local’ is somewhat of a stretch. To reach Ulaanbaatar from Edelweiss’s Moscow headquarters, you must cross a sizeable chunk of Russia, leapfrog Kazakhstan, and tot up nearly 3,000 miles in the process. But, despite the distance, when technical director Andrei Kremenchugskiy was approached by Funktion-One about the project, he was quick to commit his interest.
‘Bill Woods (Funktion-One business development director) contacted me about a year ago and said there might be a project in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia,’ recalls Mr Kremenchugskiy. ‘There wasn’t anybody nearby who could install the system, so he asked if we would be interested. I had a five minute chat with our guys and everybody was very excited about the possibility, so we answered straightaway and told Bill we were ready to do it – we were very interested in going to Mongolia.
‘It’s a very mysterious place. Historically, it’s very closely related to Russia – we have a lot of common history and most Russians have some Mongolian blood in them. Yet it’s the kind of place we wouldn’t normally go to. And from a business point of view, we’d never done work anywhere abroad, so it was a new experience for us.’
Edelweiss Audio was, at the time, in the middle of two huge installations in Sochi, supplying sizeable sound systems to venues that will be used during the Winter Games 2014. But the draw of Mongolia’s history, the intrigue towards VLVT’s ambitious plans and the opportunity to bring a new level of professional audio to the country, proved more than enough to quickly convince them of the 5,600 mile round trip.
Mr Kremenchugskiy made the journey twice. Initially, at the end of April 2013, he visited the site and met the owners and general manager, Marc Duvauchelle. The objective was to determine where cables could be run and, referencing plans supplied by Funktion-One, work out exact loudspeaker positions. Consequently, it was decided that Edelweiss would supply all the cabling and connectors for the installation.
The second visit came at the end of August. By then, the venue was taking shape. Its three rooms – VIP, cocktail bar and restaurant, and nightclub – were established and reaching the latter, decorative stages. The Edelweiss Audio team arrived to find an extremely busy site and an unexpected challenge. While the Funktion-One delivery had arrived – by air, via Seoul – the cabling had been held up at customs, where it would remain for a further three days.
Unperturbed, Mr Kremenchugskiy and his team used the time to assess the venue in its more complete state and then mobilised with extra determination once the kit arrived, adopting an unconventional work schedule in a bid for maximum productivity.
‘We would start at eight or nine o’clock in the evening and normally we’d finish at about four or five in the morning,’ reveals Mr Kremenchugskiy. ‘The site was very crowded. They were doing lots of things at the same time – putting lights in, fitting the furniture, doing these small podiums and interviewing people. It was much more comfortable for us to work during the night.’
After running all the cable – a task that was made easier by a local worker who earned the nickname Spiderman thanks to his strength and ability to navigate tricky spaces – the team set about placing the speakers. In terms of ambience, the VIP room is the most laid-back and has a speaker set-up to reflect that. A total of 10 Funktion-One F81s cover the bar and seating areas. The compact speakers offer high output from a relatively small enclosure, utilising 1-inch and 8-inch drivers for bass definition and high vocal intelligibility. Two Funktion-One MB112s provide bass extension – their compact size being sympathetic to the dimensions of the space, while offering impact in their performance.
The adjacent cocktail bar and restaurant offers another conversational setting, but when it is needed the system is more than capable of raising the energy of the room. A DJ station at the end of the space has been equipped with two Pioneer CDJ-200 Nexus DJ stations and a DJM-900 Nexus mixer, while an MB112 bass enclosure and two Funktion-One F1201 speakers handle DJ monitoring. Four Funktion-One F81s combine with two MB212 double 12-inch bass enclosures to form the main system.
The nightclub space is dominated by a central, 360-degree bar and an island DJ station. Two Funktion-One Resolution 2 loudspeakers point into the centre of the room from fairly wide positions. This allows the 50-degree horizontal dispersion to fill the centre of the room. The Resolution 2 is an entirely horn loaded, surprisingly compact, full range loudspeaker enclosure. Its driver complement comprises a 15-inch for bass, an 8-inch for midrange and a 1-inch for high frequencies.
The Res 2s are supplemented by six F1201 speakers, while lower bass frequencies are supplied by two F218 double 18-inch bass enclosures. Control is handled by three Funktion One XO4 and one XO2 audio management systems – manufactured by XTA. The amp rack features two E100, four E45 and five E15 amplifiers – manufactured by MC2.
‘It’s an interesting venue and it’s stylish,’ says Mr Kremenchugskiy. ‘You can tell it’s been designed by somebody who knows what they’re doing. I enjoyed the whole project. Going back through history, Mongolia and Russia have enjoyed a good relationship and I felt proud to bring a bit of Russia back there.’
Funktion-One’s Bill Woods adds: ‘This is the first Funktion-One installation in Mongolia, so we're breaking new ground, which is always pleasing. As we understand it, the country is fairly undeveloped, in terms of professional audio, so we're happy that we're able showcase the way we believe things should be done. It's a brilliant venue and it's been a great project for us.’