MIDRAND, South Africa — The visual appearance of a radio personality, or his or her surroundings, might seem to matter little more than the timbre of a silent film star’s voice. Even so, Yebo Radio studios at Vodaworld here opted for an architectural upgrade that transcends what most people picture when viewing TV shows like WKRP and Frasier.
Glass, gobos gliding over white floors and walls, color changing lighting from Martin smartMAC luminaires, a bar in the foyer — all were part of the work of Gerrie Swart of Secelec Consulting Engineers, whose brief from Tom London and Umayya Theba of Yebo Radio was to make the studio a “funky and exciting” place for 12-25 year olds.
“It certainly has been the most exciting project I’ve ever worked on in terms of lighting”, said Swart, adding that the Martin gear offered “all the components the client was hoping for.”
Presented with Swart’s CAD drawing, Electrosonic arranged a demo of Martin gear for Swart and his clients, London and Theba, as well as the Yebo Studio Design Engineer, Barry Geldenhuis.
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“Electrosonic’s demo room was really impressive, and they showed us all aspects of the products before we made a decision on what to use. They also had some very good ideas and improvements on some of our ideas,” Swart said.
“Some of the things we wanted to do would have been too expensive and even though we pretty much had carte blanche, we still had to keep to a budget. In the end, I think we achieved a great finished product while still keeping the cost as low as possible.
“Barry and his team of designers were a tremendous help in making possible some of our more quirky ideas for the lighting of the studio glass walls and the equipment room,” Swart added. “Electrosonic’s installation progressed smoothly and the finished result is truly impressive.”
In selecting the right lighting for the application, Electrosonic proposed LED as well as Martin smartMAC moving heads and Stagebar 54s. The smartMAC was an obvious choice for the environment because heat is not an issue with them and they are silent.
Robbi Nassi of Electrosonic, who programmed the smartMACs via a Martin LightJockey running off a scheduler, said “This was a very exciting project as it was the first time we’ve ever used moving light fixtures inside of a radio studio where the surrounding environment has to be dead silent. The smartMAC worked perfectly for this application.
“The programming was time consuming, as one could not see all the smartMACS from the point of control as the LightJockey is installed in the main rack room,” Nassi added. “With the help of Kobus Visser from Electrosonic and a mobile phone, we managed to finish the programming with a satisfying result for the client.”
On entering the studio, visitors are greeted with “yebo” gobos creating patterns on the walls and floor. The three smartMACs and two Stagebars installed in this area are programmed to change color slowly for the right ambience. The main function of the Stagebars is to highlight the high-tech-looking equipment racks, which are visible from the foyer through a curved glass wall.
LED tubes and FLEDs — for signage and creating movement through slow color changes — were installed between the double glazed studio windows, as well as inside the front face of the studio desks, behind the acoustic panels and in between the system racks.
The two studios — an on-air studio and a production studio — both have smartMACs programmed to move even more slowly than in the foyer area and in such a way that the movement of the gobos over the desks, walls and floor does not disturb the DJs or guests.
Gobos are also in play at the bar, which is additionally lit with LED FLEDs installed inside hollow white shelving with opaque Perspex panels.
The various stages of the installation had to be closely coordinated with regard to construction progress and were completed in three phases:
Phase 1 provided for all the power and data cabling to be installed, labeled and fitted with connectors. In phase 2, the flexible LED strips were installed. Custom aluminum channels were cut and bent to accept the flexible LED strips which were installed at the base of the glass walls surrounding the staircase and boardroom, as well as at the rear of the acoustic panels inside the two studios. This made for a strong, extremely aesthetically pleasing installation. A double row of FLED was installed inside the cavity of the studios’ soundproof windows and hidden below an opaque Perspex cover in the base. Directly in front of these windows are a number of decorative hollow curved ‘ribs’, inside which a single row of FLED was installed behind the same opaque Perspex.
Then came the smartMACs in phase 3…
The ceilings in the foyer area were finished in a standard skimmed plasterboard, and fiberglass acoustic tiles were installed in the studios. Extra steel support was bolted to the main roof structure to bear the smartMACs, thus giving the illusion that the fixtures were ‘floating’ off the ceiling.
And finally, the Martin LightJockey was installed on one of the PCs housed in the main rack room, but is also accessible from a networked PC situated inside the broadcast studio. A number of lighting scenes and chases were programmed to meet the client’s requirements. Power control of the lights, start and end times of the program, was achieved using the onboard Time Scheduler.
Lighting equipment:
6 x Martin smartMAC™
2 x Martin Stagebar 54™
1 x Martin LightJockey™ Scheduler
For more information please visit www.martin.com.
