Paradise City, located in Incheon, is the largest entertainment complex in South Korea, combining high-end hospitality with entertainment facilities.
C2 Artechnolozy (C2) was at the forefront of the design for the Paradise City phase 1-2 project, which includes Chroma, the largest nightclub in East Asia, encompassing three separate nightclubs, Wonderbox, an indoor amusement park, and the boutique hotel, Art Paradiso. As well as these, the vast complex also features an Art Garden and the Paradise Walk areas.
C2 was responsible for designing and supervising the audio, visual and lighting systems, as well as the design, development, and supervision of the EBGM system (Enhanced Background Music) for the entire resort.
The EBGM system is based on eight Ovation servers (one per building plus one for redundancy), Horus, and Hapi interfaces from Swiss manufacturer, Merging Technologies. The system is capable of up to 384KHz or DXD (DXD – Digital eXtreme Definition at 352.8KHz) via the AES67 RAVENNA network.
Utilising Apple’s iPad and Ovation’s Web Server functions, C2 designed the control interface so that each space within Paradise City can be individually controlled for its volume and channel, as well as for selecting sound sources of various genres through channel selection.
In order to reproduce differentiated sound sources with the highest quality, C2 chose Amadeus loudspeakers. The integrator chose Amadeus C Series – initially designed by Amadeus for the Paris-based Théâtre National de Chaillot (Chaillot National Theater) – PMX Series loudspeakers, and ABB 15 and ML12 Slim bespoke subwoofers. Powersoft power amplifiers are applied throughout the boutique hotel, Art Paradiso to power the loudspeaker system.
“As well as the Amadeus loudspeakers, there are d&b audiotechnik and L-Acoustics boxes used in the club. L-Acoustics is also used for the EBMG areas, such as the Plaza and Infinity Bar at the Cimer Spa – there are weatherproof Bose loudspeakers in the spa, too.”
The Art Gallery at Paradise City is equipped with hanging tracks, power, and network terminals, with Amadeus PMX 5 D and ML 12 D active loudspeakers to enable installation flexibility depending on the needs of the art installation. “The system uses the AES67 DXD format for the EBGM system as well as a separate operation using a Dante network,” explained Dongyup.
C2 studied the interior and architectural design of Paradise City with Professor Kim Ji-kyung of Tuneworx, and specified the ideal loudspeaker arrangement for each space.
In the Cimer Spa section of Paradise City, Amadeus PMX 5 and ML 12 Slim subwoofers were installed along with other complementary loudspeakers and audio equipment necessary for the indoor/outdoor environment.
There are two more buildings on either side of a wide square across from the hotel and spa buildings. One of the two buildings is the Wonderbox indoor amusement park. C2’s team managed the Wonderbox project: John Kim was Executive Manager; Suk-Hoon Lee was the Project Manager and designed all the audio, video and lighting systems including integration; and Taechan Moon was in charge of audiovisual construction. Joshua Jeon was in charge of whole 2D-3D design, and designers Eunjung Kim and Yunhee Choi and Jeongeun Choi worked on the 2D-3D simulation and design of the audiovisual system.
C2 collaborated with Canada-based Moment Factory, which is in charge of the content. Dongyup explained further: “For the Wonderbox, Moment Factory’s X-Agora media server plays multi-channel audio at 48KHz sample rate. There are also Ovation servers from Merging Technologies working as a master show controller. They control the X-Agora server with four sets of scheduled scenarios.”
Wonderbox is equipped with over 60 Amadeus loudspeakers with Powersoft amplifiers and six Ovation servers from Merging Technologies for the show control and audio control.
C2 equipped the main club with an SSL Live L500Plus, as well as a full complement of d&b audiotechnik loudspeakers including the new GSL Series. Staging equipment at Chroma was designed and implemented using products from StageOne and Kinetic Lights.
In Chroma, control comes from MA Lighting’s grandMA console, while a grandMA3 Light console is used for the special effects equipment.
The site-wide audio is driven from nine Merging Technology audio and control servers, running a combination of Merging Ovation software and custom control software. The system runs audio to over 25 different areas most with multiple sub-zones.
In order to make the selection of so much music easy to play, a bespoke remote control was designed, running a customised version of Merging Emotion software.
Audio inputs and outputs were handled using Merging Horus connection interfaces. These offer the highest quality conversion from networked audio to analogue.
To ensure audio was delivered glitch-free. the system used RAVENNA audio networking. RAVENNA is unique in that it can handle extremely high sample rates – up to 384KHz, much higher than other audio networking protocols such as Dante or AES67. RAVENNA also can support different profiles for passing audio across a network. Merging simply created a specific profile for it to run DXD audio.
Unlike conventional mono or stereo music delivery systems, Paradise City has areas where fully immersive sound is delivered, offering an enveloping sound track to visitors using multi-channel sound.
In addition to the site wide system, further playback systems are deployed in the Wonderbox indoor theme park. This uses a further 7 Merging Technology servers, running Merging Ovation and custom control software. The system delivers audio to an immersive system of 42 surround sound loudspeakers along and an additional high power screen system. Again this system uses highest quality DXD audio and is networked over RAVENNA with offers much higher resolution audio than network technologies.
“In Wonderbox, moving heads, fixed lights, such as spot and ellipsoidal fixtures, are controlled by a grandMA3 console. The grandMA network is configured with grandMA3 CompactXT and MA onPC, so it has complete redundancy.
“We used Luminex GigaCore 26i switching hubs, GrandMA3 2 port nodes, Luminex Ethernet-DMX 2 MKII truss and Luminex Ethernet-DMX 4 MKII truss nodes for network and DMX signal convert.
“The other lighting network controls the festoon lights, which are controlled by Art-Net from Moment Factory’s X-Agora Server. The rest of the area use normal interior lighting.”
“We’ve also used 16 Panasonic PT-RZ31K 31,000 ANSI lumen laser projectors and a disguise 4×4 pro media server for outdoor projection mapping. We’re operating projection mapping on the wall of Chroma – 52.6-metres by 27-metres – at the Chroma Square and Wonderbox – 70-metres by 20-metres – at the Art Garden. We’re also preparing interactive visual using motion tracking,” explained Dongyup.
“There are 14 Panasonic PT-RZ21K 21,000 ANSI lumen laser projectors and also, two Panasonic PT-RZ970 10,000 ANSI lumen laser projectors used for projection mapping on the Wonderbox logo that people can see when they enter through the entrance door.
“For the main club in the Chroma, we’ve designed and made moving LED panels for the centre and side screens on stage. The main club also features 274 sq metres of LED panels. The second club and water club are equipped with a 6.5-metres by two-metres and 13.5-metres by two-metres each. We applied 5,000-10,000 ANSI lumen Panasonic projectors for the rest of the small areas or for portable use.”
For visual control throughout the complex C2 used a combination of NovaStar MCTRL 660 LED controllers and RGBlink VSP628 PRO video processors. The NovaStar MCTRL 660’s have a built-in HDMI input, as well as a DVI input allowing the content to play easily, which was a huge benefit for this large project. While the RGBlink video processors offer video scaler, scan converter, switcher and transcoder functionalities, which convert any input signal format to any output signal format.
One of the most striking things about the project at Paradise City is that the sound, video, and lighting control systems have redundant components created by C2 design, so that if some part of a control system fails, the lights, sound or video can still continue to be controlled without downtime.
C2 Artechnolozy was involved in many aspects, from design, through supervision, and construction, and also many of its operations. The company manages the day-to-day directing and operating of the club’s systems. Under the direction of Kim Nam-hoon, C2’s staff, and several partner companies run all the technical systems and produce a slightly different show every hour.
Offering music and immersive across audio across a large multipurpose complex, Paradise city broke new ground, delivering the audio at a quality far higher than any other distributed music system, whilst making the system easy to use. Deploying the most advanced audio networking technology they ensured audio performance remains constant for many years to come.
