Myth, Minneapolis

As the race to create the club that does it all continues, Minneapolis’ 36,000-square-foot Myth made its debut last December intending to be an equally reputable dance club and live venue for national touring acts. And while there are separate – and all are massive – sound and lighting systems for the two event types, one central video booth controls a multitasking system of visual play on screens, LCDs and TVs throughout the 4,000-cap club’s four levels.

The resourceful Randy Keeley of St. Paul, Minn.-based Metro Sound & Lighting (metrosoundlighting. com), who headed the install of the sound, lighting and video systems, insisted Myth’s visual setup please finicky bands and DJs alike.

“We didn’t have the room for a 40-foot wide performing area, then 15 feet on either side for speakers and then another 10 feet outside there for video,” he says. “Somehow we had to put the video where the speakers were.” Since the sight of speaker-blocking screens might turn away many tours, Keeley “somehow” discovered a non-offensive solution. Though reluctant to give it up, his secret lies in a France-based company, Screen Research (screenresearch.com), which makes projection screens that are, its site states, “acoustically transparent.” At Myth the two 12-foot wide special screens, which can also slide up and down, are set in front of the live sound rigs, ElectroVoice X-fil boxes, flown on either side of the stage.

The video, like the sound and lighting, showed no favoritism to club nor live nights from the design phase, according to Head Tech Tony Mamoud, who mans the video booth most nights for both kinds of shows. For live acts – particularly big names like Nickleback and Fall Out Boy – the club takes on a concert venue appearance, with videographers providing live feeds of the stage for visual access on all levels.

When the entertainer is a DJ – The Crystal Method, DJ Skribble, Junior Sanchez and DJ AM – Mamoud uses feeds from the two in-house three-chip Sony cameras, which are remote controllable. And then he gets a bit more creative with the video programs. “For club nights, we use two different types of software;” Mamoud says. “We use an ArKaos to display different, random images like movie clips, short movie effects, 3-D effects. We also have a Tidal generator that actually generates tidals, and different fonts to overlay on top of the video image in the background.”

Mamoud also controls the club’s 22 LCD screens, front quad-display video wall and four 150-plus inch screens from the booth’s Crestron touch panel. More screens were being added at press time, as the roof-top all-white Ultra Lounge, and other VIP-friendly areas – where time-delayed EV speakers allow for conversation – were getting tweaked with post-opening finishing touches. –CM

Main DJ Booth
4 - Technics SL-1200MK5 turntables
2 - Pioneer CDJ-1000MK2 digital vinyl turntables
2 - Pioneer DVJ-X1 DVD turntables
1 - Pioneer DJM-600 mixer
1 - Pioneer DJM-909 mixer
1 - Rane MP 2016a rotary mixer
1 - Rane XP 2016a expander