Embedded Files
The sloping concrete floor that had been installed for the movie theater was approximately six feet below the level of Lumpkin Street in the old building. It was hardly noticeable because a raised wooden structure had been built out from the front door fifty feet or so towards the stage. The bar was a rectangular affair right in the middle of the raised floor area when Duck & Kyle first opened their version in late 1989/1990. They eventually demolished it to improve the capacity and made two smaller bars in each back corner of the room. The new design would mimic that layout. I bring this all up because the new concrete floor would be at the same level as Lumpkin now, and it could not have a very steep incline. According to ADA rules for physical access, the old floor was unacceptable.
There were several aspects of ADA rules that had to be considered in the redesign everywhere in the building. The old floor was much too steep. The new design would be radically different in terms of the interior and had to be fully wheelchair accessible throughout the building. The emergency escape design for the building was really well done and was a huge improvement over the original layout. The use of space in the new design was so efficient the theater suddenly had a much more intimate, yet open feel to it. The old space had one of those crappy white tile drop ceilings. The damn tiles would fall out regularly at packed shows. It would get so hot that damn tile ceiling would form condensation and drip down on us!
The new GATH was going to have a truly remarkable new feel. The ceiling would now be the under-structure of the rooftop patio. This had the effect of opening the internal space in a huge way. It felt 4 times bigger and added a much more aesthetically pleasing performance space. Compared to where the old drop ceiling was relative to the dance floor, the new ceiling would be 14' higher in elevation! Where in the past the GATH had what I would call an intimate feel to it, it was obviously a little cramped. Now though, it was wide open and breezy yet still had that small theater feel that makes concerts so much fun there!
The steel I beams would eventually all be covered with corrugated steel sheets and steel reinforcing mesh like the ones pictured on the stage above. This was going to have a huge impact on the "sound" of the room and the feel on stage for musicians when they're performing.
The stage structure of the old building was all a hollow wooden framework. It was a roach hotel. I freaking giant roach hotel! But more importantly, all the low frequency energy generated by amplifiers on stage and speakers from the PA will resonate with that hollow structure at certain low frequencies, and make my life difficult. This is one of those acoustic qualities of a performance space that is purely physical and governed by simple math and geometry. It can be a helpful and good thing for some types of sound and frequency content, or it can be a complete nightmare for an audio engineer. The fact that all of the new stage and structures around it would have real mass from steel and concrete construction, meant no more harmonic modes created by hollow wooden boxes. Awesome for me! The old Georgia Theatre was like an old hollow body wooden guitar that was slightly out of tune some nights and you could make it sound right if you paid really close attention.
The new design included a huge trapezoidal bass trap above the stage designed so that it would be hidden behind the curtains and clear of the rigging space above the stage. We were going to have real, "punch in the gut" low frequencies throughout the room. Something that was very hard to do in the old building due to the hollow wooden structures. It didn't matter how many extra speakers you brought into the room, it just didn't have the punch that modern music requires. Low frequencies don't reflect unless the surface is very long and very massive. Otherwise, lower frequencies refract or are absorbed, say by a bass trap for instance! The audio engineer in me was very aroused by the possibilities.
Google Sites
Report abuse