NASHVILLE, Tennessee - July 2024 - As the only musical artist in history to have released nine RIAA Diamond-certified albums, Garth Brooks doesn't just hold rank in the pantheon of country greats, he's long been one of the world's most beloved musicians. So when Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, announced the grand opening of their four-floor, 55,000-square-foot Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk live music venue in downtown Nashville's Neon Neighborhood of Lower Broadway, excitement ran high among the artist's broad fan base.
The new venue is outfitted with an L-Acoustics A Series concert sound system and a DiGiCo Quantum225 console at front of house, complete with a MADI-ready MQ-Rack stage box. The full system was designed and installed by Clair Global Integration (CGI), the permanent installation division of the star's longtime sound-reinforcement tour provider, Clair Global.
The loudspeaker system is perfectly scaled to the venue's dimensions, reflecting the long rectangular spaces characteristic of the area's turn-of-the-century urban spaces. Flanking the stage on the left long wall are one A15i Focus over two A15i Wide enclosures, and another hang of one A15i Focus over two A15i Wide, which provide coverage to either side and in front, towards both the main floor and balcony, carved out of what was once the second floor.
The design challenge here was to provide even and consistent coverage to both levels. To keep the volume reasonable but still impactful, 14 coaxial X8 loudspeakers are installed as balcony underfills, each powered by one of the 16 channels of an LA7.16i amplified controller, with the remaining two channels used to power X8 in the club's elevated VIP areas on the main floor. That way, we could tailor the sound to what was exactly needed in each zone of the area under the balcony, explains CGI Systems Designer Joe Anderson.
In addition, two KS21i subs are mounted behind the A15i hangs, along with four KS28 subs in custom-constructed, four-foot-deep cavities below the VIP areas, which give those areas significant LFE impact but without rattling the seats. The rooftop bar, known as The Oasis, has a left-right sound system comprising an A10i Focus over an A10i Wide and one KS21i sub on either side, all powered by an LA4X amplified controller. A nearby bar area is covered by eight X8 speakers with SB10i subs, also driven by an LA4X.
The challenge for the rooftop bar, where DJs perform late into the night, is to have impact without getting too loud, says Anderson. One of our mantras at Clair is it has to sound great, not just loud. That's accomplished largely by relying on the subs for impact, which allows the roof to keep the overall volume level lower. Our goal is to elevate the production-value level of the entire sound experience here, making it closer to what you'd expect from a concert rather than a club, he says. The A Series speakers deliver great sound, with a lot more punch than you'd expect from their size, right out of the box. I never have to fight to get it.
CGI Account Executive Dan Heins was intimately involved in creating the sonic vibe for Friends In Low Places. Lyrics and therefore speech intelligibility are important for Garth. Equally important is getting the right kind and amount of energy in the room so that you can still hold a conversation, he explains. With A Series, you can. Garth noticed that right away on opening night, when he played there.
Heins also points out how the compact A Series generates the energy we want without interfering with the sightlines of a room like this. It's a great place to see as well as hear music.
He says that same beneficial form factor applies to the DiGiCo Quantum225. It's a great-sounding console, but doing everything it does in a smaller amount of space is important, because every inch of real estate is a premium on Broadway. We had to shift the location of the console to accommodate that, but the desk has the kinds of features that make even a challenging mixing space easy to work with.
The venue's mix position is located at the back of the bar, near stage left. From here, freelance AV technicians like Nate Warren and Gianni Gambuzza, brought in by JAG Warner Productions, utilize the Quantum225 console to provide both the front-of-house and monitor mixes for four bands a day, each playing four-hour sets.
The performance of our DiGiCo desk is extremely impressive, says Gambuzza. We run it seven days a week in the honky-tonk venue from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. more than 16 hours a day and it never slows down on us! The sound of the console is very clean, especially when going through our L-Acoustics A Series system. I feel like I can push my mix to the limits while still maintaining tremendous clarity. And I don't really need to do a lot of work once I get all of my inputs in; all I have to do is push my faders up to where I want them and it sounds just like a mixed show before I even get into tweaking EQ and compression.
For Gambuzza, the Quantum console's Nodal Processing has been a particularly loved feature. On Lower Broadway, we have such quick changeovers that, in the past, there have been times at other venues when I couldn't give a band the best in-ear mix simply due to time and channel limitations, he recalls. Now, with Nodal Processing, I can really get musicians' mixes dialed in and provide every band member a personalized touch. I can give a drummer a different EQ curve on their snare, give a bass player compression on their vocal, and give a singer a boost in the high end, all in their own individual mixes while not affecting anyone else's, and without having to double up channels for monitors. It's truly amazing for when operating on time restraints. He's also
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
NASHVILLE, Tennessee - July 2024 - As the only musical artist in history to have released nine RIAA Diamond-certified albums, Garth Brooks doesn't just hold rank in the pantheon of country greats, he's long been one of the world's most beloved musicians. So when Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, announced the grand opening of their four-floor, 55,000-square-foot Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk live music venue in downtown Nashville's Neon Neighborhood of Lower Broadway, excitement ran high among the artist's broad fan base.
