With a budget of nearly $250,000 per restaurant for AV systems, CEO and founder Steele Platt clearly places a premium on the sound systems that go into Yard House restaurants. And along with the usual 100 to 250 varieties of beer on tap, 23 of the newest Yard House restaurants are using Ashly Protea DSP hardware ne24.24M audio processing.
Yard House CIO Phil Crawford works with Los Angeles-based No Static and its CEO, Eugene Gordon on the audio system designs for the bar/restaurant chain, with locations mostly in Southern California, but also as far away as Hawaii, Illinois and Massachusetts, to fulfill the wishes of the company's founder.
"Platt places a premium on the intelligibility of vocals," said Gordon. "Since most of the music is classic rock recorded in the 1960s and 1970s, it can be challenging to deliver a smooth, warm sound with punchy vocals that sits in the foreground of a crowded bar/restaurant, without becoming strident."
Platt is more than idly interested in the music that plays at Yard House locations – he builds the playlists from scratch every day. "The music is never stagnant at a Yard House," laughed Crawford.
"The Ashly Protea software and hardware is the solution that allows us to meet the elevated requirements of the Yard House brand," said Gordon. "It provides all of the DSP we need to tailor the sound, along with elegant control for switching presets to match source material.
Most of the Yard House restaurants rely on QSC amplification. For loudspeakers, some use EAW whereas others use Community. "Both of those speakers provide more punch than most restaurants would ask for," said Gordon, "but Yard House is not like most restaurants. The reason we chose them is because they are very smooth and warm in the mid-range, which is right where the harshness of most of that old classic rock lurks. In addition, you can crank them up, and they just sound better."
User control is kept to a minimum, relying on the Ashly software to automatically perform most functions. That allows managers to focus their attention on other things and prevents unwanted tampering of the system by even well-intentioned meddlers. Ashly W-1 wall plate remote controls provide simple volume control. "We have the volume knobs marked with positions for ‘lunch,' ‘dinner,' and ‘late night,'" said Crawford. "It's that simple."
At each new store, Gordon oversees the final system tweaks via the Ashly Protea software. "Gordon has an amazing ear," said Crawford. "He comes in during pre-opening events to work on the system when there are enough people around to simulate an early lunch crowd. Then he makes further adjustments during the actual opening, when we have a line stretching around the corner. As a result, the Yard House systems sound fantastic on everything from a Mick Jagger croon to a Beastie Boys bass line, regardless of whether it's quiet or loud or whether the place is just opening or packed wall-to-wall."
