Wild Ink Restaurant and Bar Dines with the Q-SYS AV&C Ecosystem.

Hudson Yards is the largest development in New York City since Rockefeller Center, boasting more than 18 million ft² of commercial and residential space, state-of-the-art office towers, more than 100 shops and a collection of restaurants. Located within Hudson Yards, Wild Ink offers a stylish, Asian-inspired dining and lounge area that was looking to provide an enveloping, high-fidelity sound environment to complement a premium dining experience. With the help of QSC and the AV integrator Essential Communications, they deployed the Q-SYS AV&C Ecosystem, along with QSC loudspeakers.

While the venue’s striking bamboo ceiling, arranged in grid-like fashion, provides the aesthetic cornerstone for Wild Ink, it presents unique acoustic challenges that cannot be solved by common loudspeaker solutions. Not only was sonic quality of utmost importance, but the loudspeakers could not detract from the highly stylish surroundings. QSC AcousticDesign Series pendant-mount full-range loudspeakers are paired with QSC AD-S112sw surface-mount subwoofers to provide audio throughout the restaurant. The pendant-mount loudspeakers hang just below the bamboo, ensuring there are no unwanted acoustic reflections or visual distractions. QSC AD Series loudspeakers also maintain consistent sonic characteristics across form factors, ensuring that there are no noticeable audio transitions as patrons move around different areas of the restaurant.

Audio and control processing is managed by a QSC Q-SYS Core 110f Unified processor. Essential Communications chose Q-SYS because it integrates AV&C processing in a single device, reducing the amount of hardware and programming time needed for the installation. “Another reason we chose Q-SYS was for its unique control capabilities,” explained David Schwartz, President at Essential Communications. “It enabled us to easily create sleek and intuitive UCIs for the team at Wild Ink.” With the help of Q-SYS UCI Editor, the team used drag-and-drop programming to deploy a touch-based background music mixer across Q-SYS touch screen controllers that are simple for any of the restaurants employees to use.

Attero Tech AES67 wall plates complete the additional requirement that visiting DJs can easily connect their audio gear to the AV system. The Q-SYS Scripting Engine includes several control plugins that allow simple integration of the Attero Tech wall plates into the Q-SYS Ecosystem. The integrator was able to simply drag-and-drop the wall plate’s controls into the Q-SYS design without any complicated programming. This enables the wall plates to act as an on-ramp into Q-SYS, and gives DJ’s the quick and easy access to the system control they need via the Q-SYS touch screen controllers.

“The reason we love working with Q-SYS is that it’s so easy to tie all of components together and create a great user experience,” continues Schwartz. “Add to that the QSC loudspeakers that sound phenomenal in the space. The result is really spectacular!”