Stories From a Tail-End Boomer

Lighting Consoles and Dancefloor What made The Paradise Garage stand out among all other nightclubs technically? In our last discussion we went into some depth about the lighting system at the Paradise Garage. This section I will try to go over the lighting console, the controllers and how they affected the lights over the floor. I will also discuss the watch-tower effect of the DJ Booth and try to be as entertaining as possible. Hello, my name is Ralph Curtis and welcome to my Blog. During its run, the Paradise Garage boasted one of the best nightclub sound and lighting systems in New York City. In fact, some of the concepts that were developed for the Garage back then, in some way still cannot be matched in today’s more advanced sound and lighting designs. As hard as that may seem imagine, it seems that sometimes the old adage is relevant "If it ain't broke don't fix it". The Lighting Boards and Controls: Standing at the lighting controls in the DJ booth of the Gara...

  Lighting: What made The Paradise Garage stand out among all other nightclubs technically? In my last post, I went over the Sound System at the Club. This section is a discussion of the Lighting System at the Paradise Garage based on my 30 years as a Lighting Designer and Production Technician. This Blog post is going to be done in 2 parts because I am going into heavy detail about the Paradise Garage lighting system, and it may be somewhat lengthy. So if you are a tech nerd, strap in because this is going to be good! Hello, my name is Ralph Curtis and welcome to my Blog. Lighting System: The Lighting system at the Paradise Garage was tremendous to say the least. No other club in the city had a system like this. The Dancefloor alone had over 730 lighting fixtures rigged from the ceiling. The stage and other lounges had a base set up of about 25 to 40 fixtures minimum. During special parties and events, the number of lighting fixtures in the lounges would increase in size depending...

Sound: What made The Paradise Garage stand out among all other nightclubs technically? This following discussion will be in two parts: Sound and Lighting. The Audio portion of this section is technical data received from Alan Fierstein from Acoustilog Incorporated. Richard Long Assoc. along with Mr. Fierstein are the original designers and installers of the sound system at the Garage, so his input in this discussion is critical. Hello, my name is Ralph Curtis and welcome to my Blog. This data was originally digitized on my site A Garage Tribute in 2005 Audio System: World Class Discotheque Sound Systems are engineered to fit each unique space with it's own design criteria. To achieve maximum impact, the system designer and the acoustician work in close harmony. The designer determines equipment requirements, while the acoustician considers interior acoustics and noise isolation. Impulse testing, equalization, T60 fine tuning TDS tests, etc. complete the installation, examples will...

The Technical Crew of the Paradise Garage  I decided to tell some stories regarding my recollections of the Paradise Garage in New York. I want to do a series of blogs about The Garage because I want to cover a few things in length and talk about subjects rarely discussed. Hello, my name is Ralph Curtis, I was one of five people who worked on the Tech Crew at the Paradise Garage. The Tech Crew was a group of people who worked behind the scenes at the club, we were responsible for installing and maintaining new lighting designs throughout the club, while also assisting the decorators with implementing and lighting their new and fantastic creations which were designed weekly. We were not part of the social scene at the club while it was open, the day ended for us at midnight, so we were basically done for the day. Our work week started on Wednesday and ended on Saturday. On Friday we would finish up the new designs we were working on that week by 8:00pm and from 8:00pm to Midnig...