About a year ago, I bought a nightclub that came with a full Savant-managed system. The club is big - 16,000 sq ft, multi-room, with each space having its own sound and AV setup. Honestly, it’s wild that anyone thought Savant was a good idea for a nightclub. It was completely impractical.
At opening, I ripped out the audio side of Savant immediately - having to cut music just to use a microphone was insane. Clearly the original owners were sold a bill of goods by a salesperson who walked away with a nice commission.
The AV side was all video modulators over coax, with TVs controlled through Savant for channel/input switching. That’s gone now too. We run a video matrix over Cat6, controlled via iPads/phones for dynamic routing. Audio has been replaced with an Allen & Heath AHM-64.
What’s left on Savant
- Some Lutron controllers / dimmers for hard wired fixtures.
- A few dozen Savant-branded LED strip controllers.
- TVs we now power on/off with SmartThings and smart plugs in the ceilings.
That setup works, but I’d really like to get rid of Savant completely. It’s a closed-door system, and even though I was given an admin password, once I got inside I was shocked by how un-user-friendly it was. I don’t work with the original installer anymore, so I’m basically locked out.
Where I’m at
I’m fairly tech savvy - I handle networking, run cable, solder, program DMX, and replace LED strips. What I’m not strong in is hard coding. From my research, I think home automation platforms are probably the easiest way forward.
Goals:
- Get the Lutron controllers off Savant.
- Move the LED light controllers onto home automation (ideally reusing the Savant hardware).
- Eventually add the TVs into the system for channel/input control. Only a few TVs really need input switching - one room runs both on the AV Access matrix and on a local HDMI-over-fiber feed for live video with minimal delay. The only limitation is the LED wall, which always has inherent delay via Novastar.
LED Controller Details
We’re running SR-2108A-M5-5 boxes linked over Cat5/6. I can’t confirm whether these are on the network directly or if there’s a DMX box somewhere doing TCP-to-DMX conversion. I haven’t dug deep since it “just works,” but I’ll eventually need to understand it. I’m sure someone here already knows exactly what this setup is.
Next Steps
I can handle most of the on-the-ground work if I’m given direction. I’m based in Charlotte, NC - happy to fly someone in if needed, but ideally most of this could be programmed remotely with me handling the manual install.
Is anyone here interested in helping me fully convert this system, and then possibly staying on retainer for future tweaks and expansions? Long term, I’d like to be able to make basic edits myself as I add LED controllers, TVs, and more.
Thanks,
Drew