Yamaha Reaches New Heights At Major Swiss Climbing Centre

Opened in Spring 2021, Gaswerk Wädenswil is claimed to be one of the largest climbing gyms in the world. Yamaha equipment is making sure that the gym’s background music, announcements and paging - distributed via a redundant Dante network to locations spread across six floors - offer flexible routing and rock steady reliability.

Gaswerk Wädenswil has indoor climbing facilities with around 370 routes, outdoor climbing with approximately 130 routes and an area with more than 200 bouldering challenges. With difficulty levels from beginner to world elite, it’s the newest of three Gaswerk climbing centres within easy reach of Zürich, Switzerland’s largest city.

Construction company Methabau turned to systems integrator and Yamaha main dealer Leu Sound AG to design, install and commission the facility’s audio system. As a long-term Yamaha Service Centre and installer of Yamaha equipment in prestigious projects for many years, Leu Sound managing director Michael Ernst knew that the tried and trusted combination of Yamaha and Dante would guarantee both reliability and the highest sound quality.

The heart of the system is a Yamaha MRX7-D matrix processor and six XMV4280-D multi-channel digital power amplifiers, with audio routed to 26 Yamaha VXS5, 15 Yamaha VXS4 and 11 Yamaha VXS8 speakers, arranged in seven main zones, covering all areas of the centre.

“There are two iMacs with Dante Audio interfaces at the reception desk, these play streamed music or a local playlist. There is also an iPad planned for the bouldering area, where the clients can play their preferred songs,” says Michael.

Michael and his team installed a wireless microphone in the main climbing hall and a Yamaha PGM1 advanced paging station. The PGM1 is placed after the MRX7-D, but before the speaker processing. This means it operates independently of any user volume control settings, which are changed using a DCP4V4S surface mount controller in the main climbing hall, two DCP1V4S in two of the smaller rooms and Yamaha’s ProVisionaire Kiosk app.

“ProVisionaire Kiosk allowed us to design an individually-tailored, flexible iPad interface which is easy and clear for staff to use. They can change volume levels and route all inputs individually to any of the seven zones, which are grouped as six operational scenarios - for example all outside speakers, all inside speakers, etc,” says Michael. “We also programmed five sub-zones where the level can be further adjusted, for example to run only one side of the outdoor speakers.

“The flexibility of ProVisionaire Kiosk also allowed us to provide a power user page with access to all speaker processing levels, so senior staff could adjust each amp channel, giving them maximum flexibility.”