The problem you got mate is you haven't got Michelob Green clean hops ale on tap. I'm telling you, that's what the punters are drinking these days." You know the story, the barmaids are all dressed like Barberella, the urinal looks like it should be short-listed for the Turner Prize, the bar stools are giant sequinned platform shoes, but when the band goes on, the sound is rubbish.

Just over a year ago, Alleycat Live set up shop, aiming to get the sound right, figuring that the bands and the punters would follow. Come 1997, it's safe to say that their decision has been vindicated — the Alleycat is a comfortable venue for around 500 people, which is now a sought after date for up and coming artists, mandatory for the more established ones, and conveniently situated in Reading, it is often the first stop for jet-lagged, overseas touring acts who are straight off the plane.

A Marquee Audio installation, it features Turbosound speakers, C-Audio amplification, and a Soundcraft K3 front-of-house console.

"I think a large part of our success has been down to the sound system," says House Engineer Mark Kelly. "Over the last few years, I think the club scene has had a big effect, in that people are now coming to expect a higher quality sound, and when they come to hear a live band in a venue like ours, they expect to hear the clarity of a club sound or the clarity of a CD even. That raises standards, and we find that people are coming back to the Alleycat, because they know they'll get that quality sound. It wasn't long ago that having ringing ears the next morning was the sign of a good gig, but I think those days are numbered.

"For the size of the room, there's a good amount of power available — on a normal night, there's about 5.5k of power. I advise any visiting engineers not to overwork the system, leave the headroom for the transients and it will sound great, with plenty of level to fill out the room." Hearing the system in full flow, I can testify to that fact.

At front of house, sightlines are preserved by the Turbosound Floodlights, which are horizontally loaded, in their skeleton version; with two Floodlights a side installed above the stage, directed about five metres into the room. There are two TSW 718 Floodlight bass bins each side of the stage that provide ample bass end reinforcement. The result is an impressive sound level ("100dB down the front") that appears to be achieved fairly effortlessly.

THE CAT'S WHISKERS

In the control booth, the centre of attention is on the 32-channel Soundcraft K3. The board features fully parametric EQ. eight groups, mute groups, a MIDI fader, and plenty of auxes. Opinion is generally pretty positive about the K3.

"It's modular, so just recently when it came to cleaning it for the first time, we were able to do that without much disruption," explained Mark. "The MIDI control fader is worth learning how to use as well. When you're giving the band 100 percent concentration, and you need to up the regeneration on your delay on one particular chord, say, then twisting around to find the controls on your rack isn't what you want to do. The fader gives you instant access, pull the fader up, then down again — no fuss. We've had some big name engineers, who have come in and are used to working on a Midas, and they are really impressed, they'll say, 'it really works this board, doesn't it?'"

The FOH rack is functional without being sensational, with some familiar units in residence. I asked Tim McCall of Marquee Audio to talk me through the gear.

"It's a fairly no-frills setup, but as I'm always trying to convince people, anything that you put in the signal path is going to have some sort of effect so it's better to keep it simple and maintain the signal quality. You can always add to it. There's a BSS graphic, a Roland delay, a [Yamaha] SPX90 and a SPX990 — all fairly standard. There are Drawmer Quad gates in there as well."

On stage, the 'monitor compromise' shows itself with a more budget Spirit by Soundcraft console and a slightly miserly approach to wedge power.

"They've got these little Turbo wedges, TMW 210s, and they're really nice," continues Tim. "If you had a jazz band or something on, then great, but with indie bands, they don't give you the level so they've been hiring these other wedges in from Tiger Hire. A problem with the monitors which you always have — because here you've got a lot of sound out front is that you need a pretty heavy monitor setup, and if the monitors are shit, the band will play shit; it doesn't matter how good the system is out front, because they can't hear themselves."

FUTURE MOVES

"We want to shift the mix position. At around 160Hz, the room is pretty heavy. The rig really is bass heavy; in fact, the bass bins are phenomenal really, they really chuck it out. The mix position was in the optimum comer when we built it, but it is a bass trap, and we're aware that engineers need to have a stereo mix — so we're going to move it towards the middle of the room. In the long-term, we'd like to get some sort of 3D device and work on 3D sound, where we can use a discrete stereo pair and third channel for surround."

Walking out I noticed forthcoming sold out dates such as Placebo and 808 State, as well as club nights with Carl Cox and Tim Westwood — I guess they must be getting something right.