VENUE 081


AUDIO FILES


AS SOUND DESIGNER FOR DEATH AND THE POWERS, CREATIVE SOUND DESIGN’S CHRIS FULL IS PERFECTLY PLACED TO DESCRIBE THE INTRICACIES OF DEVELOPING A SOUNDSCAPE WHICH COMPLEMENTS SUCH A UNIQUE KIND OF PERFORMANCE...


relatively simple system along the lines of a 5.1 system to a full blown wave field synthesis (WFS) solution. Wave field what? You might well ask. Our 3D Immersive Sound solution is a full implementation of WFS using modular networkable WFS array elements to build a system as required. In addition to this, we have incorporated high resolution ambisonics to add further depth to the sonic experience. WFS is the ultimate surround system, as the entire listening area is the sweet spot with lifelike location of sound sources within the sound field. Using our control system we can take mono, stereo or multichannel (live or recorded) sound sources and locate their sound using live or pre-encoded positional data. In the case of the Opera, the system interacts with performance data captured from the actors as they perform the show, using this data to modify parameters of the control system to create a ‘living’ sound system. Not having to print our final mixes in the studio is a very freeing experience.


Besides any of the other elements involved, Death and the Powers is an interesting sonic piece, not only because by nature an opera with Robots and ‘disembodied performance’ points to something out of the ordinary but also because in creating the show it was crucial for the sound system to be able to interact with the performance whilst scaling to provide the same immersive experience in all of the venues that the show would play.


This challenge was taken up by myself and Audio Technology Consultant Ben Bloomberg. From the beginning of the project it was important that the different creative elements (sound, visual content and lighting) had real-time interaction with the performance. It was soon pretty clear that, for our part, we were heading rapidly towards the birth of next generation 3D sound system, and that we would have to make some tools to enable us to work collaboratively in this exciting environment.


At this point, one might ask: what exactly is the next generation 3D sound system? In the sound industry we’ve all been working with the likes of 5.1, 7.1, 9.1, but these formats haven’t really moved on since their inception. Even if you project these systems forward a few years to when we might be looking at 30.1 systems, the resolution of the system (its ability to accurately resolve a sound’s position in 3D space) isn’t really good enough and there is still the problem of a relatively small sweet spot. What we’ve developed is a scalable multichannel system that has a low enough latency that we can use it for live encoding of sound sources.


Pretty impressive, but how does this move 3D audio onwards? We used to mix the surround material in a studio and then play it back in the venue, using our experience of this method of working to try and make a ‘best fit’ solution that works as well as possible in every venue when considering that the replay speaker systems would be in themselves subject to a budget versus practicality compromise. With our approach, the material doesn’t have to be mixed in advance (although it can be) and the replay system can be scaled from a


In a similar fashion, the visuals for the show use this same performance data, along with the actors’ vocal performance, to create the visual elements that are directly related to the performance that evening. The show’s sound design integrates these 3D sonic elements with a more ‘traditional’ sound system. Death and the Powers is an opera at heart, but one with more than a hint of Electronic Instruments within the score. Ben and I have experience of most major loudspeaker brands and instead of these ‘comfortable alternates’ it was AXYS from Duran Audio that had us excited from the moment we heard them. With their un-coloured sound and ability to reproduce the finest detail of a mix within a huge soundstage, the obvious choice was to use the AXYS and they delivered everything, from the subtle nuance of the chamber orchestra and the vocal, right through to the powerful highs and lows of the synths with effortless ease and exciting transients.


There are three T-2115 full range enclosures per side, supported by eight AXYS subwoofers; four UB-25’s and four B-121’s. For the various fills and break off immersive systems in the VIP areas, we used the AXYS U12 full range fill loudspeaker. I’m constantly amazed at how big these speakers sound, they’ve been perfect in both the near and far field applications on the show.


The DSP rig consists of six 8-Core Mac Pros, loaded with AULab and MOTU’s Digital Performer, and SSL’s MADI-based 128-channel PCI Express cards. These channels are carrying keyboard and sampler patches, WFS processing, ambisonic processing, ambisonic samples, analysis of positional data with visual rendering, and effects. All of this is brought together in a Studer Vista 5 SR mixing console. The Studer sounds fantastic and handled our 250 inputs and 360 outputs with processing capacity to spare. It must be the easiest digital console to use, we’ve barely had to program it to achieve all we needed.


Chris Full | chris@creativesounddesign.co.uk www.mondodr.com


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