Advanced Corporate Audio Systems: It's A Good Thing
Corporate production values set new standards
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What ever happened to art? Ours is an age when tour accountants
call the shots for popular musical tours. A soft economy, the cocooning
of the baby boomers and the short attention span the of a generation
weaned on music videos hastened the end musical touring’s glory
days. That darned profit motive spoiled everything. |
Instead, corporate event producers seek maximum “wow” value. Impact and
persuasion drive these presentations, as companies seek to motivate and
convince captive audiences.
A perfect example of such an event was the group sessions at the PeopleSoft
2001 Conference, held in late August at the Georgia World Congress Center
(Atlanta). On Stage Audio (OSA) was presented with every performance audio
company’s dream. Well, perhaps not...
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
In cooperation with the event’s producer, Jack Morris Productions, OSA
formulated a sound design to attain high speech intelligibility, the top
priority in light of the vast majority of programming at the sessions.
In addition, full-range “concert type” impact was necessary for intro
and walk-off music, and the system needed to be in sync with the widely
distributed video system with large-format screens flown throughout the
space.
The PeopleSoft group sessions, were held for audiences of up to 12,000
in a “standard” convention hall (see Photo #1) and consisted primarily
of corporate addresses and panel discussions among various luminaries.
Temporary seating, with padded backs and seats, was formed into divided
sections spanning a symmetrical 450ft(137m)x450ft(137m) audience area.
(see Photo #1) The client did not opt for any acoustical treatment of
the space.
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Source disparities often play a significant role in events of this
type. Differing mic techniques of inexperienced talkers is contained
largely through use of wireless lavs. Each speaking participant
was outfitted with a Shure UHF lav. OSA regulated panel discussions
using a Dan Dugan automixer. |
It’s not that most of the mixes are “bad”. Instead, these tracks are almost
always studio-assembled in a dramatically different environment than when
played back to an audience of ten thousand plus, in an acoustically difficult
room.
SPEAKERS SPECIFICS
OSA’s main loudspeaker system for this event began with dual Electro-Voice
X-Line line arrays, flown far left and right of the stage. These multi-box
arrays incorporated a new downfill box that attaches to the bottom of
the array structure. Four X-Sub subwoofer modules, stacked vertically,
rested on the floor beneath each array. (see Photo #2)
Another, smaller X-Line array was positioned above the front/center of
the stage thrust, to fill in a rather large area in the center, natural
given the extreme width of the coverage area. This smaller array, as well
as all other speakers in the system, are signal delayed in reference to
the main left and right arrays.
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About 150ft(45m) from the front loudspeakers, the first of three
main delay lines takes over. Each of these lines includes nine EV
X-Array 1152 loudspeakers attached to a truss and spaced equidistantly
across the span of the room. The last two lines were spaced about
75ft(23m) apart. Loudspeaker processing was executed by BSS Omnidrive, divided into two rack locations with the system’s EV P3000 power amplifiers. Both locations, backstage and behind FOH, received three 100amp drop service, with the processors all linked to a PC at FOH. |
OSA’s Tom Nicks (see Photo #3) used a Yamaha PM Series console. A sidecar
wasn’t required given the relative “lightness” of the group session programming.
Smaart Pro was used to tune and analyze, and it measured a pretty serious
10kHz “bump” that was attributed primarily to a slap off the back wall,
dissipating rather quickly as it traveled toward the main audience area.
Sonically, the bottom line of this event was the OSA crew ability of to
skillfully measure, modify and apply distributed sound in an unforgiving
room. Speech levels were maintained at an audience-friendly 80-82dBSPL,
with musical programming peaks reaching approximately 100dBSPL.
MOTOR CITY MAGIC
A more complex OSA presentation was deployed earlier in 2001. The North
American International Auto Show, held in Detroit, staged during late
February, is considered one of the premier automobile industry events.
More than 800,000 people attend this event, during the ten day run of
this year’s show. Published production costs are near US$350M.
In addition, and some would say of greater importance, is the preview
week when over 2500 members of the international press and media descend
on Detroit to get a preview of what the auto industry has to offer in
the coming year.
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From “Concept Cars” featuring striking new designs, to the latest
production models, the manufacturers use this event as a strategic
product showcase for their products, striving to outdo each other
for airtime with impressive fifteen minutes events intended to capture
the crowd in short order. They sought to “envelop” the audience in sound to set the mood
of the event. The ultimate goal was to use sound as the media to
create the atmosphere for the Jeep Liberty reveal and three further
press events. |
The system was hung to accommodate this and each event used shared parts
to reduce the amount of speakers that were required. An Innovason Sensory
mixing console lent its automated mixing facilities to the control system.
(see Photo #5)
Risgin comments: “With the help of Robin Whittaker of Out Board Electronics,
Kelly Epperson managed to turn a hostile environment of the show floor
into an intimate and impactful soundscape for Ken Kesey’s presentation
of “A Road Less Travelled”.
As Mr. Kesey presented his monologue about traveling through life, Kelly
and Robin manually punctuated the entire script with effects and audio
environments to establish the points. These effects ran the gamut from
extremely subtle (a campfire by a stream) to extreme (the drive-by of
a car that had audiences ducking for cover).”
MASTERPARTS THEATRE
Over in the GM arena, Risgin personally supervised three press events
and a public multi-screen “MasterParts Theatre” event, all created by
Jack Morton Worldwide. Risgin takes up the story: “On Stage Audio has
had a long relationship with Jack Morton and I personally have worked
with the producers in Detroit for over ten years on various projects.
“We have always tried to give our clients new and different ways to create
excitement in their events. For the public event, we were challenged with
a show that played ten times a day, all video playback with three screens
and product reveals throughout the space.
“The “Masterparts Theater” premise was for animated characters to appear
on these screens and interact with each other. As sound designer, I felt
the need to localize the images to each screen to create the effect that
these characters were in unique spaces. In addition, we used the audio
to draw the audiences’ attention to each vehicle in the theater. All TiMax
cues for this event were triggered by SMPTE sourced from the video playback.”
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The giant theater, built into the GM stand, measured roughly 150ft(46m)Wx100ft(30m)D, shaped like a football and expected to hold approximately 2500 people. A mezzanine floor presented some interesting challenges, as its lower level prevented direct coverage for a large area of the main floor, and brought the second floor to within 15ft(4.6m) of the ceiling. Risgin continues: “There were also three individually produced
press events each with their own unique problems. From Giant Oil
Cans (see Photo #5), to a live performance played on five foot tall
letters, to a Fashion show featuring a runway for GM’s latest concept
cars, we had to again create different environments for each event. |
“Because these were on three consecutive days we had to program and restore
complex soundscapes for each event, and TiMax allowed us to do this with
ease. Also, given the unique shape of the space, I could not have effectively
created the localizations any other way. The ability to move the sound
as special effects was imperative to the design.”
A TIMAX 3D JOURNEY
Like OSA, Timax has had an exceptional year. One example came across the
Atlantic, at IBM’s the three-day European Conference in Barcelona. Produced
by Project Worldwide, an unusual sound design required the construction
of 3D soundscape ‘journeys’. Sound designer Rick Sarson insisted on the
use of TiMax to ensure the most accurate and effective perpetration of
the design brief.
The journeys were intended to place a different perspective on the ‘usually’
uninteresting process of the prime speaker’s walk-in. Sarson and engineer
Steve Cooksey recorded the soundtracks via Soundscape onto two linked
Akai DR4’s using SMPTE to drive the TiMax soundscapes. Three acoustic
journeys were needed, one for each day of the conference.
The sound system comprised of d&b loudspeakers, supplied by Dimension
Audio UK, featured a combination of d&b E9 and 1801 cabinets positioned
near each of the four corners of the room, with d&b C6 units filling the
sides.
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E3 loudspeakers were flown over the audience. The system was entirely controlled by TiMax via a DDA CS8 desk. As audiences settled for the first day’s conference, the acoustic journey began with a simple stereo soundtrack playback run from minidisk. At a precise cue point the 3-D journey began, depicting the arrival
at the airport, passing through arrivals and taking a taxi to the
hotel. The traveller arrived at the lobby of the hotel and appeared
to be walking closer towards the auditorium. As the final footsteps
edged towards the stage, so the first presenter arrived at the lectern
in perfect time to the soundtrack. |
The second day’s journey took the audience along the marina with its associated
seaside sounds, and then away in a small motorboat. The third day provided
a 3D recreation of the audience’s previous night’s experience of a Flamenco
evening at a local restaurant, completed by several climactic bars of
Flamenco guitar.
Sarson enthused, “The event worked out better than I had dared to hope,
and the client was delighted! What the audience would never had noticed
was that, using TiMax, I had created image definitions for the lectern
and the top table/chat area. As the presenters wandered between the two
areas I was able to slide the acoustic image about manually to keep the
appropriate focus, … which pleased me no end!”
Based on these end-user accounts, it seems that the Timax Source Oriented
Reinforcement (SOR) thing is quickly moving from its relatively esoteric
delta-stereophony and theatrical roots to a substantially more mainstream
idiom. There are now nightclubs, hotel bars and shopping malls equipped
with TiMax ImageMakers. (see Photo #6) As distributed speaker systems
and network technologies come further to the fore, it seems that the application
of TiMax and its SOR techniques can only grow.
In response to Al Weener’s glowing evaluation of Timax technology,
we have invited Dave Haydon to contribute a technical essay on Timax and
SOR for Audio Insiders in the upcoming (November/December 2001) issue
of LIVE SOUND! International.
Atlanta photography by Keith Clark
Al Weener is one of LSMAG’s longest serving contributors. He lives in west Michigan and spends most his time teaching and performing music, or mixing studio tracks.
September/October 2001 Live Sound International