Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts adds TiMax to curriculum

Adding natural depth and extra performance realism to cutting-edge West End and Broadway theatre productions and acclaimed large-scale opera performances worldwide, Outboard’s TiMax ImageMaker is synonymous with life-like sound reproduction across a broad spectrum of performance.

So much so, The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama has invested in the future careers of its technical production arts students by introducing a TiMax Image Maker 16 (8-inputs, 16-outputs) in to its portfolio of equipment. Senior lecturer, David Ripley explains, “For these students TiMax is a vital piece of equipment and they need to be learning and understanding its capabilities as standard. There are other systems that deal in playback and creation but TiMax delay-matrix processing and automation is unique in its context of image placement and control.”

TiMax enables a sound source to be panned statically or dynamically to multiple locations around the stage and auditorium, which are mapped out as a number of localisation zones. These zones become Image Definitions each of which comprises a different set of level and delay relationships to the speaker system. Sound designers can use these image definitions to deliver their intended directional information while also achieving consistent coverage in the house.

The Academy houses the 344-capacity Athenaeum Theatre, which boasts Glasgow’s largest proscenium arch and a stage the size of the London Palladium. With an opera school and courses ranging from acting through musical theatre, digital film and TV, a production arts course, its easy to see how the performance space is in almost constant use throughout the year. Ripley continues, “The TiMax will probably feature here first in just the drama shows to begin with, but we do have an electro-acoustic composition course that will also benefit greatly from the technology.

“Our philosophy has always been that where we’ve identified equipment we feel the students need, we introduce it, but hand it over to them to demonstrate to us how it can be used. We don’t want to be restrictive and, as we’ve found in the past, it will start turning up in unexpected places.”

Unsurprisingly, Out Board have and will continue to offer ongoing help and training with the TiMax. Again, Ripley confirms, “From the off it’s been so easy to work with Out Board. The first seminar given by Dave Haydon was so appreciated by both staff and students and I think it was quite an eye-opener for some to just what can be uniquely achieved using image placement with TiMax. There’s quite a buzz going round about it!”

www.rsamd.ac.uk

TiMax surrounds the Niagara Fury visitor experience

Niagara Falls Visitor Centre recently opened the doors to its new attraction, Niagara’s Fury. Described as a ‘world-class multi-sensory experience’, this is not an attraction for the faint-hearted: visitors find themselves at the centre of the creation of Niagara Falls. Controlling the complex animated soundscape for this truly immersive experience is Out Board’s TiMax delay matrix and show control software.

US-based distributor, 1602Group, demonstrated the TiMax to Niagara Fury creator, California-based Technifex Inc, who claim they were “so impressed it was immediately added to the budget”. The TiMax delay-based audio imaging solution was clearly a pivotal addition. 1602 Group’s Duncan Crundwell, who provided TiMax programming support on-site comments: “It made the howling wind feel much more real and as if you were a part of it. The moving effects were very smooth and you could pinpoint the water droplets as they splashed around you.”

For periods during the show, the room is plunged into darkness without even the benefit of a lit exit sign. Sound is the only effect, and exact positioning of the sound effects is critical for the audience to build an imagined visual image of a waterfall, of icy wind, of drips from the ceiling, or more terrifyingly, of an avalanche of ice, rocks and splintering trees rushing past them.

The TiMax showcontrol software helps match the audio activity with the other sensory elements, most of which are created through a series of technological firsts: seamless, one-screen, 360-degree, high resolution, Dalsa projection – a technology previously used exclusively for satellite and medical imaging; over 170 million litres of water creating real waterfalls and glacial melts across a 56-foot diameter area; also “real” snow, wind and the ability to drop the room temperature by two degrees Celsius in less than three seconds.

The TiMax ImageMaker8 matrix received eight playback sources and feeds them to six channels of JBL surround speakers – one overhead and five positioned around the room – as well as JBL subs and additional custom supersubs capable of reproducing 140dB from 0-30Hz. TiMax handles a variety of sound effects using continuously varying Haas effect delays to create absolute aural realism for each of the 100 visitors within the attraction. Immersive atmospheric effects such as howling wind in a blizzard are experienced with exceptional realism across the whole space rather than obviously sounding like they’re coming the speakers. To achieve this the audio tracks receive complex delay treatments which are dynamically cross-matrixed into the speaker feeds to match the actual direction of the mechanically-induced wind and snow flurries.

In one part of the show, the 360-degree projection represents drops of water falling as ice melts. The projection is accompanied by real water drops, illuminated to glow as they fall. The TiMax was programmed to create a very accurate “plop” as the animated drop hits the on-screen water surface, an effect achieved by calculating the exact position on the animation of each drop as it hits the water and creating a related audio image map that is linked to the timecode. TiMax simply locks every time to the correct audio position by tracking the timecode.

EDUCATING TIMAX – AT AMSTERDAM’S AES 124

Cambridgeshire-based Out Board recently chaired a packed seminar workshop at AES 124 (17 th - 20 th May – RAI, Amsterdam, Netherlands) on the subject of directional amplification and live sound automation. The seminar featured contributions from a number of distinguished, international guest-panellists and attendees.

Directional amplification, also referred to as Source Oriented Reinforcement (SOR), describes a practical technique to deliver amplified sound to a large listening area with even coverage while providing directional information to reinforce visual cues and create a realistic and non-contradictory auditory panorama.

The session included audio demonstrations of the fundamental psychoacoustic techniques employed in an SOR design and its limits discussed.  Workshop chairman, Out Board’s Dave Haydon, outlined the history of SOR; from Steinke & Fels pioneering work with their Delta Stereophony System in the mid 1970s (later licensed to AKG and designed into their DSP610 matrix product), up to Out Board's current-day TiMax Audio Imaging Delay Matrix and showcontrol software.

Central to the workshop was an explanation and demonstration of Out Board's latest ground-breaking TiMax Tracker (TT) – ultra-wideband technology which enables fully automated real-time control of precedence by the radar-tracking of actors as they move around the stage.  The TT system was presented by Out Board director Robin Whittaker, alongside a detailed study of the system's application in a recent, arena opera production of Tosca, at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Other panellists offered descriptions of the varied venues and productions that have employed TiMax SOR technology. These included the new Copenhagen Royal Theatre Drama House as recounted by senior sound designer Karsten Wolstad, the Einsiedeln Welttheater and Basel Tattoo outdoor events as explained by Thomas Strebel of audiopool, Switzerland, and an outline of a 1990's production of the opera Aida in Rotterdam Ahoy delivered by early SOR innovator Cees Waganar. 

TiMax, a DSP-based audio control system, was launched in 1997 and has since received a number of industry awards for innovation. TiMax has become synonymous with the techniques for localization of sound in theatres and auditoria, and was one of the first commercially available products offering dynamic control of time delay and level for recreating realism in sound reinforcement.

Tosca and TiMax Tracker automatic audio tracking

In March 2008 Raymond Gubbay’s perennial opera-in-the-round offering at London’s Royal Albert Hall featured a ground-breaking sound automation technique which combined Out Board’s TiMax Audio Imaging delay matrix with the new TiMax Tracker (“TT”) radar tracking system, based on ultra-wideband (UWB) radar technology developed in conjunction with Cambridge technologists Ubisense. Autograph Sound provided the Meyer/d&b and Digico sound system.

The new technology further augments the specialised “source-oriented reinforcement” audio system configuration that sound designer Bobby Aitken has utilised this year and for the previous nine years of Gubbay’s arena opera productions. The design is based on a multi-channel speaker system driven by a TiMax audio matrix whose job is to apply varying amounts of precedence delay to each of the performers’ radio mics as they move around the stage. This ensures all audience members perceive the vocal performances to be coming from the opera singers’ mouths and not from the multiple speakers distributed around the grid above the stage and beneath grilles in the stage floor.

Vocal intelligibility is key to Gubbay’s presentation of popular opera classics such as Madame Butterfly, Carmen, La Boheme and this year’s Tosca. His productions are unique in that the libretto is translated into English, mainly to appeal to a wider mass-market – and so it is vital the audience hears all the words. As the shows are also staged in the round, they have always involved close-miking of the principals and lead chorus members to make sure they’re heard, especially as their backs are turned to half of the audience most of the time.

In keeping with Gubbay’s desire to also satisfy the opera purists, Bobby Aitken and sound engineer Richard Sharrat have concentrated on achieving a high degree of subtlety in the sound reinforcement to effectively render the sound system inaudible and focus everyone’s sonic sensibilities on the performers themselves. This is where TiMax Audio Imaging and the new TiMax Talent Tracker come in.

The simple objective is to always ensure every audience member receives an acoustic wavefront from each performer about 10-20 milliseconds before they receive the reinforcing energy from the speakers. Within this short time difference the brain integrates the two arrivals together but focuses the listener instinctively into localising to the precedent arrival coming directly from the performer. This psychoacoustic phenomenon is often referred to as the Haas effect.

TiMax achieves this by setting up multiple unique delay relationships between every source (i.e. radio mic) and each loudspeaker reinforcing it. These relationships are changed every time a performer moves to a different location on stage, to maintain the acoustic precedence which makes the audience localise to the performer and not the speakers.

The TiMax software simplifies the process by allowing on-stage localisation zones to be pre-defined as “Image Definitions” which are really just pre-programmed tables of level/delay instructions to the TiMax matrix which tell it to place the actor’s audio image in the appropriate zone on stage. The TiMax dsp matrix firmware then applies special proprietary smooth-panning algorithms to ensure glitch-free delay transitions between Image Definitions.

In previous years the movements of actors between Image Definitions were mapped out in rehearsal into a series of TiMax showcontrol Cues, which the operator would step through manually during the show. In this year’s Tosca production, the TiMax Tracker system is continually following each actor’s movement around the stage with TiMax responding automatically in real-time to assign their individual radio mics onto the corresponding audio Image Definitions.

How the actors are tracked…

Each actor wears a small UWB transmitter Tag which communicates with an array of six small Sensors mounted on a lighting bar running around the Circle balcony-front just above the Second Tier boxes. The Sensors analyse a combination of Angle (AOA) and Time (TDOA) of Arrival information many times a second to allow the TT software to locate where the actors are on stage. The TT software sends MIDI messages to the TiMax ShowControl software via an internal soft MIDI link, identifying the actors by name and also by the specific pre-defined localisation zone they are each occupying at any instant in time.

The TiMax software then converts these messages using the pre-programmed Image Definition level/delay instructions and sends them to the TiMax DSP matrix to place the actors’ audio images in the appropriate localisation zones on stage. Each Tag’s refresh rate can be dynamically varied independently for individual actors, so the system can respond instantaneously to the rapid stage movements of certain characters whilst transmission bandwidth can be preserved on the more sluggish individuals.

Technology ahead of its time…

This all takes place automatically and in real-time, enabling the sound to follow the actors as they cross the stage, without any intervention from the operator. Considering that it could easily take dozens of cues to achieve manually, this represents a substantial reduction in pre-programming effort and removes the need for any intervention by the operator during the show.

The TT location algorithms work equally well in the vertical plane, so for Tosca the TiMax system will also automatically track and localise the heroine as she gives her final aria at the top of the castle walls some 20 feet above the stage before taking her famous tragic plunge over the parapet.

The software can also generate MIDI events based on specific actors moving into close proximity to each other, a facility which could be used to help automate the routing of mics between the different channels of an A/B vocal reinforcement system for instance.

The scope of the system…

The TiMax Tracker system can follow up to 60 actors at any time depending on refresh rate, or an indefinite number if you add further interlinked tracking cells. The TiMax delay matrix currently provides up to 32 audio inputs and can independently localise up to 16 actors simultaneously in the same scene, across 32 different Image Definitions. Larger arena productions and more complex spaces can utilize a series of interlinked cells of TT Sensors networked together to cover the whole area.

As the TT Sensors are mounted around the perimeter of the performance space it is ideally suited also to outdoor shows without a roof, and has already been scheduled for a major European musical theatre production on the shore of a lake during the summer.

TiMax audio interfacing can be analogue or digital, and in the case of Tosca its inputs are connected to the Digico console via AES/EBU. The TiMax system’s 32 analogue outputs feed directly to the XTA speaker controllers for EQ and additional signal distribution.

TiMax at the heart of the danish royal theatre

No stranger to the principles of Source Oriented Reinforcement (SOR), Karsten Wolstad, one of Det Kongelige Teater’s principal sound designers, has employed Out Board’s TiMax delay matrix and showcontrol software at the heart of the theatre’s new playhouse sound system. The main design objective was to maximise dramatic impact by optimising localisation of amplified voices and effects throughout even the largest performances on the vast main stage

So, as the lights go up on the venue’s inaugural performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it will never be the audience who need to ask “Who’s there?”

Wolstad and sound design colleague Jonas Vest worked closely with Out Board’s Robin Whittaker to create an SOR-based sound system design to supply unobtrusive and subtle amplification with accurate audio image localisation and hence good intelligibility for all audience members.

Two rows of five d&b horn-loaded full-range cabinets provide the main reinforcement to the circular auditorium, supported by Tannoy NXT flat panel front fills with a further 32 NXT’s under the balconies as delays and for surround effects. Additional d&b’s cover the rear upper and side balconies plus some more on stage for first-wavefront support and deep upstage sound effects. A large format Studer Vista 5 console routes all microphone and playback sources via AES3 into a 16-in/32-out TiMax audio imaging processor, which in turn feeds the multi-channel distributed loudspeaker system.

The effect of focusing the system onto multiple sound sources is achieved by defining a number of localisation zones on stage and in the auditorium and then delay-mapping these image definition origins independently to each of the loudspeakers and the seating areas they cover. The TiMax matrix and software can then statically or dynamically pan sound sources to multiple locations around the stage or house, continuously varying delay times so that the Haas precedence effect maintains good imaging for the whole audience. Notably, Det Kongeligeis also one of several recent TiMax installations fitted with new proprietary smooth-panning firmware algorithms which enhance the transparency of the delay-panning process by eliminating any glitching or phasing artifacts.

Sound effects content is handled by TiMax Soundtablet editing, playback and waveform-based panning functions which are embedded within the TiMax showcontrol software, triggered either manually or by external MIDI or SMPTE control from the Studer console.

Very satisfied with the final outcome, Wolstad commented, “I am absolutely delighted with the results we achieved – and with the continued co-operation we have received from Robin and Out Board.”

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