TiMax – now That’s Magick
 The world premiere of Magick Macabre, an alternative 'magic and horror' spectacular – staged by Moya Doherty and John McColgan’s Riverdream Productions, the creators of the hugely successful Riverdance phenomenon – was hosted at Olympia Theatre, Dublin in October 2008.
The tantalizing and grizzly show kept audiences pinned to their seats – all aided by the immersive sound tactics of OutBoard’s TiMax Audio Imaging matrix, which created a soundscape as realistic and chilling as the performances were graphic.
 Kevin McGing, Production Sound Engineer for the show, called on Dublin-based MOSCO to supply and install the multi-channel sound system – including the TiMax audio imaging system – specified by Dublin-based composer, Denis Clohessy, to handle multiple on-stage and surround-sound effects localisation.
The music and effects montage, comprised of several hundred cues, in its totality was created by Denis Clohessy. The dialogue free production was entirely dependent on the soundtrack to provide the backdrop for master illusionist, Daemon Cordell, to carry out his macabre people-chopping, drilling and lady-burning stunts.
 Out Board’s Robin Whittaker spent a week on-site amidst the fake blood and body parts of the technical rehearsals to provide the TiMax setup and programming support. Whittaker comments “Magick Macabre has a lot going on in audio terms. For example; a stereo music track starts in an on-stage old fashioned 78 wind up gramophone player and then moves, or rather morphs, into the main house stereo playback system over a background bed of clanks, groans and rolling thunder, while keeping some headroom for spot effects to punctuate the on-stage action. In order for this to work well perceptually, from the audience perspective, it was important to give each element of the multilayered mix its own spatial signature. TiMax makes this otherwise dauntingly complex task relatively easy”
The music, atmospheric tracks and spot effects were compiled and played back through QLab, via a Yamaha 01V console, into eight TiMax inputs to be independently localised and dynamically panned around the stage and auditorium. The TiMax show control software was slaved to QLab via MIDI to run playlist Cues which added the necessary localisations and effects pans to Denis Clohessy’s multilayered audio sequences.
The TiMax matrix employs pre-programmed, delay-based Image Definitions, which utilise the Haas Precedence effect to ensure all static and animated pan localisations work effectively for every audience member regardless of their seating position. Multiple varying delay times are applied between each individual source track and every speaker to ensure the designers were able to create a continuously-changing, dramatic and immersive music and effects soundscape. Proprietary smooth-panning dsp algorithms in the TiMax matrix ensure that the enhanced, delay-based imaging is achieved without any glitching or colouration of the sound.
The 16 TiMax matrix outputs fed a distributed system of d&b Q-Series cabinets and subs that catered for the main stalls plus the circle and balcony left and right positions. A centre-hung d&b E9 cabinet with asymmetric horn augmented the sound and further front-fill was added via a pair of d&b E8s.
On stage, two left and right pairs of upstage and downstage d&b MAX12 wedges worked as effect speakers and in the auditorium a pair of d&b E3s, on each audience level, provided rear left and right surround effects. A pair of E-V X-Line subs, driven off a dedicated TiMax output, added depth to some of the more pivotal effects in certain scenes for dedicated low-end impact.
Kevin McGing explained why TiMax was the only match for the production, “The production is completely new and a very shocking full-on show in terms of sound, lighting and set as well as the gore. The only way we could get anywhere near creating sound that matched up to the other artistic criteria was to use surround sound – and once that decision was made the only intelligent way to go was to use TiMax.
“Only with TiMax could we get that ability to put everything exactly where we wanted it, when we wanted it, at the volume we wanted it at!”
He adds, “It was the first time I had used TiMax myself and I took to it very quickly. You have to trust it and go for it – and it repays your trust handsomely and the performance went perfectly.”
 
TiMax moves Matter
Situated in London’s O2 Arena, Matter – the latest club spin off from the hugely successful Fabric brand – has opened its South-East-London-facing doors on a vast 3000-capacity space. The technical specification within has affirmed Matter as the UK’s first higher-tech superclub – and central to the system is a 16-channel TiMax audio delay matrix, which controls every channel of the main Room One sound system, including the subwoofers and the BodyKinetic vibrating floor. Matter’s sound and lighting design consultant, Dave Parry of Most Technical, confirms, “Before we even knew how the final system would work together, TiMax was always going to be integrated into it whatever we did!” Parry was first introduced to TiMax by Out Board’s Dave Haydon, when the system became a central element of the original Fabric Room2 sound design.
 Matter is designed around the Kandinsky principle: vibration, lighting and music all coming together as a whole to provoke a trance-like state. Parry explains, “The whole lot – lighting, video and sound – moves as an integrated whole so as a very basic example, say the club is lit blue, I can take a red from one end of the room, all the way through the bar area LED lighting, through the video projectors and moving heads, to the dance floor, and then as the colour and projections move around there, the sound system will move with it – thanks to the TiMax. The TiMax also controls the Bodysonic floor and the sound from the subs, it’s all linked together to create a totally immersive experience.”
The main room system controlled by the TiMax delay matrix is comprised of left and right hangs of Martin Audio W8L with W8LD as downfill and a small central hang of W8LM. Six Martin Audio H3s are spaced around the periphery of the dancefloor, just below the first floor balcony, and eight WS218 subwoofers are centrally arrayed in a single block under the stagefront.
As the TiMax controls the sound system, so an Avolites Diamond 4 desk exerts total control over each element of the technological mix - triggering the TiMax and the video projection via midi, and the LED lighting and moving heads via DMX.
Parry explains, “We’ve pre-programmed a series of chases that can be set off at the press of a button to augment the music. They each incorporate all the technologies, but from a TiMax perspective we can move sound around the loudspeaker channels, or we could just split the sound system up and send different elements to any channel or any combination of them: voices or random noises creating the effect of apparently-localised sound sources. For the future we are working on a full-range BodyKinetic floor so we could get voices coming from the floor. We could also make special umbrella effects that create soundscapes from above.
 “We’ve committed to working one-on-one with just a couple of the UK’s greatest DJs, who want to dedicate time to working closely with the system: bringing in laptops and breaking down the music into its component parts, pulling bits out of the mix to reposition in the space and co-ordinate lighting with it through the Avolites’ desk. There’s an Oxygen8 MIDI keyboard in the booth to allow realtime triggering of audio and lighting events as an integral part of the DJ’s set.
“So, there’ll be a real mix of integrated performance-related stuff on the fly and then there’s the potential for pre-programmed material-specific set pieces that will be totally individual to a set played at Matter. This is no ordinary clubbing experience!”
TiMax Tracker helps the tale of William Tell
The story of William Tell is given much credence in Switzerland as it is essentially regarded as an important episode in the formation of the Swiss nation. When director Volker Hesse interpreted the original Schiller play a dialogue-only rendition of the story – Tellspiele – he solicited the assistance of Out Board’s TiMax Audio Imaging system and sound designer Tom Strebel to produce the most reliable, person-specific, voice-localisation effects available, with real-time automation by the new TiMax Tracker actor tracking system.
The play was staged in the Uri Theatre in Altdorf – the Swiss province from whence Tell originally hailed. The 500plus-capacity theatre is a standard proscenium build, but not much else about this production’s staging could be described as standard. The theatre’s interior was almost completely re-fashioned to create a 35-metre long stage platform stretching all the way from the rear upstage wall right to the far back of the auditorium, above the original audience seating area. New audience seating was then established in tiers, atop and at a 90-degree angle to the original seating, either side and facing across the new central stage.
The audience’s visual scope was not contained to just this already vast 180-degree plane, however, as a significant slice of the action is taken behind both seating areas. Hesse recognised the potential for audience-confusion and knew that controlling the auditory perspective with TiMax would be essential –the audience would need their ears to help guide their eyes to the performers on stage. TiMax Tracker’s inherent 3D capability was invaluable for maintaining localisation in these special performance areas some metres higher up than the main stage platform.
Hesse is no newcomer to this audio-imaging technology. Indeed, he had witnessed the startling benefits of TiMax-assisted production when he directed the huge open-air Welttheater musical opus in Einseideln, coincidentally with Tom Strebel again as the sound designer and his Audiopool crew running the TiMax system. For both projects Out Board director Robin Whittaker was also on hand to provide sound design and programming support.
For the performance of Tellspiele, the stage was broken down into 16 different zones: six across the expanse of the central stage, four each side at the back of the audience and one each at the extreme ends of the stage. Sixteen actors were permanently tracked – each with their own Sennheiser radio microphone channel – and the action took them continually through the full span of the established TiMax zones across the central stage and to the furthermost rear extents of the audience area.
The distributed sound system – comprised of 21 Klein & Hummel Pro-X6N enclosures – was hung as seven outward-facing pairs along a central truss above the stage. A further three cabinets were positioned at each end of the stage, pointing towards the opposite stage end and a single box covered the sound-mix position. This setup provided the appropriate degree of coverage and separation for the voice localisation to be effective.
 Each actor wore a TiMax Tracker (TT) Tag which transmitted synchronised ultra-wideband pulses to six TT Sensors around the room. The TT Location Engine software continually analysed multiple signal arrival angles and time differences to compute precise location data in real-time for every actor. The TiMax showcontrol computer communicated this information to the TiMax delay matrix which then applied Out Board’s proprietary smooth-panning algorithms between the actors’ mics and the loudspeakers to provide the necessary precedence-based vocal localisation for every audience member.
 Commenting on the performance of the TiMax within the production, sound designer, Tom Strebel, said, “We knew that vocal localisation from TiMax was going to be very advantageous to the production, but in hindsight Tellspiele would have been almost impossible to comprehend without it – the action in many places is so fast: the audience must be able to instantly place which actor is speaking.
“The TiMax Tracker system too, we used for the first time and the reliability and accuracy far supersedes my expectations even knowing the quality of the TiMax product. It is fascinating to watch the software depict the movement of the actors between the zones and hear the results. It also gives the actors more freedom and makes watching even more pleasurable for the audience.”
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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