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TiMax Tracker tours with Die Patienten rock musical
 Pro Audio Technik, German distributor of Out Board’s TiMax range of audio matrix and tracking products, have made their first sale to a German rental company, supplying a TiMax2 SoundHub-R16 and TiMax Tracker system to Sugar Veranstaltungstechnik based in Sinzing.
The system was specified by award-winning Swiss sound designer, Thomas Strebel of audiopool, for inclusion on the bizarre tour of musical comedy, “Die Patienten” by Switzerland’s favourite comic, Marco Rima. Strebel is well versed in producing transparent source-oriented sound reinforcement for performances of vast proportions and also in the round, so he and his team were perfectly at home amongst the tour madness!
 Die Patienten is the story of members of a mental care institution who form a rock band but need to escape their current closed environment to fulfil their destiny and prove themselves by winning the band competition. The crazy story line is matched with high energy, highly choreographed, on-stage rock performances in each of the seven tour locations.
 Up to ten principal actors and chorus members wear miniature TiMax Tracker (TT) Tags which allow their locations on stage to be continuously tracked by three radar-scanner TT Sensors; two mounted proscenium left and right pointing back and across the stage, with a single rear centre-positioned TT Sensor pointing forward. The TiMax2 SoundHub receives the tracking information as a continuous MIDI stream which it then converts into seamless delay-matrix crossfades in the vocal PA to achieve corresponding vocal localisations in real-time.
The TiMax2 SoundHub is fed the individual headset radio-mics and a band mix via MADI from a Digico SD8 console, while the TiMax outputs go direct to d&b D12 amplifiers to drive the separate vocal and music systems. TiMax provides all PA system routing, level-profiling and EQ as well as the delay-matrixed vocal localisation controlled by TiMax Tracker.
Three d&b Q7 speakers mounted on an upstage truss at left, centre, right positions provide for the dual purposes of performers’ foldback and also to act as first wavefront references to anchor the vocal PA’s TiMax imaging delays.
 The main vocal PA, comprising two channels of d&b Q1 array, is flown from the front truss at mid-left and mid-right positions. Four d&b E3 enclosures are mounted under the front lip of the stage as front fills. A separate music system – flown d&b Q1 line array system with ground stacked subs left and right – serves the live rock band and playback.
Audiopool’s soundmix crew on-site are Felix Hohl and Laurenz Zschokke running the DiGiCo SD8 and TiMax at FOH. Mixing monitors on the Yamaha LS9 are Lukas Neuenschwander and Ronan Huber.
Strebel stresses, “A tour like Die Patienten will always benefit from the addition of TiMax2 Soundhub and the Tracker System. The performance is very high energy and the tracking system really helps the audience keep up with what is going on where.
“The TiMax delay management ensures that the audio really packs a punch through the d&b systems – the acting and the sound support are very well matched – and the set up at each venue is so simple – TiMax is such a natural part of this kind of sound system.”
www.sugarvt.de
 
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Turku City Theatre installs TiMax Tracker and TiMax2 SoundHub
 Finland’s Turku City Theatre has installed a TiMax2 SoundHub audio showcontrol matrix and TiMax Tracker performer-tracking system, following demonstrations on-site last year by TiMax distributor Hedcom and Out Board director Dave Haydon. The installation marks the first of several similar TiMax procurements by prestigious Scandinavian theatres all undergoing major sound system upgrades during the spring and summer of 2010.
 Turku City Theatre’s refurbishment is timed in anticipation of Turku’s 2011 status as European Capital of Culture. The theatre is Finland's oldest municipal theatre, founded in 1946 although re-built in 1962, and Turku itself is Finland’s oldest town and a former capital.
At the core of Turku’s audio refurbishment is a 48-in/48-out TiMax2 SoundHub-R48 delay-matrix processor equipped with a bespoke selection of audio interfacing options. An onboard Ethersound module provides networked audio to the main Nexo GeoS LCR proscenium and balcony delay systems via their Ethersound-compatible NX242 system processors. The same network also delivers analogue audio via distributed Netcira interfaces for six Alcons SR9 front fill cabinets, four on-stage VR8 vocal reference speakers and eight VR8 side-surrounds. TiMax analogue outputs feed groups of twenty-seven Alcons TS3 balcony delays and rear surround effects speakers split across nine amplifier channels.
Multiple outputs from the Digidesign console connect to the TiMax via digital AES3 inputs, with an additional 48 tracks of random-access audio playback sources also available from the TiMax internal hard-drives. Turku’s engineers specified optional dual-redundant mirrored 250Gb drives and dual power supplies in the TiMax for added security.
Integrated with the TiMax2 SoundHub matrix is a TiMax Tracker performer tracking system, which automates the delay-based localisation of performers’ radio mics to ensure their audio signature always follows their on-stage position. A network of five TiMax Tracker TT Sensors continuously monitors the stage so that miniature TT Tags worn by the actors can be tracked in real-time using radar-frequency pulses transmitted by the Tags. The actors’ positions on stage are continuously relayed via MIDI to the TiMax matrix where special DSP algorithms transparently cross-fade delay-matrix values between the actors’ mics and the vocal system to apply the corresponding audio localisations.
 Only two TT Sensors need to “see” an actor to achieve precision 3D tracking down to an accuracy of 15cm, including vertical positioning so they can be followed up and down ramps or stairs. Turku has two TT Sensors on auditorium lighting bars pointing down and across the stage to catch two forestage wing locations apparently favoured by many directors. Two more Sensors look across the stage from high up behind the proscenium arch while a fifth Sensor points forward from the rear of the stage, adding further redundancy to mitigate against blocking by scenery or thespian lifeforms.
On-site commissioning was carried out by Hedcom project engineers, Kurt Nyback and Ari Manninen, assisted by Out Board’s Robin Whittaker, who also trained senior engineers, Jari Tengstrom and Mika Hiltunen, in the programming of TiMax delay localisations and TiMax Tracker’s automatic calibration procedures.
 Turku’s Jari Tengstrom declared himself to be “highly satisfied and enthusiastic” about how well TiMax Tracker and TiMax2 SoundHub have integrated with and performed in the theatre for signal distribution, EQ, delay-localisation and automation. The system is currently busy in rehearsals for a lavish production of Laulavat Sadepisarat (Singing in The Rain) which re-opens in April 2010 following a successful run last autumn.
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TiMax Tracker evolutionary sound design for Les Miserables
In Autumn of 2009 Lausanne’s vast Theatre de Beaulieu hosted a landmark production of Les Miserables, the first ever version in its native French form to be staged in Switzerland’s French-speaking Romande sector. Keen to get it just right for such an auspicious debut, director Gerard Demierre engaged sound designer Thomas Strebel of audiopool to create a cutting-edge source-oriented reinforcement system based around the TiMax Tracker radar tracking system and TiMax2 SoundHub audio matrix.
 Sixteen actors wore miniature UWB TiMax Tracker (TT) transmitter Tags which were tracked by six TT Sensors installed around the stage and the auditorium. The TiMax Tracker software used an automatic calibration routine to instantaneously map the stage area in three dimensions based on some simple measured Sensors location data. Thereafter the system followed the actors’ movements around stage and sent this information via MIDI to the TiMax2 SoundHub matrix.
Delay-matrix settings were programmed into the TiMax2 SoundHub matrix for eight localisation zones covering downstage left, centre, right, midstage left and right, upstage centre plus two far upstage zones which were used to focus a quickfire vocal-duelling number at the top of the show. The TiMax matrix interpreted the tracking information and applied proprietary smooth-panning delay crossfade algorithms between each Shure wireless radio-mic signal and every PA speaker to move the performers’ audio images around stage in realtime.
Soundcraft Vi6 channel direct-outs were fed to the TiMax2 SoundHub via optical MADI, with a separate MADI link supplying a Pyramix record feed to provide a virtual sound-check resource once the cast had left the stage. The TiMax outputs then fed the distributed d&b onstage and front-of-house PA system with all system EQ and trim being done in TiMax using a wireless remote tablet PC.
Three hangs of two d&b Q1’s each with a Q7 downfill hung about 5m in front of the proscenium, fanned out to each cover a separate audience areas with no overlaps. Four E0 fills covered the front rows and a pair Kling&Freitag delays hung under the balcony. Left and right Q1/Q7 ground stacks with Q-Subs on the stage wings were used for the band mix.
The particular Les Miserables speciality was to use further Q7’s flown upstage as combined stage monitoring and first wavefront reinforcement systems on which to focus the front of house localisation delays. Two rows of three front-facing Q7’s above actors’ heads supported their the acoustic output, and with the help real-time cross-stage level profiling in TiMax, provided dynamically moving amplified sources to anchor the Tracker-driven vocal localisation delays above the relatively high-energy band mix.
Out Board’s TiMax distributor for Switzerland Bleuel Electronic AG supplied the TiMax2 and Tracker rental equipment. Additional sound design and programming support was supplied by Out Board’s Robin Whittaker. Director Gerard Demierre remarked “The realism and dramatic impact of the vocals were outstanding and made a big difference”
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The Swiss Alps have provided the backdrop for a hi-tech outdoor resurrection of Jesus Christ Superstar. Phil Ward tracks the role of TiMax in the production…
 This particular Superstar is said to have walked on water. That would have come in very handy during this lakeside presentation of Webber and Rice’s hippy-tinted musical testament, but thankfully some reliably modern technology was on hand to cope with the fluid conditions.
 Nothing’s more fluid than audio, so Basel-based sound design and consulting company audiopool turned to a watertight combination of d&b audiotechnik speakers, Soundcraft and Yamaha digital consoles and Out Board’s TiMax2 Soundhub audio matrix to create a stable bubble of sound over a minimalistic temporary stage set on the shore of Lake Thunersee, near Thun. The press responded enthusiastically; the producers were smiling.
 For Cambridgeshire-based Out Board’s the show marked a number of significant firsts. This was the first time that the groundbreaking combination of TiMax2 Soundhub and the TiMax Tracker (TT) real-time location system had been applied in the open air, without the usual solid reference points of a theatre. TT uses ultra-wideband RF technology that tracks the key performers across all of the three dimensions they wander through in a complex stage set, and according to Out Board founder Robin Whittaker it was a successful honeymoon for TT and Soundhub, the new version of TiMax.
“TiMax2 hadn’t been used on this scale before,” he reveals, “that’s to say linked to a tracking system and doing full system management including EQ and time delay – for 16 channels of main sound reinforcement, another six channels of spot-effects and reverb on stage and the same again for surround loudspeakers. Thirteen of the inputs – the principal vocalists – were motion-tracked.
“TiMax2 exploits the advantages of TT well because the audio engine offers much more of everything that the original TiMax offered. It has internal hard disk drives for playback, it’s a fully standalone show control system, it has input and output EQ and a much greater channel count. We’ve also upgraded the crossfade algorithms that are the key to the seamless change of delays from one TT zone to another.”
 Sound designer Tom Strebel has been something of a pioneer for TiMax, last year winning an Opus Award at Frankfurt for his TiMax-adjusted design for a production at Das Einsiedler Welttheater in Einsiedeln, and has begun to incorporate TT into his repertoire of techniques. At Thunersee four pairs of d&b Q7s sat discreetly at the lip of the stage as front-fills, while four more delayed pairs were mounted about half way up the seating on poles. Whittaker’s concept was that they should act as ‘image-pulling stereo pairs’.
“It consisted of zoning up the audience area and giving each one a left and a right loudspeaker source,” he explains. “By careful setup of the image definitions – the level-delay relationships to the speakers that TiMax and TT employ – we were able to deliver directionality but no given loudspeaker was prominent. Wherever you sat, you were unaware of the sound coming at you from any given speaker source. It appeared to come from the mouths of the actors or from the orchestra pit.”
 It was also a debut for new weatherproof casings for the TT sensors, a baptism of water that sees TT come of age for the outdoor market; and the first time that both full orchestra and voices had been subjected to the delicate imaging processes of TiMax in tandem with TT to cover every seat.
A generous row of paired d&b E3s along the back and sides of the raked seating added surround effects and reverb to the sound field, also via TiMax2, to inject some ambience into the roofless and wall-free environment. “We’ve noticed at outdoor events that you actually miss the first reflections and natural reverberation of indoor environments,” Whittaker says, “and we wanted to re-create that to some extent. So we used these surround and onstage speakers and generated reverb in the usual way, using Lexicon. We then used TiMax to time-align the reverb returns and distribute them to the loudspeaker system such that direct sound always arrived before reverberant signal. That required a minimum of 10 to 15 milliseconds of pre-delay, wherever you were sitting.”
Newly appointed Out Board distributor for Switzerland Bleuel Electronic AG supplied the TiMax2 and TT equipment to Audiopool. Bleuel is well established in theatre, not least for its ongoing representation of Sennheiser, and according to Whittaker is looking to expand its operations in live sound. “We’d love to do this here again next year, and more outdoor applications in general,” he adds, “and if you’re only as good as your last gig, well… we stand a very good chance!”
Reproduced from an original article in ProSound News Europe, October 2009, story by Phil Ward. Copyright UBM Information Ltd 2009.
www.prosoundnewseurope.com
www.audiopool.net
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To view stories from past news stories please visit the news archive
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When Raymond Gubbay staged his opera in-the-round Carmen spectacular in London’s cavernous O2 Arena for the first time this summer, TiMax was called upon to help stitch together the audio as it has done successfully for the past ten years of Gubbay’s Royal Albert Hall productions. For a performance on such a large scale it was considered especially vital for the audience to localise to the individual performers if the English-translated libretto was to come across clearly. 
TiMax Tracker was deployed for performer tracking in its first large arena-scale production, using six TT Sensors mounted on balcony rails above the corporate boxes. The raised s-shaped stage platform and lower forestage aprons were divided into 36 tracking zones which Tracker used to control continuously varying matrixed delay times in a 48-channel TiMax SoundHub processor. 
Thirty low-profile Meyer UPJ arrays were mounted in adjacent pairs on 1m high stands around the stage edge. These were arranged as crossfiring pairs to cover all lower tier audience seats from opposite aspects so that the TiMax precedence delays could do their localising magic up, down and across the stage.