The TiMax Gig

TiMax actual and potential applications are as diverse as the entertainment and promotions industries can throw at it. The system is used extensively in amplified opera to satisfy opera-goers and critics that the sound system is no longer obtrusive and distracting, having cut its teeth in classical and modern theatre by creating authentic localisation for actors voices and animated surround sound effects. It has also become central to many prestige corporate promotion events such as F-1 Racing's Jacques Villeneuve and his BAR team making their pre-season pitch to the press with synchronised video and animated surround sound, or assisting IBM in motivating their staff at their yearly European conference, or punctuating Ken Kesey's road-warrior narrative during Chrysler's Jeep launch at the N.American motor show. Latterly TiMax has even been deployed in hotel lobby bars to create atmospheric soundscapes with chirping crickets and birds or even helicopters hovering overhead, through to DJ's from dance clubs like Fabric and live artists like Dreadzone taking the "3D audio" concept to heart and exploring the addition of multichannel audio animation to extend and enhance their set. The field is wide open.
(See TiMax Application Notes)

However, the TiMax systems are also easy to integrate in practice into more conventional sound reinforcement environments to provide significant enhancement and creative resource. Left / Right or Left / Centre / Right mixing console busses can be assigned to fixed Image Definition localisations, with several console matrix or aux busses assigned to other TiMax inputs for further mood-enhancing Wide L/R, Rear L/R/Centre special localisations to be applied to individual parts of the mix. Adding animation even subtly to some of these mix elements can significantly increase audience immersion and message impact. Console routing, often automated these days, can be driven from the TiMax Playlist to assign relevant sources on a cue by cue basis, whilst separate TiMax Events triggers fire off a range music, atmos or sound effects playback media.

We have reached a plateau in sound re-inforcement with our complex knowledge and digital management of Speakers and Spaces, and how they interact. TiMax and source-oriented reinforcement completes the picture by dealing with the Senses, in order to control and then exploit the way we hear and provide something significantly more real and effective than the one or two-dimensional compromise we have grown used to accepting.