Understanding Immersive Audio Environments and Technologies

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Pro AV today. I am your host, Ben Thomas. One of the things that's on everybody's mind right now in AV world is the idea of immersive audio and immersive audio environments. Obviously, you look at projects like the sphere and they've totally changed how we've thought about audio, how, you know, folks have have come to experience audio. So I wanted to bring on a couple folks today, not only to talk about project, but talk about what that means for our industry, not only from a design and application standpoint, but from an actual hands on standpoint. So The two folks I brought on today are folks from Hollowplot, the team who, provided and built the speaker system at the sphere. And that's Michael Casner and Ryan Penny. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks very much. Thanks, Ben. Well, Michael, wanna ask first. I think you've had an opportunity to actually be inside this fear for one of the shows I've gotta ask. Look, I I haven't had a chance to go yet, but how is it? What is the audio even like? Obviously, the visuals are incredible. But what does the audio sound like? Yeah. I mean, unlike anything I had experienced before, I would say, you're sitting in this massive venue and then you're experiencing a model who is, like, standing away a a long way and I still hear it right here. So it's a, from that perspective, something, that, why we haven't been working on this for a long time, of course. And working towards that, you really only then believe it when you're sitting in there, and you experience it and the people around you experience it. Well, and Ryan, I I need to ask. Right? I mean, obviously, you think about a gigantic spherical venue that sounds like an acoustical nightmare what are some of the the ways that you helped overcome some of those challenges just from a a system design standpoint? Yeah. Absolutely. Having a having a spherical venue is a challenge. We've done a lot of work in domes and spheres, with art technology. But it's even more of a challenge when there's the eight LED media plane in bulk as well with that, having a very large LED, which is obviously a a a small hard, reflective surface causes, challenges from reflections and echoes. And also just because of the distances involved, at the sphere, particularly, you know, the viewing distance to that LED and the size of the arena for twenty thousand, twenty thousand, fans, means we're talking about very, very long distances. So a lot of the work we've done is to be able to control sound over those distances first of all, and to overcome some of the challenges around, the loss of energy over distance, but also to then be able to direct that sound more towards the audience too, exactly as Michael was saying, be able to give this sense of real presence to the artist. So, rather than having this experience that you feel might detach strong having a, an experience that you feel really part of, and that the sound is a massive part of that experience as well. In making you feel included in the gig rather than an observer. Well, and Michael, I wanna ask too. Right? I I I mentioned it. We're not gonna spend a ton of time on the sphere. So we're gonna take what we've learned from the spear the sphere and apply it to our collective audio industry as a whole. Right? When you look at a project like that, it opens up all sorts of ideas and applications. Right? Not only, you know, not only surround sound, but obviously audio beaming haptic technology, in seat sound. There's this whole new world of audio that we're exploring, at scale in our community. But, you know, when you think about immersive audio, what are some of the applications maybe that we haven't thought about yet? Obviously, from a venue standpoint, we're seeing that. But are some of the other places that you're seeing immersive audio technologies roll out? It's a really, really good question. And I actually would like to start with talking a little bit about, term of immersive audio because I think it, becomes more and more, some kind of diluted term, and it requires a redefinition. For some people, immersive audio means that it's, surround sound. For other people who need something completely different, I think we shouldn't attach attach this term to a specific application and rather take it by its essential does the person in the audience feel immersed? And what does it actually take for that person to feel that? From my perspective, two things. One, it needs to feel true to them. Alright. So what I see is what I hear, and there's no mismatch. And also the audio system is not disturbing the visuals, which is very important, for example, in this field, but also in a lot of other projects that we're doing. And the other aspect is, how intimate does it feel. Right? So is there a perception of distance and in this case, it doesn't necessarily mean far or close, but just it's a conscious choice. And in the case of sphere, means it feels very close even though, the person on the stage is like one hundred and ten meters away, which is a massive distance. And if we take This definition of immersive audio, meaning the person feels immersed in the application, then I think we see a lot of different applications as well. We see on the one hand things like this field, which a lot of people in first stage wouldn't look at something immersive because it's stage focused. And for a lot of people, it means distributed, surround sound. But actually that is an immersive, stage focused, experience. But then on the other hand, of course, we also have what we would call experiential, experiences, or applications where, it's not stage focused. You walk around and while you walk around, you go on a journey. And you, experience something, while you're moving through the pain? Well, absolutely. And you talk about, obviously, all sorts of different applications. Staying in Vegas. There's places like the aluminum where you can experience a lot of that technology as well. Right? But there are also immersive experiences where you can have headphones on and all sorts of in ways. So, I appreciate you kinda kinda clarifying that. But Ryan, I wanted to ask. Right? When you think about, you know, this technology, and and and I wanna kinda focus just for a second on on the hollow pot technology. Right? Because you guys have really embraced the idea of nontraditional box and speaker design and mounting technologies in all sorts of different ways. And I think it's really revolutionized a lot of the ways that folks have thought about traditional audio systems. Right? When you think about venues specifically, okay, you've got your your dead hang PA systems, your stereo systems, and then your subs, sometimes you're gonna fly them, sometimes you're not. But when you think about, you know, the hollow plot ecosystem specifically, that opens up a lot of different doors from a mounting and placement perspective What are some of the ways that you're now seeing these speakers being placed to help drive a lot of these immersive and experiential experiences? Yes. It it's something that we're learning as well as creatives to get hands on the technology and do even more with it. Every time we see a new application, we learn a new way to to use our system, which is, which is something you don't experience from the traditional stereo PA system. The the position of that is kind of fixed to a large extent by, by the physics. And we try and uncouple that, to as large a degree as we can. To give the most flexibility for the creative to, build the experience they want to build, despite many of the the challenges. So if you have, space with three hundred and sixty degree projection, or you have a space with LED, or you have a physical space with physical objects or things you need to interact with, How can we position the sound system within that space? But more importantly, how can we then deliver the sound to the audience member that the creative wants to to build or or the soundscape that they want to create in that space. So we've seen We've seen our system used, both, in, what we use sensory call, the kind of, large central array, which allows you to do all steering, and as Michael was talking about with respect to the spear and creating stage localization, that's very important. We also then expanded that up to traditional systems where absolutely you can use our system in a in a stereo configuration, and there are benefits to having the the technology of being able control in the horizontal when you talk about a stereo image as well, the ability to overcome, level loss over a a stereo field, in the horizontal plane means a wider sweet spot, it means more people experiencing stereo. And then as you expand that out and you add additional positions. For example, start moving the loud speakers out to the sides and integrating them fully into projection surfaces, integrating them to LED in, elements and things like that. You can create very interesting effects where you can create stereo, for example, but you can create stereo over a much larger area, because of this overcoming the the level drop over distance. Because as we get closer to that loud speaker, we're not overwhelmed by sound. The the one, unique experience that most people feel with our system is as you get closer to the x one that's behind you right now, you're not met with this enormous amount of sound energy. That then dissipates very quickly as you walk away. And what that means is you get a great deal more flexibility in that positioning element of that even when we go large, so very large spaces being able to place the speakers much further away than we traditionally would be able to And that's powered because with the three d beamforming, we can restrict that space and really direct that energy over that large distance. Where with most traditional loudspeakers, we're we're talking about maybe one or two fixed dispersion angles, which means that that sound quickly, excites the room, rather than the person that's listening. Yeah. I don't mind just add to this. I think it's about at the first step, it's about doing the basics better. Alright. So, keeping the energy away from where it shouldn't go and making sure that the people in the audience have an opportunist experience, avoiding, unwanted reflections, avoiding vulnerable echoes. And once you have created that more functional canvas, I would say, then you can start adding, more unique, creative capabilities, that's a hollow plot technology would bring, but it all starts with first overcoming the the, changes that are changing run acoustic springs, and then, you can work with that. Well, Michael, to follow-up on that too, you know, I'll use the Illumiminary as an example. Right? The the speakers are actually mounted behind the screens. Right? Which is not it's not uncommon. Right? But it's It's nontraditional to have an impeded audio signal, but one of the cool things that I've noticed is that, you know, technology like this specifically kind of the beam forming in in, technology is that it allows the physical space to to look and feel and be a lot different than maybe a traditional installation. Right? And I'll I'll kind of, step back with this there's a lot more intentionality built into, these physical spaces, where audio is concerned. Because it it used to be, hey, we're gonna build a sanctuary. We're gonna build a venue, and we care more about the aesthetics of the venue, and, you know, we're gonna hang a PA system. That'll be great. But now you're able to actually build the audio system itself into the architecture, into, all sorts of different placement. What are some of the things now with maybe a smaller form factor that you're able to to create in a physical space versus maybe those traditional PA hung systems? Yeah. I would first want to say that I think it's really this level of hiding the loud speaker is very important. Because it always create, it creates a problem for the business. So we have this in many, many of our projects that are not because actually behind, maybe this screen or behind a protection screen, and we are, analytically compensating, for the transmission loss that this creates. Which is also unique to our technology. And, yeah, through that, you achieve that kind of level of immersion that you couldn't achieve before. And you can't look at the visual without thinking about that there is no non speaker discipline. That's also very important by the spheres such a success because it's a holistic experience. And that's also how we, in general, approach things, not as a audio siloed, approach, but actually thinking holistically across different AD disciplines because it's always about to general the complete experience and not just one or the other. And, Ryan, I wanna ask the same question to you, right, being a little bit more on the project management side. You know, how important is that physical space. Right? You don't get to walk into as much as we want to. You don't get to do a new build in every single venue. Right? That would be amazing and perfect if we did. But take kind of that perspective and apply it to the retrofit side. Right? There are a lot of existing spaces that can leverage this technology. I'm thinking churches, I'm thinking even museums. I'm thinking places like the Illumarium that are these experiential entertainment worlds. You know, how can you take this technology and apply it to a physical retrofit as well. Yeah. It's something that we've, we've had experience within in museum facilities and and also in venues as well, going into old venues that have notorious, acoustic challenges such as reflections from certain services that just can't be overcome certain glass balustrades or or roof structures, etcetera. So I think what's really interesting from a technology point is that know, we come at this from a from a real, technology innovation point of view, which is, by using, software as a control of our speaker, building the this software fine cloud speaker that we have with x one and on our future products, that's through that technology, we can alleviate some of challenges of integration. So, if you don't need to put in as many positions for speakers or if those positions are easier to access or, more integrated into the space. That's a cost saving for the project overall. And that cost saving can then go into, you know, making the holistic experience and also investing in the technology side. So we're solving those challenges through technology rather than just having to integrate more cable tray and more cabling and all the other things that we have to do as as audio system installers, which is often work that doesn't go towards an audio system just enabling work. So what we've seen in the retrofit environment is, as Michael was saying, integrating and covering our system, with a very advanced sort of matched, like, material matched, panels and things like that, has become very common for us, and something that we we're specialized in because of the unique, capabilities. And when it comes down to the steering side, when you think about steering in a traditional sense, or what we're all familiar with from concerts is is arrays of the curve. And those curved arrays allow that steering to happen. But unfortunately, that curve also means that it's impossible to achieve good results behind the material because as that curve comes away from the back of that, usually flat material, it creates diffraction off the back of the material, which means that the sound does not actually go through because the the surface appears more opaque to the sound than when it's directly perpendicular, by having a flat array of drivers and using our our software algorithms to do the steering, in a three-dimensional sense, we overcome that. And so that's why bringing that loud speaker tools, that surface, whatever it is, and integrating that into the surface of of a room or any kind of space, whether it's an LED in the sphere, where exactly like that, we follow the curvature of the back of the LED, or whether it's a panel that's match to look like marble or a different surface. We can steer through all of those and still offer that control of the sound propagation in the space. So combining those two things is is has been a massive part of the the journey we've been on, recently and it's a common demand from our our customers That's a great point. And to kinda follow-up on that too, Michael, you know, I think it's easy to live in a world where you're thinking on the creative, you know, the design side, the application side, the software side. But at the end of the day, there typically is an audio engineer, especially in the live environment, that has to operate a lot of this technology. And I know a lot of folks have been asking questions. Okay. Not only how do I how do I better create better coverage and a better tuned room. But, okay, how do I step that up? Right? How do I create a level of immersion or, you know, where someone might hard pan something in the past, you now have an option to sort of put it in different places in the room into different sections of the of the venue. What are some of the opportunities from an audio engineering standpoint that this opens up? Yeah. As you as you just mentioned, right, you you gain a lot of flexibility and what you can do, and you can overcome challenges that, so far weren't really, possible to overcome this conventional technology. I actually would like to highlight one one project that we have in London, with Lightroom where the challenge was that you just couldn't put a loud speaker where you wanted to have the sound, coming from. So we used a reflection. So we are pointing, the beam towards that spot and then making it sound like there's a loudspeaker. And that is something that simply wasn't possible before. But as Ryan mentioned before, I think that what's possible overall creatively with system is something that needs to be explored. We are only very beginning of what you can do. We sometimes look at, our system and we say, actually, there's a now we are at the level of instrument already. You can, manipulate sound. You can put things with sound waves from creating zones to creating very focused themes to creating very wide themes to creating virtual sources, that make sounds like there's an object, but, there's lots of it, but there isn't actually one. That's that's all part of the new palette of creative tools that, old engineers can use to create something that, hasn't hasn't been seen before. Well, Ryan, I wanna ask you the same question. Right? There's there's so many different applications and opportunities. What are some of the things that that this opens up for the audio engineering side? I think I think for if we just talk about engineers and what most of the people do on a, you know, from a live music perspective, for example, I think, first of all, it should be said that our system could behave just like a normal PA system if that's what you you want it to do. You don't really need to learn any real special skills in order to use it, and it isn't super complicated. So, once you decide what you want that, what you want that rate to be and to do, you just drive it while you're driving a PA system. Right? You tell your mixing to actually put it in. Use a standard, like, network, or a protocol or whatever flavor of audio you wanna get, and you can and you can play that PA system and you can and you can mix, your your show. But on top of that, then you you have some different things like the experience of not needing to mix sort of hot where you are to deal with the fact that at the back, people need to hear it. So actually sort of changing that is a is a learned experience for engineers to go. And so, actually, I can I can mix at a really pleasant level, for me as the engineer sat in a great seat? And everyone can have that same experience, is something that the people have to adapt to as an engineer and and get used to. And we've already seen that happening at the sphere and the other venues, like, in Lavera and Spain where we have a a festival that's used to our system this this summer, throughout the whole whole three month, summer festival period that they ran different engineers coming in, experiencing the system. So there's a learning curve, but it's really quite, intuitive and, it's just about learning some of those basic differences between between our system and everything else. And it's exactly like going from using a standard point or system to line array and learning that difference, and then doing the same, from a line arrays or matrix array for us. And then really, I think we're exploring or engineers have been exploring how to use that in a live context with respect to, covering the venues in different ways. There's different ways in which they can do that different techniques and different positions they can choose, just like any other PA system, and whilst for, maybe line array, there's sort of hard rules of thumb that people have learned over twenty five years of binary use. People now are experimenting with ours and I think that brings excitement for most of them. And certainly for our team, it brings excitement to to see what people wanna do with it. Try different things out and see where the technology, where the edges are, where we can push it. And what will develop? I think you would like to add and really emphasize this point that from a workflow perspective, we obviously try to make it as easy as possible to attempt to working with our system to a point where if you have, for example, configured the system in two or three ways. And I think it's important to understand that when when we're talking about the configuration of the system, we're now talking about beams, we're creating a code in you sound heat configuration in the room. You're changing the whole system, but that is actually something that you can do very quickly. So if you have a, let's say, console mode, or you have a, immersive movie mode, like, in the sphere. That's just in the end, a button click because it has been prepared already, and you just load this preset. Well, and I wanna ask Ryan one follow-up question. I appreciate that, that last thought, Michael. Ryan, one question on that is, does a system like this tour? Well, it did can you take it on tour? So, certainly, the technology is durable. You know, our our technology right now is is manifested in one products, the X two products is coming for for a different market, which is more folks, the installation market. The future for us is is to, you know, diversify where we apply that technology. The the x one is for indoor use. So from that point of view, if you're if you're doing outbuild touring in in like red rocks and things like that, probably not not exactly for you. But certainly it can be used in a live context, and we're doing live concerts, with the system, regularly. Particularly things like, special events, corporate events, theater shows, all of those different things. But, no, it wasn't really designed from the ground as a as a live touring, box, which let's face it. Most of those are concerned right now on truck pack and those kind of things. We still got that development to come ahead of us, but, the actual technology has huge advantages in that context. Particularly, if you look at the challenges that most touring engineers have over, getting the rigging in the right place of the different venues they have and adapting to that. And also things like reflections from school boards or reflections from, I said, the the fronts of the suites and the sky suites and all the other things in hospitality spaces, in an arena, there's major benefits to be able to beam steer away from those and actually be able to do it on the fly with software rather than have to send your rigors up to your PA and do any adjustments or drop the PA, etcetera. So from our point of view, we see the future as being a software controlled PA system for all applications not just, you know, immersive applications, but, right now, notice it's not the the the solution for all touring around the world. But perhaps it could be in in the short future. Well, I appreciate the candor and with the future in mind, Michael, wanna give you the last question here. What is the future of immersive audio? Right? That is a widely umbrella term, that can mean a lot of different things. I know that you mentioned that earlier, but what would you say is the not only for the great technology that you guys have, but for immersive experiences. Yeah. I think taking this word immersion and bringing it into all kinds spaces, be it, what we call an experiential venue, such as illuminario, but also into something like the sphere where we're now, all of a sudden, talking about an immersive stage focused, experience. But then also, as you mentioned before, immersion in, a mosque or a church where it's about, creating very meaningful experiences to better sound. Look, that that's a great way to end the conversation. I appreciate the both of you jumping in, and having this discussion with me today. You know, I I feel like it's probably the first of many conversations that we'll have because the technology is constantly improving, and the applications are constantly changing. I I love to see some of the ways that folks have leveraged this immersive technology, to really change their entire venues and their and their entire experiences. So I appreciate the both of you coming on today. We hope to have you on again soon. Thank you, Tom. And thank you, the viewer for tuning in. Be sure to like and subscribe and join us again time for Pro AB today.