The Global Media Site for Entertainment.
Menu
You read that title correctly, the future is spatial ( and binaural ) audio. Here’s why!
Back in 2012 everyone was awaiting our Pixar-Disney princess, and despite mixed reviews on how people perceived the movie Brave, one thing was undeniable; Atmos was here. Dolby Atmos had debuted, testing the limits of immersive audio in film. In 2022 you can find the technology displayed in home theatres, gaming consoles such as the Xbox One, certain smartphones, Airpods, and even your car.
Why? Is stereo not enough? What exactly is so enthralling about it?It’s the feeling of being or doing something you wouldn’t normally be able to do, that magic of watching a film, closing your eyes when listening to a podcast like Ronstadt, and feeling like you are in that space – doing what they are and experiencing what they are.
Abersonics, the DAD system, and Atmos are examples of established companies. Now unless you are Coca-Cola with the trade secret of its recipe, things normally bleed out to the public. This happened when the synthesizers and drum machines were more accessible to the general public – that same thing is happening to spatial audio programs, plugins, and equipment. Enter MaxMSP – why buy a spatializer when you can build one? Max is a programming language for the tech-savvy music makers – maybe in the future I can go more in-depth on building patches and programming on MaxMSP ( and a shout out to Pure Data ) but we can hold off on that. My point on bringing them up is that just with new technology comes new innovation – and it often comes from the small individual rather than the large corporation. What will spatial audio paired with projectionists do for the next generation of theatre makers? Live sound? I would argue that a lot can and will happen regarding this within this decade – I’d bet on it too. As people use this tech to build and create new jobs and avenues that have never existed before will emerge.
Over the summer I was lucky to see Between the Lines, the show mainly took place with our protagonist, Delilah, looking and talking to her male counterpart, Prince Oliver. Prince Oliver lives in the world inside of a children’s book, and in order to illustrate that the crew used a combination of set design, lighting, and projection. The latter was unbelievably impressive to me, how the projections surrounded Oliver to make him look and feel 2-dimensional without taking away from the fact that you indeed are looking at an actual person move and act in a certain way. Broadway has been looking into projection design more and more, go to one of your favorite productions and prove me wrong.
The current 2022 Les Miserables tour uses projection to create a sense of depth, it’s visual paired with the reverberant orchestra pulls you in. I focus on Broadway here because I think that we as audio engineers and enthusiasts can help to bring in more involved audiences. I’m talking about Immersive theatrical experiences with in-the-round and thrust configurations with full-range projection and spatial audio compositionists. If we look to more productions emulating Sleep No More’s theatrical sass of having audiences become part of the show we may cultivate a blurred line between performer and audience – but is that a bad thing? I say no, I say we welcome this inevitably with open and excited arms.
The future is in immersion, the future is spatial.
How to Own Your Work Without it Owning You
The mission of SoundGirls.org is to inspire and empower the next generation of women in audio. Our mission is to create a supportive community for women in audio and music production, providing the tools, knowledge, and support to further their careers. SoundGirls.Org was formed in 2013 by veteran live sound engineers Karrie Keyes and Michelle Sabolchick Pettinato and operates under the Fiscal Sponsorship of The California Women’s Music Festival, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. In 2012, Karrie and Michelle participated in the “Women of Professional Concert Sound” panel at the AES Conference in San Francisco. The panel was hosted by the Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) and moderated by WAM founder Terri Winston. Terri brought together five women working in live and broadcast audio. The groundbreaking panel (which also included Jeri Palumbo, Claudia Engelhart and Deanne Franklin), provided young women and men a glimpse into life on the road, tips and advice, and a Q & A with the panelists. More importantly though, was how incredibly powerful the experience was for the panelists. We had all been in the business for 20 years or more, yet most of us had never met before that day and within minutes we bonded like long-lost sisters. We were struck by how similar our experiences, work ethics, and passions were and wondered why our paths had never crossed and how our careers would have been different had we been there to support each other through the years. Each of us are strong on our own, but together we were even stronger and a powerful force. We were empowered. Each of us had been asked hundreds of times in our careers: Are there other women doing sound? How did you get into sound? How would a young woman go about getting into sound? Through creating SoundGirls.Org, we hope to establish a place for women working in professional audio to come for support and advice, to share our success and failures, our joys and frustrations, and for empowerment and inspiration.
Read Full Profile
© 2021 TheatreArtLife. All rights reserved.
Thank you so much for reading, but you have now reached your free article limit for this month.
Our contributors are currently writing more articles for you to enjoy.
To keep reading, all you have to do is become a subscriber and then you can read unlimited articles anytime.
Your investment will help us continue to ignite connections across the globe in live entertainment and build this community for industry professionals.
