Tom Strebel and his Basel-based sound design and consulting company audiopool were behind both events.
The Dallebach Kari opus was staged at Thunersee, where every year a large stage is built upon the beautiful lake of this, one of Switzerland's largest cities. Strebel employed the TiMax SoundHub not only to apply its delay-matrix localisation capabilities to the radio mics, but also for full system management including EQ and zone control across 16 channels of distributed sound reinforcement. A further six channels were occupied by spot-effects and reverb on stage and the same again for surround loudspeakers.
The speaker system comprised four pairs of d&b Q7s at the lip of the stage as front-fills, with four more delayed pairs mounted about half way up the seating arrangement, on poles. The paired arrangement enabled TiMax SoundHub to create what Out Board MD, Robin Whittaker describes as, 'image-pulling stereo pairs'.
"It consists of zoning up the audience area and giving each one a left and a right loudspeaker source," he says. "By careful setup of the level-delay relationships to the speakers that TiMax employs we are able to deliver directionality but no given loudspeaker is prominent.
The slightly smaller-scale performance of Anna Carnifex took up residence in a purpose-built arena at a street corner of the Swiss town of Mollis. The 400-person audience were convened on two tiers of seating which were almost wrapped around the performance stage.
A total of 20 actors were tracked using TiMax Tracker - including five different actors each taking the title role at different parts of the show.
(Jim Evans)
