Ministry of Sound refurbishment
Recently refurbished, the main room at the UK’s iconic Ministry of Sound is now home to a KV2 Audio sound system designed by Technical and Production Manager Oscar Zammit and integration specialist, Louis Jemmott.
Son Doong: Recording the Infinite Cave
Called the Infinite Cave because of its size, Son Doong is among the world’s biggest caves. Recently, photo journalist Martin Edström led a team that photographed it and recorded the sounds occurring inside it.
‘Sound wide, there was always something to be heard – wind, water dripping, a river running, distant birds and sometimes also the thundering silence, if you know what I mean.’
Zone Wars: Audio in Art and Weaponry
Coming at sound from very different directions, two UK art galleries recently put audio at the forefront of an installation – each making use of contrasting interpretations of sound zoning.
While Marcus Coates’ Dawn Chorus framed human beings in the context of birds singing in their natural habitat, Audint’s Delusions of the Living Dead demarked areas of the Tate Britain using what they term ‘unsound’.
Case Study: The First Fully Digital Orchestra
Claiming to be the first orchestra to ‘go fully digital’, the Lille National Orchestra (ONL) is using a digital signal chain from sound pick-up to recording.
The orchestra’s own mobile studio comprises a total of 33 digital Neumann microphones, 24 digital Sennheiser microphones (all on active stands and booms), and six DMI-8 interfaces. Also included in the studio are a six-channel Sennheiser wireless system and a full Neumann monitoring set-up.
Case Study: Mixing at the Millennium Stadium
Opened in 1999 to host the Rugby World Cup, Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium has since seen a range of sports events, as well as concerts from the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, U2 and The Rolling Stones staged under its retractable roof.
Visitors to rugby’s Six Nations were largely unaware that announcements and entertainment during the matches were delivered via a PreSonus StudioLive 24.4.2AI mixing desk, supplied by PAI Group and operated by AB Acoustics.
Vinyl: The New Groove
While cylinders for Edison’s phonograph were the world’s first consumer music format in the late 1880s, the first music chart preceded them by around 50 years. Having originally represented sheet music sales, the music charts have tracked delivery formats through vinyl, cassette and CD to digital downloads.
Now, with music sales in a downward spiral, the UK’s first weekly vinyl chart has been launched.
Theatrical Address: Loudspeakers for Theatre
‘When we started in 1973, there were no loudspeakers, there were no mixers, there were no radio mics, there were no miniature mics that were made specifically for theatre use,’ recalls Autograph Sound Recording’s Andrew Bruce.
The breakthrough for loudspeakers came in 1980 with the release of Meyer Sound’s UPA – that and and The Godfather of Theatre Sound stepping in to champion its potential…
Case Study: Temple Beth Israel
With an increasingly technology-savvy congregation, Melbourne’s Temple Beth Israel is the first synagogue in Australia to stream Shabbat services online. But that same awareness meant that the failing sound system needed to be replaced.
Poor directional control and speech intelligibility, and the inflexibility of the infrastructure limited the development of new services and events. The time was right to improve the usability of the Synagogue’s sanctuary spaces.
Case Study: India National Games 2015
The sound systems required for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the recent National Games 2015, held at the Greenfield Stadium in Kerala during February, reflected both the scale and importance of the event.
In keeping with the event’s stature, responsibility for the live sound and feeds for broadcast coverage of the event fell to leading sound reinforcement and turnkey audio systems specialist, Sound.Com.
The Art of Recording: Flaunt the Imperfection
Under siege from home recording equipment on one front and new music distribution models on another, as well as being eclipsed by the world of gaming, the wider music business has been forced into increasingly desperate attempts to re-evaluate and reinvent itself.
The latest of these is to turn the recording of music itself into an arts project. Can we make the recording studio a show?
Case Study: Canberra Airport
AirVolution is the largest private sector investment in Canberra’s history – a massive $480m redevelopment of the city’s airport that has won it the accolade of Australia’s Airport of the Year.
Part of the project is an innovative A/V installation from Rutledge AV that uses the best of Tannoy’s digital beam steering technology that covers the airports 55,000-sq-m, providing announcement and emergency services.
The Sound of Story
Already resigned to its role of ‘poor relation’ to video and film, sound has recently seen new terminology further challenge its dignity. Locked film reels are increasingly being replaced with ones that are ‘soft locked’ or ‘parked’, giving the sound team a moving target.
A recent conference on sound for picture saw a series of high-profile speakers turning this to their advantage, among other insights, however…
Case Study: Question de Son
Recreating the vibe of classic recording studios of the 1970s posed both acoustic and monitoring challenges for Question de Son studio owners Jordan Kouby and Frederic Vectol.
‘Many recording studios are trying to face the record industry crisis by simplifying their installations – gear, maintenance, less investment, essentially in-the-box mixing. At Question de Son, we resolutely try to go the other way.’