A first-ever joint live performance of producer and artist, Brian Eno and his brother, pianist and composer, Roger Eno saw a 360° d&b audiotechnik Soundscape system in play at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus amphitheatre in Greece.
Brian Eno’s reputation as a musician, and producer for the likes of David Bowie, U2 and Talking Heads, precedes him as well as his long career as a pioneering solo artist, especially in the field of ambient music. He recently collaborated with his brother, Roger, a solo recording artist and film and TV music composer on their first joint album Mixing Colours that spawned this live show.
‘Due to the age and size of the amphitheatre, I thought that it would be a real challenge to analyse how the sound spreads in the space, and how we would manage coverage and reflections,’ says FOH engineer, Chris Hamilton. ‘Happily, because it’s such a historic venue there has been a lot of studies done on it and someone had previously conducted a full audio study for the space, so we had great audio info to work with.’
Hamilton had been introduced to Soundscape by Massimo Carli of BH Audio, and suggested using it to achieve power and clarity for this challenging outdoor venue. ‘I spoke with management about the opportunity we had to do something really special here and something that no one has done before,’ Hamilton says. ‘The challenge was more reassuring them that this will be simple, easy to install, and reliable – and the audience won’t even know it’s there, but they will hear it. We definitely took a risk, but there was trust and the results spoke for themselves.’
d&b Soundscape is powered by the DS100 Signal Engine, based on a powerful Dante-enabled signal matrix to provide creative options through its two software modules – En-Scene and En-Space. En-Scene is a sound object positioning tool allowing for the individual placement and movement of up to 64 sound objects. It accurately depicts stage scenarios so that each sound object corresponds both visually and acoustically. En-Space is an in-line room emulation tool that creates and modifies reverberation signatures for any space. These reverberation signatures are emulations derived from acoustic measurements of nine international performance venues and convolved within the audio processor.
For many, including Hamilton, this was their first show back since restrictions had been lifted, so anticipation was high. That being said, the audio and performance was very well received with fans and the band praising the show.
‘After the show, everyone was beaming and saying how good it sounded,’ Hamilton reports. ‘The future for me is all about spatial audio tools such as Soundscape. Soundscape helped me build not just volume but spread and movement as the show built. The clarity you get compared to a standard LR set-up is wonderful. It’s definitely something I’m looking to bring in for more shows with other artists in the future.’
‘There is nothing like experiencing 360° audio for the first time, and having introduced Chris to Soundscape a while back in our studio in Italy I’m pleased he finally got to try it out in the “real” world – and with such compelling results,’ Carli concludes.
More: www.dbaudio.com
