John Harris, Jody Elff and Rob Macomber’s Hear Gemini mobile audio unit has been upgraded to offer fully immersive audio production capabilities. The two-studio vehicle has served as the group’s mobile base of operations for such recent major events as the MTV VMAs, 2024 CMT Music Awards and NBC’s Concert for Michigan Central Station and is now capable of producing live 7.1.4 audio mixes which the group see as the future of broadcast audio.

‘As broadcast infrastructure is expanding to be able to deliver a full bandwidth 7.1.4 ​ immersive stream, creating immersive content to deliver via Binaural is our short term goal.’ Says Harris.

‘As broadcast music mixers, immersive formats give us an incredible amount of power to shape the viewer’s listening experience in a way that brings them much closer to being in the room and experiencing these performances live.’

Although broadcasters have been slow to take advantage so far, Harris believes that the possibilities inherent are nothing short of revolutionary: ‘Prior to this moment in history, if a consumer wanted an immersive listening experience they had to make an investment in home entertainment technology that was simply out of reach for most people,’ he says. ‘With our Binaural workflow, the end user can listen on headphones, stereo speakers or just their TV, ​ suddenly you’ve opened up this immersive landscape to the entire world. It’s a leap in the quality of experience that soon most people will not want to be without.

‘As audio engineers and mixers, we see this as suddenly gaining an incredible new pallet of sonic colours and dimensions that we can use to create something truly spectacular for the home listener that will elevate these performances to what they might expect to hear in a theatre or live venue.’

‘You can really take advantage of the implied physical space of these performances with current immersive formats and build that into the mixes in a way that people can feel,’ Macomber adds. ‘The level of heightened perception is going to change how people mix live broadcast events forever.’

Designed by Engineer Browning McCollum, Gemini is already one of the most advanced audio trucks in operation with a powerful pair of matching audio production control rooms that offer an unprecedented level of control for live broadcast music mixing. The upgrade to 7.1.4 in each room – which includes new Genelec loudspeaker systems in both – put the Hear group and colleagues at the forefront of a new frontier for broadcast audio music that they are eager to share with the world.

‘I’m excited that we can now deliver something like this to everyone – billions of people using iPhones, soundbars, modest stereo systems, anything,’ says Jody Elff. ‘The world is ready for this experience and we’re positioned to deliver it at a level that has never been done before.’