For Hyundai, the paniX team used a single 32-channnel TiMax SoundHub with Madi to serve a dynamic and immersive press conference, with TiMax creating an intimate soundscape for the very large conference space. TiMax delay-matrixed Image Definitions drew focus to locations at the left and right of the conference. ‘It enabled us to bring video content alive with fast-moving engine sounds, as if they were really travelling left to right and vice versa,’ explains paniX MD Jörg Rapp.
Audio events for the conference were triggered both manually and via time code.
On a grander scale, paniX delivered the multichannel sound experience for the four-zone Volkswagen booth as part of a team lead by consultant Hansjörg Wenzel from Filmtec Media. The zones included three themed zones: Perform, Connect and Innovate, alongside the main Plaza zone.
Two TiMax Soundhub systems, fitted with dual SSD hard drives for redundancy, provided audio playback and spatialisation for the stand, with 48 channels serving the Plaza and 64 channels for the themed areas. In the main zone, TiMax handled audience area ambience effects, maintaining audio level above background noise level while preserving easy conversation levels – determined by the actual customer numbers present. Multitrack audio content was created originally in Pro Tools then laid up into TiMax harddrives to deliver complex layers of audio, which moved and morphed around the audience using Madi and a RockNet network serving a distributed system of d&b loudspeakers.
In each of the zones, large LED screens displayed varied video content, with TiMax controlling individual 3D soundscapes. During the show all TiMax units ran operator-free, playing back multichannel spatialised audio on a loop and synchronised to video by time code. The Perform zone, for example featured sound effects with low frequency content. The Plaza was less subtle, with busier sound effects for more dramatic impact – but the overall effect across the whole stand was harmoniously blended by the TiMax units.
Rapp was happy with the final outcome of IAA, to which he and his team had dedicated many hours of planning and set-up. TiMax was his product of choice following a shoot-out with alternative options: ‘The system has to run stable, and it must be multi-client so Stephan [Deibel, Rapp’s business partner] and I can work at the same time. The user interface has to be very intuitive, as there is no time on the job to mess around with creating custom user interfaces. Most important is to have a delay matrix, because localisation cannot work without delay. Also we need DAW-like editing functions. The system has to run fluently without sacrifices to the workflow even when using full DSP power.
‘At the moment we think that no other system would be as good as the TiMax in our workflow.’
