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“Woolf Works” with 3D audio

“Woolf Works” with 3D audio
“Woolf Works” with 3D audio

“Woolf Works” is Wayne McGregor’s first full length ballet for the Royal Ballet, performed at Covent Garden’s Royal Opera House. The ballet triptych was based on Virginia Woolf, as viewed through her three major novels: “Mrs Dalloway”, “Orlando” and “The Waves”.

 

The original score by Max Richter was realised for the stage by sound designer Chris Ekers who brought together a sound production incorporating music from a live orchestra, electronic music and sound effects, in an environment typically neither set up for nor suited to amplification.

 

Ekers commented, “It was evident from the way Max had scored each segment that amplification would be necessary. To allow full creative control, a TiMax SoundHub delay-matrix was always going to be a part of my specification. TiMax enabled us to very quickly create one interface, from one computer, to control every single loudspeaker without having to go to the desk to attend to each box individually - we just didn’t have that time in the day, plus we’d have been in the sound operator’s way.” Robin Whittaker from Out Board was on site during rehearsal to help fast-track the TiMax programming.

 

The show’s second segment, based on the novel “Orlando”, was scored to utilise a lot of electronic techno music. Ekers needed to create energy in the room without it being an overly loud ‘banging club’ level for the audience. An additional loudspeaker system was positioned upstage, with the techno parts’ low end provided by two subbass cabinets positioned onstage inside the prosc and facing each other, due to the issue of space.

 

These subs were located upstage of the orchestra by about 3.5 metres and downstage of the main techno speaker system by about 20 metres. When the techno elements were running, TiMax matrixed it so all the audio was delayed back to the onstage system, which then segued with the amplified orchestral moments from the live orchestra in the pit.

 

The upstage loudspeaker system was also used in the third segment, based on “The Waves”. McGregor had wanted the audience in the intervals to tune into the next performance, so before the third act the sounds of the sea were brought through the auditorium loudspeakers as the safety curtain was in and blocking the upstage system. Richter had a LogicPro music and effects show file for each act, but rather than tying up Logic for the interval tracks, TiMax onboard SSD playback was used for the interval waves atmos. A Timecode trigger from Logic instigated the fade out of the TiMax playback.

 

TiMax 3D audio trickery made its presence felt in other segments of the triptych. The first, based on “Mrs Dalloway”, features the regular beat of ticking clocks, played as a live part by musicians. Meanwhile the rest of the orchestra were playing parts each to very different time signatures to create a complex rhythm as the backdrop to Mrs Dalloway’s existence. Ekers programmed the regular tick-tock beats, played by a live performer, to be moved in real time through the audience as if moving around the horizontal plane of a clock face.

 

Photos: ROH/Tristram Kenton

 

www.outboard.co.uk

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