Auto Panning System

[tom_the_LD]

Hi all,

 

I've done a search but haven't managed to turn anything up.

 

Sitting around doing nothing and a wild idea popped into my head. Is there any form of "auto pan" system - so each actor wears a transmitter and the panning of their mic, for example, can follow them round stage? Rather than everything always being panned centre?

 

Not really sure if it's a good idea or a bad idea - just wasn't sure if it would help increase "realism" - there must be a word that fits better in here!

 

Your opinions please ladies and gentlemen.

 

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

Tom

[Ynot]

Noise not really being my 'bag' I may be wrong here, but the logistician in me says that whilst the theory might be in some ways desirable to pan the amp'd outputs to suit the talent, in practice it could well be a nightmare to manage.

 

In a simple sound setup with (say) just one speaker either side of a small stage it might work up to a point, but bear in mind that as the talent will never be anywhere near either of the speakers as such (not least of all due to the feedback issues that would cause) you'd have to do some clever work with the audio 'image' to try to represent where the actor was on stage - unlikely to be an easy one.

 

Move up, then, to a larger stage and multi-speaker setups with line arrays, delays and fills (which can easily run into high double figures each side of stage) then trying to send the 'right' signals to each would need a fast moving computer to calculate!

[David Lee]

Ignore everything I just wrote - thought you were talking about lighting. Must read post properly nect time. Sorry :** laughs out loud **:

[Gareth Owen]

Its not a bad idea at all - indeed the higher end shows in theatre and opera regularly make use of a more sophisticated version of this theory.

 

There are a couple of companies who make hardware that changes the apparent position of a performer as they move around the stage. Most notably, these are the TiMax system and the StageTracker system. Both systems allow you to plot the movements of performers on a virtual stage and then cue various different moves as the scene progresses. Indeed both systems now also integrate a transmitter / receiver system worn by the performers that automatically tracks their location and updates in real time.

 

Importantly, these systems move the image of the performer around the stage using adjustments in level and also in delay time, the HAAS effect being the critical factor in localising the sound to the person. This helps theatrical sound designers get closer to the holy grail of classical theatre sound design - the sound should appear to be coming from the person who appears to be making it.

 

FYI - You can also build an adhoc version of the same thing using the level / delay matrix in a Yamaha DME 64...

[dbuckley]

Genius nutter Martin Levan used many geographically dispersed speakers so that he could have a mic linked to a position.

[Gareth Owen]

Martin Levan - the godfather of modern theatre sound!

[dbuckley]

Martin Levan - the godfather of modern theatre sound!

In spades.

 

I've seen several shows he has designed for, but the truly awful "Kiss of the Spider Woman" West End run had the clearest theatre audio I've ever heard, absolutely breathtaking. Without just sitting there being stunned by the audio I doubt I'd have made it to the interval!