LOOK WHO’S TALKING The play features disappearing people and overlapping dialogue, so the audio system is key
straightforward, establishing a consistent physical arrangement for the main components of the rig. However, the height and position of the house introduced an unexpected obstacle. As the structure rotated, the front corner of each room swept down over the most downstage centre point, affecting where the main loudspeakers could sit. The LCR system consequently had to be moved forwards, out of line with the rest of the rig. In a more conventional set-up, such a change could introduce additional complexity into the timing relationships between all the loudspeakers. In this instance, the spatial processing system helped remove that burden from the design team. As Rice explains: “The timing is all automatically managed via TiMax, which took that worry out of the way.” SoundHub calculated delay and attenuation across the entire spatial framework using image-definition positions. Rice created five image definitions for the lower house, covering downstage left, centre and right, as well as two upstage positions. He then repeated the process for the upper house, incorporating Z-axis information to account for the additional height.
KEEPING CHAOS COHERENT The system’s real test came during the closing sequence, which featured approximately 15 minutes of uninterrupted rotation, the performers moving in and out of rooms across both levels, with dialogue overlapping as the story gathered momentum. The sequence demanded that the audience follow multiple developments within a constantly changing visual landscape. With characters appearing and disappearing, the audience needed to understand not just what was being said, but where each new piece of dialogue originated. The spatial relationships established earlier in the performance became essential to following the action at pace. Rice and head of sound Ryan Anstey programmed the production with commissioning support from TiMax. This included two sessions with TiMax director of development Robin Whittaker, as well as a visit from Whittaker and product and software manager Daniel Higgott. The emphasis throughout was on achieving the required effect without introducing any unnecessary complexity. “I always knew I wanted to keep it as simple as possible to achieve what we needed for this
show,” Rice says. “Once we set TiMax up, it just worked. We didn’t then have to spend any time really adjusting it.” That stability mattered most when the production reached its most demanding passage. “That was the point TiMax really earned its keep. People are appearing and disappearing constantly, with overlapping dialogue. Being able to have people and rooms, and people in rooms, tracked really helped give the audience the information of where the next piece of the story was coming from, when it was happening at pace.” The ability to track both rooms and people gave the sound team a way to preserve spatial information even as the production became increasingly frantic. Rather than drawing attention to the mechanics of the sound system, the technology helped the audience remain immersed in the unfolding tragedy. Summing up the experience, Rice comments: “What TiMax brought was simplicity. It never overcomplicated what we were trying to achieve and the support we had behind it was wonderful.”
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