Vegas Immersive Audio Lowdown

I want to address a recent piece in Mix about the deployment of immersive audio in Vegas. I’ll agree that Vegas has taken immersive audio live to the mainstream. My disagreement is that it was 20 years ago. The piece is focused on the handful of residencies touring artists have in Vegas these days. A residency or resident show is a show that plays on a regular basis in the same venue. For example the Cirque or Spiegelworld shows are resident shows. Years back Celine helped pioneer the concept not only with touring artists but with large scale touring artists. For big bucks. Now Adele and Katy Perry, among others, carry on the tradition.

Over the last several years concert artist residencies mushroomed to quite a business. Venues from 800 seats to 8000 seats have hosted residencies for many touring acts. The difference between those and more traditional Vegas production shows or house bands is that the touring acts are only there for limited engagements a few to several times a year. The other shows largely run year-round. Most of the concert residencies are more or less extensions of what they do on tour. Some may scale a bit larger but for most acts it’s parking the show that they may take to whatever basketball barn in a city near you.

There are some exceptions with more coming each passing engagement. There’s a hubbub that Vegas is awash with so called immersive audio experiences. Indeed it is. But not so much with the current batch of resident shows but with good ol’ fashioned production shows and experiences. From the Bellagio Conservatory Gardens to Area 15 there are several such experiences. There are some interactive art exhibits and smaller venues that have some of the capability. The Illuminarium is pretty killer too. There are more than a dozen venues at any given time using the technology.

The piece in Mix referenced above makes it seem that only the touring folk are employing these designs and these stodgy old production shows are wallowing in a sea of luddites and antiquities. Except that’s not really how it is here. Outside of the production shows there are only a few rooms that are equipped to provide support for these designs. Fewer than five. Not every show in those rooms is a residency and not ever residency artist uses those sorts of designs. In the year there may be four or five artists that employ an immersive or surround type system. Usually no more than a couple acts using the technology are playing during the same period though this is changing. As are the number of artists willing to try it. That's an encouraging sign.

It’s clear the author hasn’t been to any of the big production shows in town, Cirque or not as the designs are far more than “tiny seat speakers”. In fact not counting the seats the enclosure/output zone to seat ratio in most of the 1500-2000 seat production show rooms is greater than the three big concert rooms in town that have these systems. I put a rig in last year that was 300 enclosures to 1600 seats, mix regularly in a room with 260 enclosures to 1800 seats and have worked in a few other rooms with similar designs. In contrast at the Park Dolby theater there are 400 enclosures for 6400 seats in an ATMOS configuration. It’s got the most boxes of any of the dedicated concert venues in town.

In the second part of the Mix piece there is some about mixing the show and prepping for it. From what’s mentioned the artistic designs are rudimentary. I think that’s to be expected given the mixers are brand new not only to the respective packages they use but also being the first mixes they’ve done/designed. There’s a learning curve, some of it steep. It appears they now understand it after working with it but there’s still some more to go in terms of the creative side. Much of the application in those cases are panning and positioning rather than creating a 3D musical environment. As stated in the last post depending on the act that could be a tall order. On the plus side they are experiencing the benefit of positioning sounds in more than just a stereo environment.

Over the years on these sorts of systems I’ve found mixers coming from the touring world may have some difficulty at first. It took me a bit to get fully into the concept. When you’re mixing a band on a big stereo PA (in many cases it’s really dual mono…) it’s like a gigantic vertical piece of glass that covers the opening of the stage. The sound can be placed in sections of the glass near the outside but it’s not really encompassing. When one adds multiple zones, particularly out over, beside and behind the audience it opens up a whole new realm to experience. It becomes more than panning and localization with the benefit being a soundscape that envelopes the listeners. This is where the suitability of the content for the environment comes into play. Is every act and/or musical style going to benefit from these designs?

The manufacturer push shows no end in letting up. In fact some are piling it deeper in every new campaign. Depending on the art that’s a good thing. More will use the technology, more venues will incorporate it. The key to a refined design is for any mixers (or even artists) start thinking in a 3D realm rather than flat stereo. That’s where the outstanding designs are. For my touring colleagues I say welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.

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