Topics include immersive audio, AVB networking, and streamlining loudspeaker design
Although hindsight of the past is often referred to as 20/20, L-Acoustics will soon be taking advantage of NAMM 2020 in mid-January to provide considerable foresight into the future of live audio system design and deployment with ten unique hours of presentations throughout the show. In collaboration with both The NAMM Show and The Audio Engineering Society (AES), L-Acoustics will be presenting five two-hour “AES Academy” educational sessions on a variety of forward-thinking topics, including immersive audio, AVB networking, and system setup and calibration advances.
“Over the past few years, we’ve really moved beyond peoples’ misperceptions of immersive audio and shown that it’s fast becoming the ‘new normal’ for live concerts and theatrical shows,” shares L-Acoustics Product Manager Scott Sugden, who will be hosting three of the manufacturer’s five seminars. “With production technologies advancing so rapidly, audience expectations are higher than ever, and we’ll be helping live sound professional attending NAMM learn how to best navigate and capitalize upon the new immersive audio trend, which is experiencing tremendous growth right now.”
“In other sessions, we’ll also be shedding light on the many benefits of AVB networking via Avnu’s new Milan standard, as well as showing attendees numerous ways to streamline the design and deployment of their loudspeaker systems,” he adds. “The NAMM Show truly is the global crossroads of the music, sound, and entertainment technology products industries, and these seminars will be an excellent way to get a jump on both the trends and tech of the future.”
Details on L-Acoustics’ five NAMM 2020 seminars are as follows:
1) Understanding Line Source Behavior for Better Optimization
Friday, January 17, 2020 / 10:00am to Noon / Presenter: François Montignies
The key to a good loudspeaker system design is the balance between coverage, SPL, and frequency response performances. It deals with various challenges such as directivity control, auditory health preservation, and sonic homogeneity. In solutions based on a variable curvature line source, the parameters linked to its physical deployment are often overlooked. The temptation to rely on electronic processing to fix resulting problems may then arise. However, it always compromises other performances to some extent, whether system headroom or wavefront integrity. Using Fresnel analysis, this seminar points at important aspects of line source behavior and identify the effect of determinant parameters, such as inter-element angles. It shows how an optimized physical deployment allows for rational electronic adjustments, which just become the icing on the cake.
2) Large-Scale Loudspeaker System Calibration, from Simulation-Based Design to Onsite Tuning
Friday, January 17, 2020 / Noon to 2:00pm / Presenter: Scott Sugden
The objective of a calibration is to ensure that the onsite performances of a loudspeaker system meet specific project requirements. It implies the optimization of the solution that was defined at the design stage, accounting for the environment in which the system was implemented. Simulation-based design also allows users to anticipate most of the electronic settings to further reduce onsite tuning time. One additional and major benefit is that a 3D simulation gives an overview of the results over the whole audience area, whereas onsite tuning needs to rely on a limited number of measurements locations, leading to high risk of wrong electronic adjustment choices. This seminar presents a complete optimization process that starts at the design stage, planning the physical deployment parameters, the zoning groups within line source arrays, the optimal main-sub alignment location and the time-alignment of fill systems. Onsite tuning can then use measurements and critical listening to validate the planned solution and to address remaining simulation uncertainties.
3) Scaling from Pre-production to Live Performance with L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound Technology
Friday, January 17, 2020 / 2:00 to 4:00pm / Presenter: Etienne Corteel
L-ISA technology enables artists to deliver new multidimensional sound experiences to audiences of all sizes. The technology offers a new creative palette to artists and their teams, whether seeking expansive realism or unbridled imagination. Scaling immersive hyperreal experiences for live events, from pre-production in studio to showtime in large venues (arena, stadium) presents several challenges that need to be addressed at several levels: a) loudspeaker system design, implementation, and calibration, b) spatial rendering algorithms (audio objects positioning, virtual acoustics), and c) object-oriented mixing techniques. This seminar presents how these challenges can be overcome with the full system approach of L-Acoustics for the successful deployment of the L-ISA deployment based on recommended methodologies at each step of the workflow illustrated with concrete application examples.
4) Audio and Control Data Over a Single Redundant AVB/Milan network
Friday, January 17, 2020 / 4:00 to 6:00pm / Presenters: Etienne Corteel and Scott Sugden
Created by Pro AV market leaders in Avnu Alliance, Milan is a standards-based, user-driven deterministic network protocol for professional media that assures networked AV devices will work together at new levels of convenience, reliability, and functionality. Milan combines the technical benefits of the AVB standard with Pro AV market-defined device requirements at both the network and the application layer for media streams, formats, clocking and redundancy. In this seminar, L-Acoustics presents the AVB/Milan protocol from a technical and application standpoint and shows how AVB/Milan networks can be built from an existing control infrastructure with L-Acoustics products (P1 processor, LS10 switch, and LA4X/LA12X amplified controllers), heavily simplifying audio and control data distribution in a live sound reinforcement system.
5) 360° Live EDM Performances with L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound Technology
Saturday, January 18, 2020 / 4:00 to 6:00pm / Presenter: Scott Sugden
This presentation addresses the process of system design through content creation when scaling Immersive Hyperreal Sound technology for EDM music in 360 degrees, from venues with several hundred people to tens of thousands of people at the largest festivals and concerts worldwide. The seminar will explore loudspeaker system design, implementation and calibration, and spatial rendering, including positioning, trajectories and effects.
“Each one of these educational NAMM presentations is derived from our extensive training program, which is designed to enable technicians, system engineers, and sound designers to get the best performance from L-Acoustics systems,” adds Dr. Etienne Corteel, Global Director of Education & Scientific Outreach for L-Acoustics. “For those who wish to further advance their knowledge beyond what is shared at these AES Academy sessions, there are many US and international class listings to choose from in the Training section of our website.” (Direct link: www.l-acoustics.com/en/training/program).
Tim Albright is the founder of AVNation and is the driving force behind the AVNation network. He carries the InfoComm CTS, a B.S. from Greenville College and is pursuing an M.S. in Mass Communications from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. When not steering the AVNation ship, Tim has spent his career designing systems for churches both large and small, Fortune 500 companies, and education facilities.
