alt-J

ALT-J & THE GIG THAT MADE PRO AUDIO HISTORY

On 15 June 2018, Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York, was the venue of choice on for an L-ISA immersive audio system to be utilised with British rock trio, alt-J. The concert was a live environment surround sound first, as Kel Murray exclusively reports.

Tickets for this groundbreaking show were sold as general admission so the audience could experience it from anywhere in the stadium, enabling 360-degree audio perfection. We’ve all experienced this 360-degree soundscape notion in a cinematic capacity at interactive theatre shows, and even from the comfort of our own homes, but creating, and successfully maintaining, detailed sound effects during a live gig has fundamentally altered the possibilities of live sound production. In short, our live concert experience has been changed forever.

The band’s sound reinforcement was supplied by Rat Sound Systems, which deployed an (enormous) L-Acoustics rig to provide consistency of sound throughout the venue. The company has been alt-J’s worldwide audio vendor since 2015. The level of trust between band, crew and rental company is what tourable pro audio dreams are made of; a challenge that would wow fans and critics, and revolutionise the touring industry.

In the months prior to the gig, alt-J keyboardist Gus Unger-Hamilton, told [my old haunt!] the NME about the concept in a bid to let the mainstream press known what a big deal the project was: “As I understand it, it’s a 360-degree speaker system... so wherever you’re standing in the audience, you’ll be able to hear the music coming from all around you. And using clever computer stuff, we can make sounds move around the room - so if there’s, say, a helicopter sound, you can have the helicopter start from behind you and fly over your head, or have beeps and bloops bouncing around the arena in different directions, generally creating quite a cool atmosphere.”

The young musician might have coined the term ‘clever computer stuff’, but this was an understatement. As I moved from FOH on that highly anticipated Saturday night in Queens to the nose bleed seats at stage right; the helicopter noises began to infiltrate the stadium to dramatic effect. The patrons in front looked to the sky, then behind their heads, then to the sky again before mouthing ‘wow’ at the notion that those sounds weren’t courtesy of the NYPD as perhaps first assumed, but rather, courtesy of the outdoor live music extravaganza happening all around them.

THE ORIGIN Before we dive into the implementation of this groundbreaking technology, we must ask: how and why did this concept come about with this particular band? Stephen ‘Tav’ Taverner, alt-J’s Manager, is a man with a curious mind: “alt-J are a band that have a lot of space in their music, so it struck me a few years ago that they could be well-suited to an immersive audio show, and I began to enquire. Initially, I went to Dolby Atmos in LA to discuss the possibilities of surround sound at a gig, but it was apparent that they weren’t the right kind of engineers for live concerts.

Sherif El Barbari, Director of L-ISA Labs, L-ISA Applications Engineer, Carlos Mosquera , David Brooks, L-Acoustics Touring Liaison, Lance Reynolds, alt-J FOH Engineer, Rat Sound’s Tom Worley, KSE, Scott Sugden, Head of Application, Touring.

“Lance Reynolds, our FOH Engineer, then got talking to the folks at L-Acoustics, and mentioned what we’d been thinking about. When L-Acoustics told him they believed they could help, I went to listen to their L-ISA system in London. I remember being told that they could do something ‘close’ to a surround sound system, but that it had never been done in a gig environment. Then they played me a live Radiohead track - another band that uses L-Acoustics - and it just blew me away. I was sold. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to take the risk. Of course, the band were really up for up, and so we were the test pilots for the first ever truly live surround sound gig.”

Once the project was agreed, Reynolds set about mixing and preprogramming in the audio special effects. Tav continued: “It’s so clever. I know there was a lot of algorithms and mathematics involved in making this happen, and that what the team have achieved is truly amazing. Watching people’s reactions to being completely encircled by sound was really quite something!”

SO… WHAT IS L-ISA? L-ISA is a technology for multidimensional sound that encompasses a new way of designing, processing, mixing and experiencing sound. L-ISA enables sound engineers to manager immersive environment easily and intuitively; the L-ISA ecosystem consists of a comprehensive toolchain that can handle multi-dimensional audio projects at any stage. With the upcoming L-ISA plug-in for the Avid S6L – Reynolds’ console of choice for the gig – endusers will have access to all ‘source object’ controls, including pan, width, distance and elevation, as well as a designated aux send, and, all L-ISA parameters can be stored in the console’s snapshots engine and recalled in the same way as other console parameters. This integration offers benefits for live interaction, and the loudspeaker layout can easily be adapted to location changes while maintaining the spatial properties of the mix.

L-Acoustics’ Scott Sugden took up the story: “We’ve been developing L-ISA for some time, looking at how we can improve the quality of the show for the audience... it’s something that we look at daily in this industry. You go to tradeshows and look at the latest consoles, mics and PAs, and make all this equipment to make live music sound as good as possible, and then we do the silliest thing... we put the artist on both sides of the stage in mono. L-ISA started as a solution to address common sound problems, and naturally create more interesting audio systems. We started to introduce the product a few years ago, and Lance was one of the early adopters, so when alt-J and their management were introduced to the technology they were in search of, Forest Hills was soon identified as a great platform to be able to the introduce the concept to 12,000 of their fans at the same time.

“We had to go through the implications of it all such as sound effects needing to be drone-y based rather than snare based. The band and Lance did a great job of disguising sounds and also making them very apparent. Once everyone agreed to the idea, we had to make sure that everyone knew what it would be like having the speaker placement that far apart across the back and sides of the venue,” he said.

Okay, so we know why people in the pro audio industry would like a near perfect sound system, but why is this so important generally? “We need to be as engaged as possible with the fans, they’re buying tickets,” continued Sugden, matter-of-factly. “It’s not always an enjoyable experience at every spot in the venue, and that’s what we want to change. The Forest Hills show didn’t fee like it had 12,000 people there - it’s a much more intimate experience with the band. As Lorde’s crew demonstrated, when they took the frontal system out, we can tour this concept to a very high level, so we’re allowing artists to deliver more interesting shows to their fans. Artists really care about their live sound and about how their fans engage with them at shows, so there’s a lot we can do to facilitate that. That’s our job. We’ve not even discovered things that in the next few years we’ll be leveraging to create more interesting sound experiences for the concertgoer. There’s a whole new way of thinking about live sound, and how we mix it. Who knows what we’re yet to envision...”

Another L-Acoustics’ audio wizard, Sherif El Barbari [AKA The Egyptian Magician if you’ve ever seen him work his magic on tour], was on site at Forest Hills, and explained a bit about how the idea of L-ISA came to be: “In December 2012, Christian Heil [the manufacturer’s founder] called me and suggested that we get together and realise a long time vision of his to once again revolutionise live sound reinforcement. I considered it the best Christmas gift ever!” he laughed. “In early January 2013 Christian, Guillaume Le Nost [now Director of R&D L-ISA] and myself got together for the very first L-ISA brainstorming meeting.

Hervé Guillaume, Managing Director of L-Acoustics, Scott Sugden, Head of Application, Touring and Laurent Vaissié, CEO of L-Acoustics North America; Rat Sound’s Tom Worley & FOH Mixer Lance Reynolds were instrumental in this gig; The render shows the frontal system and the deployment of the 16 Syva around the outdoor venue; Rat Sound Inc’s Dave Rat was on site for the pivotal event.

“The initial idea and driving force behind L-ISA is Christian’s ‘frustration’ with the ‘emotional’ auditory experience live shows offer to the audience despite the progress in speaker system design and advancements in optimising the whole electronic signal chain from microphone inputs to the last stage of amplifier outputs. The given locations (allowed by productions) of a perfectly designed and optimised speaker system dictate the results that can be achieved. And that’s a substantial problem in conventional L-R (dual mono) sound reinforcement. The PA is in the least optimum position to engage the audience and connect them to the show.

“We knew it is going to be a huge challenge to break the established route, but we were and still are very passionate and optimistic, especially that we have proven the benefits over and over again during the last 3 years on each and every platform.”

Radiohead’s FOH mixer, Jim Warren, was invited to explore the new technology at an early stage of its development [hence the mix Tav heard] - even before most of L-Acoustics’ own staff were aware of what the L-ISA team were secretly doing. “My contribution was to guide Jim in this new way of mixing and offer suggestions of how to use the created tools. Jim and I have shared a few years of great teamwork together from doing Radiohead’s world tours, and I have great respect for his creativity and his mixing skills. On tour, my main objective as a PA system designer was to translate his amazing mix to the majority of the audience. I can imagine that now, with L-ISA, we have a much better means of delivering this experience to a much larger part of the audience area.

“Lance is also a great mixing engineer with a perfect feel for the music and a clear vision of what he wants to achieve in his own mix. My role for alt-J’s show was to show him how to best utilise the tools that we’d developed to facilitate what his creative mind could possibly imagine. In our L-ISA concept and infrastructure, we have included various possibilities to be able to program a dynamically spatialised mix. It is always very exciting for us to experience how talented and creative minds use our technology and this is a continuous source of inspiration for us to further develop and enhance our tools. For decades, I believe that sound systems have been regarded as a commodity in a live performance meaning sound didn’t receive the level of importance in a live event that a stage set, video or lighting design have been occupying in recent times. With our development, live music productions can benefit from the best of both worlds, giving audio its deserved status.”

BOXING CLEVER As mentioned, Kiwi songstress Lorde took the frontal system out on a US tour earlier this year, but not with the surround sound speaker system in tow, and it impressed the masses. Yet the configuration of the Forest Hills system was unlike anything I’d seen before. Part Mecca, part monster, the box count was staggering: 3 hangs of 12 K2 across the centre stage; 2 hangs of 16 Kara also across the centre stage, flanking the K2 hangs; 2 hangs of 8 K2S8 subs flown in the centre, behind the central K2 hang; 2 12 Kara extending the system on either side of the stage; 3 hangs of 2 Kara and 2 pairs of ARCS II across the stage floor for front fill and 2 hangs of 9 boxes of K2 as side fill. But that’s not all, once the frontal system was designed, the all-encompassing surround sound speakers were 16 Syva hung around the perimeter of the arena bowl in order to gain the full immersive mix. What, I hear you ask, is a Syva? The slim line install speaker is not from our world, granted, but it’s very much a part of it now. Syva is a colinear system suited to medium throw applications, designed for professional sound reinforcement and high-end residential applications requiring high fidelity and SPL with minimum impact.

Rat Sound’s Tom Worley, who tours with the band, explained: “When I look back at the conversations and ideas about doing this, it’s interesting now to see and hear it as a reality. The design at Forest Hills was a collaborative effort between the L-ISA team and myself. There are always multiple factors to bear in mind when designing a system like this, such as weight capacity and trim height just to get started; you have to know your limitations before you can start inserting loudspeakers into the Soundvision software.

“K2 and Kara are the obvious choice due to their 110-degree horizontal directivity and their lightweight for rigging purposes. The L-ISA Focus design allows you to reproduce the LF that you’re used to reproducing from a conventional system. The 16 Syva used for the surround speaker were very impressive and kept up with frontal system without fail,” noted Worley. “Being so light and easy to rig made for an efficient load in and load out too. It’s easy to take for granted being involved in these types of events. It really was a special show, and to see the reaction on the audiences’ faces was quite remarkable. Its very exciting for the industry and I’m sure we will start seeing some real changes in how we enjoy concert sound.”

LIVE IN NYC: THE FOH FIRST Man of the moment, Lance Reynolds, prepared his L-ISA mix at L-Acoustics’ Westlake Village, CA, studio in the weeks before the gig. He took the hot seat: “I’ve been mixing FOH for alt-J since their first North American tour back in September 2012. I continued mixing the band’s North American shows through 2013 and after the release of their second record in 2014, I began touring with them worldwide.” They must be a fan of each other’s work, then. “The band is very quiet on stage. There are no guitar or keyboard amps on stage, no floor monitors apart from a couple of sub speakers, and no cymbals on the drum kit. There’s no guitars or cymbals spilling into the vocal mics, and no feedback worries from wedges. It allows me a lot of room; they’re a dream to mix.

“Luckily for me, alt-J’s music is full of interesting sounds, loops, and special effects. For this show, I dug a little deeper into alt-J’s records, and included some sounds and effects that are not featured in our typical show. The concept was to take the current live show, expand it, add some extras from the records, and surround the audience with sound. The guitar, bass, drums, and vocals were positioned across the front, while the strings and synths were spread into the surrounds. I ‘moved’ some of the instruments and special effects around the venue as well. For instance, the song Adeline featured a helicopter ‘flying’ around.” Yes, I had indeed noticed that little trick.

He continued: “Pleader had police sirens swirling around the surrounds, and also included one of my favourite moments... the boys choir that is featured on the last chorus. The choir is always part of the show, but hearing it coming from the surrounds was inspiring; it filled the entire stadium.”

Carlos Mosquera was the first person to introduce Reynolds to using the controller. “I spent a couple of days with him in March of 2017, learning the system in the L-ISA lab in Los Angeles. My first thought was ‘wow... this is fun’. It was intuitive and easy to use. Then in February 2018, I met with Sherif El-Barbari at the L-ISA lab in London and began to prepare the Forest Hills show. He took me a little deeper into the software, and from there I started building snapshots, and automating movements of sources around the soundscape.

“For a standard show, I mix on the Avid S6L, using the built in comps and EQs, and a few Avid stock plug-ins here and there. I send L+R+SUB+FILLS via AES to a Lake LM44, and then out to the amps / speakers. For Forest Hills, 32 outputs were routed via MADI coax to the L-ISA processor. We had 26 discreet outputs feeding the speaker network... quite a few more than the typical 4 outs for L+R+SUB+FILLS. All EQ shaping was done using the LA Network Manager software.

“On this gig, alt-J gave me complete creative control over the surround content. In general, the band is very liberal towards my mixing anyway, but compared to a typical gig there was a lot more of ‘me’ in this show. It was very rewarding. Listening to the crowd cheer for the surround effects was especially rewarding.

“This was a much more complicated FOH set up. This show was not only our first foray into L-ISA, but it was also the first alt-J surround sound show, and the first live surround show using L-ISA. The positioning of sound sources using the L-ISA controller is fairly simple, but I found that I gravitated toward the centre quite a bit. This was not as apparent in the L-ISA lab where the speakers are quite close together, but out in the real world with the 7 arrays spread across several metres, It quickly became obvious that I needed to spread things out a bit more. That was the small challenge... finding the ideal placement of sources across the front.

FOH Engineer Lance Reynolds using L-ISA at Forest Hills; The frontal system and the far smaller Syva units.

“The big challenge was the surround. The stage was about 250ft away from the surround speaker near the top of the back row. If you’re sitting near that speaker at the back, you could potentially hear musical parts well out of time... actually ahead of whatever mix is coming from the main speakers at the stage. I once heard this happen at a concert mixed in ‘quad’, and though it probably sounded right at FOH, it sounded completely wrong as I stood close to one of the ‘quad’ speakers. To me, this would have been the worst outcome at Forest Hills. It would have been a mess. Delay can be added to compensate for 250ft, but then anything you place in that delayed surround will now sound like it’s 500ft away for anyone standing near the stage. I needed to find the right balance, and figure out how to blend some delayed and distant content with the band on stage. I realised that the audience seated in different parts of the venue would have a somewhat different surround experience, so my goal was to make sure that it was a good experience everywhere, even if not identical.

“Both L-Acoustics and Rat Sound were extremely helpful in making this show. I’d especially like to thank Tom Worley at Rat for the long hours he spent organising the extra equipment needed and making sure the sound design was accurately deployed. There will always be venues where the

L-ISA system will not be possible. However, the uniformity of coverage and the clarity that L-ISA provides will be attractive to most live sound professionals. We may not see everyone doing a surround show, but surely we’ll see more of L-ISA in arenas and theatres. For me, this is definitely a career highlight alongside mixing the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury and the main stage at Coachella. There’s nothing quite like hearing an audience cheer for the sound effects you’ve created. It’s just awesome!”

As the show in NYC drew to a close, the band made a point of thanking their production team for working so hard to make the gig happen. And as the night’s proceedings ended, the roars from the crowd spoke volumes; alt-J’s surround sound performance at Forest Hills stadium had gone down in the history books for the pro audio industry and general gig-goer alike, and the band’s manager is more than pleased he took the ‘risk’. Tav said enthusiastically: “It worked so well that we’re planning to do it again. It’ll get better and better as the future of live music goes on. So many people said to me along the way that this wouldn’t work, and that the audience would be confused rather than impressed. But no... hats off to L-Acoustics and the L-ISA teams; they’ve done something no one has ever managed before.” TPi

Photos: Drew Gurian & TPi

www.altjband.com www.l-acoustics.com www.l-isa-immersive.com www.ratsound.com www.avid.com