
Blue Man Group Drums Up Excitement With L-ISA Hyperreal Sound On Tour posted: 20/03/2020
Blue Man Group's North American Tour in action
L-ISA's powerful immersive processing is used in conjunction with an L-Acoustics Kara PA
and DiGiCo SD10T console to create an immersive ecosystem that enhances
the unique Blue Man Group sonic experience in venues across the nation
The singular, award-winning Blue Man Group has taken to the road, and is taking immersive sound along with it for the first time. The group's current North American Tour officially opened this past September at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles, after developing the production at Fayetteville, Arkansas' Walton Arts Center. The Pantages show marked the first of more than 50 cities across the continent that will ultimately welcome the tour in its first season.
FOH Engineer Justice Bigler manning the L-ISA Controller and DiGiCo SD10T console at the tour's mix position
Showgoers will also experience L-ISA, L-Acoustics' remarkable immersive-sound technology-also an award winner-which Blue Man Group North American Tour Sound Designer Tony Pittsley says literally puts the audience onstage with the show's three ironically comic and palpably percussive performers. With L-ISA, the sounds of the show can move around the stage and the room and appear to come from where they're supposed to originate from, which engages the audience way more deeply, he explains. You don't feel as though you're sitting there watching a show as much as you're feeling enveloped by the experience.
With L-ISA, audio elements are now literal objects that can seamlessly move throughout the performance space along with the performers and the narrative. The L-ISA Controller provides key parameters for each object: Pan (horizontal location), Elevation (vertical location), Width (the size of an object), and Distance (perceived proximity and reverberation), and L-ISA can manage up to 96 objects and up to 64 physical speaker outputs at a sample rate of 96 kHz.
To bring this to life, L-ISA Immersive Hyperreal Sound utilizes a specialized configuration of speakers in order to achieve precise localization within three dimensions. For Blue Man Group's trek, the system comprises five hangs of ten Kara for the frontal system, with two hangs of four SB18 subs each deployed in cardioid configuration flanking the central Kara cluster, as well as eight X8 coaxials as frontfills, eight more X8 as underbalcony speakers, and four ARCS as outfills. Twelve LA4X amplified controllers power the main hangs and frontfills, while eight LA8 drive the underbalcony speakers and subs.
The L-ISA Controller and DiGiCo SD10T pictured in the foreground during a show with the Kara/SB18 arrays hung above the stage
Pittsley, who programmed the L-ISA technology, says it's incredibly intuitive, and that that's what makes L-ISA such a pleasure for both the engineers who operate it and the audiences who enjoy it. With a typical left-right or left-center-right PA system, if you move, say, a vocal slightly to the left of center, you'll notice it move from speaker to speaker by the change in volume from one side to the other, he says. With L-ISA, the sound isn't dependent on speaker location; it's moving around in the entire space. So it's connected to what's taking place onstage as that action moves, and not to the speakers.
Pittsley says that lets the mixer move any of Blue Man Group's percussion instruments not only right and left, but also up and down and forward and back. So if the drums are in the right-hand corner of the rear of the stage, we can move the sound of the kick and snare upstage to exactly where they appear on stage without changing their relative volume. I can walk through the house and the image holds together. This isn't traditional panning; this is a great leap forward from that.
The combination of the L-Acoustics Kara PA system and the DiGiCo SD10T mixing console creates a powerful and flexible ecosystem for the tour, one that can translate to any performance location. The show at Blue Man Group's original venue, Manhattan's Astor Place Theatre, where the group debuted in 1987 and where that production has been ever since, uses a DiGiCo SD12 console. Pittsley notes that the show's settings were able to be transferred from that desk to the touring SD10T seamlessly, adding another level of authenticity, something that touring versions of shows strive for.
A view of the full L-Acoustics loudspeaker system and set prior to a Blue Man Group performance
This ecosystem also makes the mixers job easier. The L-ISA Processor and the console can talk to each other via L-Acoustics DeskLink; for instance, they can exchange updates to the channel-structure process. And the L-ISA GUI is very representational, just like the SD10T screens, so they're all very intuitive to use. It all makes the entire process much more efficient.
The current tour is FOH Engineer Justice C. Bigler's first encounter with Blue Man Group, as well as his first encounter with L-ISA, and he was happily surprised at how quickly and easily he became familiar with both. The L-ISA Controller is very well designed and I was able to set up quickly and become familiar with it while Tony and [Blue Man Group Sound Designer] Marcus Ross were programming it, recalls Bigler, who was previously head of audio for the Tulsa, Oklahoma Performing Arts Center. He says that L-ISA gives theatrical mixers a way of enhancing a stage narrative that they'd never had before.
Blue Man Group shows don't have any dialog-the action tells the story, he explains. L-ISA lets me put the sounds where they need to be to reflect where that action is taking place. It lets me build a soundscape that m
Most recent headlines
13/03/2025
WASHINGTON FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the agency has launched a massive, new deregulatory initiative that could potentially subject virtually all ...
13/03/2025
SUNNYVALE, Calif. SDVI has announced that it has integrated its Rally media supply chain management platform with the Spectra Vail multi-cloud data management s...
13/03/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has announced that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has granted a waiver of its local ownership rules to permit Gray Media to acqu...
13/03/2025
TV Tech: What do you anticipate will be the most significant technology trends at the 2025 NAB Show?...
13/03/2025
Watch Student Naomi Soleils Folk Pop Performance on The Voice The songwriting major sang Stars by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals during the blind auditions.
...
13/03/2025
Bundle up - GeForce NOW is bringing a flurry of Blizzard titles to its ever-expanding library.
Prepare to weather epic gameplay in the cloud, tackling the genr...
13/03/2025
AI is leveling up the world's most beloved games, as the latest advancements...
13/03/2025
PC game modding is massive, with over 5 billion mods downloaded annually. Mods p...
12/03/2025
O Spotify acaba de lan ar o relat rio Loud & Clear deste ano, uma vis o transpar...
12/03/2025
Spotify acaba de presentar el informe Loud & Clear de este a o, una mirada trans...
12/03/2025
Ramadan, a period of profound spiritual significance for Muslims worldwide, is a time for fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Enrich your experience thi...
12/03/2025
Spotify has just unveiled this year's Loud & Clear report, a transparent loo...
12/03/2025
More than 70% of FAST programming has been produced since 2010, according to new Gracenote report
NEW YORK March 12, 2025 Gracenote, the content data busin...
12/03/2025
GEONA, Nev. Independent digital and linear advertising rep firm Viamedia will adopt cloud-based ShowSeeker Pilot as its primary ad campaign and order management...
12/03/2025
BRUSSELS Mediagenix has announced that Wael Yasin has joined the company as sales director Central Europe....
12/03/2025
LONDON A new study highlights opportunities for shoppable TV and the massive impact online consumer spending is having on the economy, with Omdia predicting tha...
12/03/2025
CUPERTINO, Calif. Interra Systems has announced that Comcast Technology Solutions has integrated recent updates to BATON Version 9 into its operations....
12/03/2025
Nevion announces new 400G addition to its eMerge SDN media fabric offering
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
High-capacity switch enhances existi...
12/03/2025
DaVinci Resolve Studio Delivers Cinematic Sound for Adam Bol
Brie Clayton March 12, 2025
0 Comments
Feature film relies on DaVinci Resolve Studio for ...
12/03/2025
SVT Leverages Ateliere Live to Pioneer 100% Software-Defined Production at Rally...
12/03/2025
Berklee Awards Fenway Neighborhood Improvement Grant to Four Organizations A total of $17,000 will be distributed among the Boston-based nonprofits.
By
Madd...
12/03/2025
TVBEuropes Jenny Priestley sits down with new SMPTE president Richard Welsh to discuss his aims for the organisation going forward, its efforts to attract a you...
12/03/2025
The new process has significantly enhanced operational efficiencies, with automation freeing up creators to concentrate on higher value tasks
By Matthew Corrig...
12/03/2025
Jellyfish Pictures, which has offices in London and Sheffield, said it has been battling hard in the face of strong headwinds over the last 12 months
By Jenny ...
12/03/2025
Visit Booth #W2213 to Experience the Latest in AI-Driven Content Discovery and Workflow Automation
Bitcentral, a leader in media workflow solutions, is set to ...
12/03/2025
CHICAGO Jeff Lilly has been named WGN-TV director of technology effective March 17, 2025, according to Ric Harris, WGN-TV vice president and general manager....
12/03/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. A new study from LG Ad Solutions indicates that consumers want more features that would allow them to shop for products on the connected T...
12/03/2025
BOTHELL, Wash. The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS), Advanced Media Workflow Association (AMWA) and the Video Services Forum (VSF) will once again present...
12/03/2025
PHILADELPHIA Comcast announced that it has upgraded Xfinity Internet speeds for more than 20 million customers for no additional cost....
12/03/2025
Create with Maxon: Cinema 4D Fundamentals Workshop - March 12-14
Brie Clayton March 11, 2025
0 Comments
Makin' Waffles with Elly Wade
During Marc...
12/03/2025
Ottawa, Canada - March 12, 2025 - Ross Video is pleased to announce the appointment of Aaron Tunnell as Business Development Director, Cloud Solutions, reinforc...
12/03/2025
12 Mar 2025
VEON to release 4Q 2024 trading update on 20 March 2025 Dubai, 12 March 2025 - VEON Ltd. (NASDAQ: VEON), a global digital operator, today confirms ...
12/03/2025
Getting set for the Winter Olympics: Inside SVT's ongoing software-based pro...
12/03/2025
THE PLAYERS Championship 2025: AI Commentary, Shared-Reality Viewing at COSM, La...
12/03/2025
Seamless SMPTE 2110: A Discussion on Making the Move to IP Less Painful Leaders from Netflix, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, LinkedI, and Megapixel address ...
12/03/2025
Opening Doors of Perception: Meta's Ajit Ninan on Rethinking AR/MR Perceptua...
12/03/2025
With the 2025 Formula 1 season set to begin in Melbourne on March 16, Sky Sports is gearing up to deliver its most comprehensive F1 coverage yet. Following a th...
12/03/2025
Unicanal and Trece TV revolutionize Digital TV in Paraguay with Rohde & Schwarz ...
12/03/2025
Honoring Service, Celebrating Sport: Rohde & Schwarz UK Sponsors NavyFit Rugby D...
12/03/2025
New HVS-Q12 Represents a Quantum Leap in Switcher Design...
12/03/2025
Telespazio and ABS Expand Partnership to Deliver Tailored C-Band Connectivity So...
12/03/2025
ABC conducts independent audits across the TAG programs. In the March 2025 TAG s...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Moonlight: ESA program to create a satellite con...
12/03/2025
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
In 2025, Thales ranks among the top 0.01% of the...
12/03/2025
Consumer show back following hugely successful first series
10 March 2025 Following a hugely successful first series, The Complaints Bureau returns to RT ...
11/03/2025
By Lucy Spicer
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival...
11/03/2025
Salsa is making a comeback, captivating new listeners with its infectious energy...
11/03/2025
For many people, music can serve as a reflection of their roots and upbringing. ...
11/03/2025
The solution delivers reliable, scalable and secure connectivity for critical pu...
11/03/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced that Weigel Broadcasting has deployed Harmonics VOS Media Software, which offers playout-to-delivery capabilities, inclu...