


For the latest round of TED Talks, filmed for broadcast in front of a live audience in Vancouver, TiMax SoundHub provided the vital immersive element to the sound system which this year was implemented by new technical sound partner, Martin Audio.
For the online conference platform that aims to inform and educate a global audience in bite-sized chunks timed at 18mins or less, intimate, captivating and intelligible audio is an intentional brand element to ensure connection between the eminent speakers and their audience.
TED’s audio lead of eight-year tenure, Michael Nunan, wrote a brief to accommodate the needs of the production within the 1500-seat amphitheatre. This was duly answered by Martin Audio’s Market Development Manager, Simon Honywill, with a multichannel PA system design incorporating a redundant pair of TiMax SoundHub and a showfile configured by TiMax commercial director, Dave Haydon, that included spatial imaging layers for stage, surround, reverb, fx and audience voice-lift, in addition to a simultaneous 5.1 broadcast downmix.
Nunan said, “I do have a history with TiMax so I had instant confidence as I recognised very well that TiMax is a ferocious tool set with functionality only limited by the imagination.”
He continued, “TED is a challenging brief not least because it is one of a very few events where both the live production and the broadcasting output occupy an equal footing”
Nunan clarifies, “We exist in a super challenging and therefore interesting place of creating the perfect experience in the room, whilst simultaneously putting to disc a world class recording devoid of any artefacts of the live event, whilst also producing a live broadcast that gives the geographically distant audience a sense of what it’s like to be there.”
To that end the main PA consisted of five radiating hangs of Martin Audio WPS above the expansive stage, with a single hang of 10 SHX and one 18 FS speakers for low frequency support.
A ring of seven Martin Audio FlexPoint 12 delay speakers were used to ensure intelligibility at the back of the venue. The front fills consisted of 13 FP 6 speakers set into the stage apron and horseshoe seating, with an extra fill system of FP 4 speakers distributed among couches close to the stage, whilst the immersive surround system comprised four arrays of four Torus speakers each with two SHX18 subwoofers on the floor, as well as an overhead distributed system of FP 12 cabinets.
The PA system and TiMax spatial programming were fine-tuned on-site in Vancouver by specialists Dan Higgott and Gerry Marrone from TiMax, working to a tight tech setup and rehearsal schedule.
For Nunan’s FOH mix team, described as “…two very well-credentialed Los Angeles live sound guys and broadcasters,” working with TiMax on TED was their first foray into object-based mixing. Nunan expands, “I completely changed their workflow from the old channel-based world, and their approach to pathways and how to manage the show.
“And now having successfully crossed the Rubicon in terms of TiMax and object-based workflow, the sound team believes unilaterally that this is the new normal. They quickly recognised how powerfully they could create an image in the theatre without tying themselves in knots with busses and auxes, and awkward pans in matrices with the usual fah they would have had to do with the previously driven PA.”
One of the biggest efficiencies TiMax delivered for the sound team was the simultaneous live downmix render for broadcast in 5.1, that was a direct translation of the spatial mix, of the band on stage for example, produced by the FOH entertainment mixer for the immersive house PA system.
“This year,” Nunan divulged, “we didn’t need a dedicated mixer to perform that role because TiMax created a perfect, close to broadcast ready, 5.1 equivalent mix of the giant 44-channel payload that was being pushed into the theatre.”
Nunan concludes, “The watershed moment for me was recognising viscerally that object-based workflows bring as much to the table for live events as they have done for sound to picture. Rewardingly, this experience with TiMax on TED taught me that the sooner we get away from channel-based workflows and embrace a full object-based ecosystem the better.”
TED’s Head of Production, Mina Sabet, confirmed, “TiMax allowed us to create an immersive sound environment we have never been able to create before in the theatre in the Vancouver Convention Center. The quality and precision of TiMax took us to a new level of excellence and a seamless experience for the audience.”