Sunday, September 21, 2008
Gary Hardesty’s Massive Olympic Sound System
Live Design: "How do you make sure an audience of 91,000 can hear what’s going on in an Olympic stadium? Ask Gary Hardesty of Sound Media Fusion in Los Angeles, who served as chief audio designer for the opening and closing ceremonies at the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing in August 2008"
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11 comments:
As if reaching to 182,000 ears wasn't enough, I can't begin to imagine designing a system for a space not even built. That takes some serious trust in your equipment and some very, very up to date draftings to make sense of the future space. The front row seats seemed to be the most troubling. How do you create a system so large that doesn't overpower those closest to the action? Although the amplitude of the show was not louder than most rock concerts, the amount of effort that was required to hide such a monstrous system must have been difficult
I'm constantly amazed at how much went into the Olympics. I didn't know they were broadcasted in 5.1. I can only imagine the complications of mixing something 5.1 live for tv, as well as (stereo?) for the live audience.
That sounds really cool, and I'm amused that they had an analog console for back up. Imagine mixing for that entire arena! I'd also be interested in hearing more about his process in thinking about the acoustics of an unbuilt space- it seems like a huge challenge.
This system is very impressive. Distributing time code that far and getting intelligibility with so many different zones must have been quite a challenge. It amazes me at these big arena shows how much work goes into redundancy. The choices to use active speakers and fiber optic control infrastructure are both interesting. Both of these seem to be gaining popularity, this may influence the perception of them.
I think this system was remarkable. It took so much planning, 5 years at least. Like dave said, not just the live productions, but the mixing for the video feeds must have been pretty complicated. The planning for these large projects must be amazing, but definitely complicated.
This sound project almost seems more like designing sound for a newly built concert hall. For the summer I spent at a consulting firm that prided itself on amazing acoustic concert halls, months of their research was spent modeling and testing the sound qualities of the space using advanced sound fx software. While I was there we were working on a concert hall in iceland and it took 3 months to get the building completely rendered with now sound leaks, and then a full week of processing on dedicated servers to compute all of the information for the acousticians. While this show is set up more like a rock concert, it needs the research of a concert hall.
That was me, derek.
While I am impressed by the overall size and complexity of this system and how flawlessly it worked, I can't help to think about how difficult it must have been to troubleshoot a system of this caliber. I know from my own experience the most I have ever mixed for was 5,000 people, and trouble shooting that was a mess. But to try and EQ a system that you can't even hear all parts of from the same spot must be tough. I commend the sound design team for great work on this project.
Although I am in no way a sound person, I can tell how much of a feat this was. First, it must have been really hard to design the system before the building was built. That takes a lot of trust for your knowledge and technology. Also, the redundancy that was built into the system must have been incredible (you don't want the opening ceremony collapsing because of you).
I have always been wary of the idea of computerized show control. I don't really know how it works, but I think that it would take the "live" part of live theater out of the mix. Although, it would be a nightmare to call that many cues, so there may be some way to compromise.
that's quite a lot of power
fortunately, line arrays are designed to catapult sound to the back ends of a stadium - exactly what they were going for here. within the first 100' or so, you'd probably be bleeding out your ears, but 3-400' back, it's a nice comfortable level
That's quite the challenge - to design sound in a space that is not even built yet! Yikes! The travel must have been exhausting as well. I believe the article mentioned that he traveled to and from Beijing once a month for 5 or so years. That's ridiculous. I imagine he got to be pretty good at getting work done on that ridiculously long flight. I for one am completely useless on a plane. You'll never find me doing any sort of work. Sounds like the end result of all of his work was pretty impressive, too. Good for him. How does one get a gig like this?
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