The past, present and future of professional sound recently met in the Czech Republic, as over 300 sound industry professionals from 40 countries headed for the capital Prague, host city for Yamaha’s annual System Designers Conference.
‘Immersive audio’ was the theme of this year’s System Designers Conference (SDC). While we tend to think of immersive audio as a modern concept, any space with four walls, a ceiling and floor produces immersive sound.
It made Prague an appropriate location, as the city’s long history of opera and classical music has seen many venues built with acoustics in mind.
It was in the newest of these - the O2 universum - that the conference took place.
Featuring a wide range of conference facilities and a 4500-seat sports arena, the O2 universum was the perfect location to set up demonstration immersive sound systems in both the largest conference room and the arena, as well as comparing them to a large format NEXO L-R line array system flown in the arena.
SDC 2019 featured a wide range of different presentations and demonstrations. These included the Prague Music String Quartet demonstrating the benefits of acoustic room enhancement using Yamaha’s AFC4 active field control system.
Other sessions saw the arena AFC4 system used to demonstrate how stage tracking heightens the experience of theatre and live music, as well as how regenerative audio systems can be used to boost the atmosphere at sports venues.
Seminars on system design and finance for large arenas were hosted by NEXO, while sessions on acoustic measurement and analysis, digital networking, EN54 certification in stadiums and arenas, remote conferencing, education in production management, certification workflows and artificial intelligence-based voice assistance.
The huge, once-in-a-generation Fête des Vignerons, which used 11 Yamaha RIVAGE PM and Nuage digital mixing systems, were also on offer.
In between the sessions, guests were invited to enjoy a fully-immersive, 3D virtual reality tram ride through Prague. This was recorded using Yamaha's ViReal 64-channel spherical microphone array, the sound being played back through Yamaha headphones accompanying video on Oculus Go headsets.
They also experienced the real thing, taking a historic tram to the 114 year-old Municipal House, a celebrated concert venue which is home to the Prague Music Orchestra. Here a recital by the Prague Music String Quartet in the Sladkovsky Hall was followed by a lively dinner.
Even here the contrast between audio past and present was evident, as the Smetana Hall features a NEXO STM line array system for amplified concerts, installed earlier in 2019.
