CULTURE ROOM
that feels like it is enveloping you.
Sennheiser has two 9.1 3D audio studios
in Germany where Zielinsky did the original
mix for the exhibition. “I was planning for
14 speakers, of course, so all those speakers
we did not have in our studios were sort of
artificially simulated by spreading the signal
to, like, the one in the front and the one in the
rear. So simulating the speaker on the side
and then when we went to London for the
first time … at the Victoria & Albert, we did a
final mix directly on-location,” he says, adding
he also did an on-location mix at the MMFA.
“I do not like to do mixing by moving
rubber bands around with a mouse; for me,
that is an artistic process and I have up to 10
fingers I can use to move faders,” says Ziel-
insky. “So I did a new mix of everything for
Montreal on location the week before using
an [Avid] S3 controller and Pro Tools.”
Having learned from the original show-
ing of Revolution in London, Zielinsky says he
was able to improve the results for Montreal
significantly. “I like it much more and with
a better acoustical situation it is, of course,
much easier and much more effective to pro-
duce a real convincing immersive sound than
if you have problems with the audio on loca-
tion. Based on our experiences in London, we
wanted to improve the sound for Montreal
and the future by a lot. It is evident that, for
Sennheiser, we want to deliver a high quality
audio experience for visitors,” says Zielinsky.
“So I worked very closely with Robert and
the Montreal museum and we said pretty
precisely what we wanted and things that we
did not want.”
The only imperfection Zielinsky iden-
tifies with the MMFA’s Woodstock room is
the glass casing at the rear, which displays
the stage outfits and documents. “That is, of
course, not so perfect, although they angled
the glass walls a little bit, but that still causes
some reflections that are disturbing but,
nevertheless, that was something that also
needs to be avoided next time. But as I said,
every room is different and I really have to say
that the people in Montreal were very, very
cooperative and helpful in achieving a really
good sound, and at the end, the visitors to
the museum, they must be happy.”
As co-curator Geoffrey Marsh says, the use of
immersive audio in Revolution and other ex-
hibitions is setting a new standard in the mu-
seum world. “I’ve been to exhibitions where
the sound is so poor that you can hardly
make out what it is. I think that is disrespect-
ful. You wouldn’t do that with a painting or
something. They wouldn’t have a Picasso and
put gauze over it and say, ‘Well if you peer
through you it, you might see what you’re
getting at,” says Marsh. “It’s quite interesting
that in the Woodstock section here, you look
at someone like Country Joe when he comes
on stage. Country Joe immediately embrac-
es an audience of a half million
people… In a sense and in a bigger
way, that’s what museums have got
to do. There is a massive challenge with
sound to take you into that sort of en-
vironment.”
As Marsh says, with something
like Woodstock, or Pink Floyd’s Live
8 performance from 2005, which is
currently recreated in a similar fashion at the
V&A, they’re trying to do something that mu-
seums have never done before.
“I think the challenge of the future is
less the technology, because that is getting
sorted out and visitors are getting used to
the idea, but how do you actually create
an immersive experience of an immersive
experience?” he asks. “When the artist paints
the picture, he doesn’t know who is going
to look at it and he’s not really interested in
it; it’s about him. But if you’re a performer,
your audience is central to that and it’s that
magic point when you get that incredible
connection between the performer and the
audience that makes a great performance.
How you capture that in a museum is a big,
big challenge.”
Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of
Professional Sound.
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