PNW Chair Aurika Hays opened the meeting inside the Opus 4 studio in Bothell, WA, and had everyone present introduce themselves. Approximately 45 persons attended the meeting.
Owner Dr. Michael Matesky (a PNW committee member) greeted the assemblage. He described his desire to build a studio large enough to record a Mozart style orchestra. He is a cello player himself. The original plan for Opus 4 did not include LARES but rather the intent was to have a room that acoustically encouraged good playing.
Dr. Matesky described playing in a church in Portland OR. After some analysis, he determined that the room acoustics were poor from a player's standpoint. He then showed a few seconds of videotape where a choir singer is seen reacting to the environment after a LARES system was installed there and enabled mid-performance. In the process, he found the LARES system quite effective and wondered if it could be applied to his studio-in-progress. The current installation marks the first studio application of LARES.
Steve Barbar of LARES then took the floor. He described his background with Dr. David Griesinger (electronic reverb pioneer and father of all Lexicon reverbs). Steve worked on an acoustical enhancement system for a historical theatre remodel with Neil Muncey in Canada. There is actually quite a history of artificial acoustical enhancement. The first system that Steve knows was implemented by Thomas Edison. Philips tried again much later with limited success. Another system by AIRO used mics in many resonators, which worked, but proved temperamental. (The Hult Center in Eugene OR uses an AIRO system). Another system called R.O.D. (Reverb on Demand) used noise gates and analog bucket brigade devices. The ACS system, by Wolfgang Ahnert, is used by many operas in Europe; it is analog and manual. All of these systems used many mics, were complicated and are not noted for stability.
Worldwide, there are about 70 big LARES installations and 220 smaller ones. The usual application for this technology is in buildings where the acoustics have either changed or never existed. There are several auditoriums in the US and Canada using this. It is not inexpensive. In the American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL, LARES is used to make crowd sound bigger for games, less for other money making events. In a church application, it is possible to have the 6-second RT60 environment that the organ nuts want, yet have the reverb time be manageable when there is speech in the room. The unit is 'smart' enough to be able to do this (you duck the room microphones when someone is speaking). So when the organ plays, you have the long, luxurious reverb that blends everything together, yet when the pastor begins speaking, the enhancement smoothly disappears. One might find it a bit spooky. At Opus 4 that night, the effect was most believeable if you closed your eyes; with your eyes in play, there were no visual cues that the room could support the acoustic that your ears detected.
In the studio, there are three multi-loudspeaker arrays: overhead, a high lateral array, and a low lateral array. There needs to be enough speaker density so that you can be against a wall and not localize any one loudspeaker. There are 72 loudspeakers in the system. The speakers need uniform broadband power response for 60 degrees. The 6 inch-2 ways are made to Lexicon specs by Krix. Two Schoeps microphones provide the input to the system. They are located against the walls, on opposite sides of the room. The room is rectangular, roughly 2:1 proportions, the microphones are located midwall on the long walls. The microphone locations are fixed and don't change.
In the control room, there are 2 lexicon 480L reverberation units, 3 digital audio processors that are derived from the BSS SoundWeb, a Lexicon/Benchmark mike preamp, and two racks of Lexicon/Bryston 2-channel amplifiers. There are fewer amplifier channels than there are loudspeakers. The 480L units run proprietary LARES software.
In use, the microphones pick up room sound, the electronics decorrelate it in realtime and send it back into the room via the loudspeakers. The decorrelation is required and also increases the gain before feedback. Yes, if you raise the enhancement level enough, it will run away with itself.
The system is zoned so that you can have somewhat different acoustics in one half vs the other. Oddly, the presence of the room sound has a smaller effect on recordings than you would expect, but the effect it has on musicians is quite different (it is easier to play). The room is quite dead without it.
Steve Barbar, chief LARES disciple and evangelist came out west to help explain what was going on and to demo the system for us. Dr. Matesky played cello with Kyung Sun Chee on violin while Steve 'built' a room around them as we watched and listened. Our section chair is also a violinist and she could see the effect of the room enhancement on the violin player's technique. By manipulating parameters, Steve transformed the studio into a larger chamber more suited to this music. Steve says the LARES in the room doesn't hurt the recording, but it affects the musicians and the way they respond and perform. Some research has been done on the reverb needed for various intrumentalists to feel good while playing. More research is needed on ensembles.
In use, there is a touchscreen panel that can call up presets and make some manipulation to parameters.
Wenger has practice rooms for sale with LARES; students can dial in any room they need to hear, i.e. like the concert hall they will perform in later.