At the upcoming HIGH END audio production exhibition in Munich, Germany (May 9-12), musician, producer and Grammy-nominated spatial mix engineer Steven Wilson will be sharing his knowledge and experience with immersive audio as a creative tool utilizing a large-scale Dolby Atmos system provided by PMC.
Each presentation will include demonstrations of his immersive mixes, focusing on his latest album, The Harmony Codex, and some of the other artists’ mixes he has produced, which includes works by Tears for Fears, Ultravox and Roxy Music. “There are some people who are very sceptical about spatial audio, and yet they love stereo, to which my reply is, ‘You like stereo, you like spatial’. When sound comes from more than one direction, it is, by definition, spatial,” Wilson says.
“And, if you play them the right track, in the right context, you can convert them, which is why this event we’re doing at the HIGH END is so exciting,” he continues. “We’re going to have an incredible system and interesting music. What’s not to love when you hear your favorite music, and you are literally inside the music with the artist.”
The system will be installed by PMC specifically for the presentations, utilizing a mixture of the company’s main-mix monitors and the ci series. A trio of the BB6 XBD active monitors, as used by the BBC, Metropolis, LP:ME Dubai and many other studios, will make up the front left, center and right channels. Surround and height duties will be undertaken by 14 models from the ci series, with the low frequencies handled by four of BST subwoofers.
“This is a system unlike any other we have installed for a hi-fi event,” says Oliver Thomas, commercial director and head of design. “It will provide the audiophile visitors to the High End an opportunity to experience immersive audio on a system unlike any they have heard before, just like the ones used in major commercial studios for Atmos mixing, giving them a taste of what is actually heard by the artists and producers.
Wilson’s presentations will take place in room K1, foyer 1, at the MOC Event Center Messe München at the following times:
May 9
11:00 – Intro to spatial audio + tracks from The Harmony Codex and others + Q&A
14:30 – Intro to spatial audio + tracks from The Harmony Codex and others + Q&A
May 10-11
11:00 – Intro to spatial audio + tracks from The Harmony Codex and others + Q&A
14:30 – Intro to spatial audio + tracks from The Harmony Codex and others + Q&A
16:30 – The Harmony Codex full album spatial audio playback + Q&A
May 12
11:00 – Intro to spatial audio + tracks from The Harmony Codex and others + Q&A
14:30 – The Harmony Codex full album spatial audio playback + Q&A
In addition to the immersive audio system, PMC will be exhibiting in room D106, atrium 3, where the flagship fenestria and new Active twenty5i series will be on demonstration.
