The North American International Auto Show held each January in Detroit steers the upcoming year for global car sales as manufacturers create focus and impact for the latest models,
Creating the cohesive vision this year for Fiat Chrysler Auto’s booth, TiMax SoundHub 3D audio matrix was deployed for a surround sound experience.
Designed and built by George P Johnson Experience Marketing, James Klein Events were brought in to curate the show production. This featured a spectacular hourly ‘Superstorm’ that saw each of the Jeep, Dodge, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Mopar, Chrysler and Fiat brands ‘takeover’ the entire stand with hundreds of moving lights, dozens of HD video pixel-mapped elements and “awesome surround sound scores.”
James Klein engaged Michigan-based Sound Reality who incorporated the audio showcontrol capabilities of the TiMax SoundHub 3D audio matrix into their elaborate animated soundscape designs. Klein explains “I was wanting to focus peoples’ attention and engage the customers in the stand. I tasked Michael our A1 with manipulating the audio so that the audience felt surrounded by sound.”
Supporting video content ran on a total of 32 outputs from D3 4×4 servers, with audio playback comprised of 16 tracks from multiple D3 4×2 servers, combined with a further 6 tracks from the onboard playback facility of TiMax. The multichannel effects and music stems were then all spatialized by TiMax across 50 Meyer UPJ-1P loudspeakers and 20 Meyer UMS-1P subs distributed around the 60,000 sq.ft. booth.
Sound Reality’s Michael McDermott explains, “We used TiMax to create audio motion as well as focus on brands – and the entire booth – for any part of the one-hour show that was running on the booth for the duration of the exhibition.
“TiMax is the answer for us as the spatial panning feature is simple and easy to integrate into our existing system. We were able to achieve positive results and our client was very happy with what we achieved.”