TiMax drives vehicle demand at IAA

Experiential sound design company, PaniX GbR, specified TiMax’s SoundHub audio delay matrix for the grand scale commercial vehicle exhibition environments at the 65th IAA fair in Frankfurt.

For Hyundai, the paniX team deployed a single 32-channel TiMax SoundHub with MADI, to create a ‘dynamic yet immersive’ press conference for the Korean manufacturer in a very large space. Output was triggered both manually and via timecode.

TiMax delay-matrixed Image Definitions also drew sharp focus onto speaker positions at the far left and far right of the conference, as Jörg Rapp, paniX MD explained, “it enabled us to bring video content alive with fast moving engine sounds that sounded as if they were really travelling left to right and vice versa.”

PaniX also delivered the multichannel sound experience for the four-zone, 9000 square-metre Volkswagen booth as part of a team lead by consultant Hansjörg Wenzel, from Filmtec Media GmbH. The four zones included three themed zones: ‘Perform’, ‘Connect’ and ‘Innovate’; alongside the main ‘Plaza’ zone.

Two TiMax SoundHub systems fitted with dual SSD hard drives for redundancy, provided audio playback and spatialisation for the zoned stand, with 48 channels serving the Plaza and 64 channels for the themed areas. In the main zone, TiMax handled audience area ambience effects, maintaining audio level above background noise level while preserving easy conversation levels – determined by the actual customer numbers present.

Multitrack sounds had been previously created in Pro Tools – programmed into the TiMax via MADI at set up – and run directly from the TiMax where they could be moved and morphed around the stand via a distributed system of d&b loudspeakers. TiMax controlled the individual 3D audioscapes for each of the four zones, all on a loop and controlled by timecode.

The TiMax was Rapp’s product of choice following a ‘shoot out’ with other contenders and he explained how TiMax fits his needs, “The system has to run stable, and it must be multi-client so Stephan (Diebel, Jörg’s business partner) and I can work at the same time. The user interface has to be very intuitive, as there is no time on the job to mess around with creating custom user interfaces. Most important is to have a delay matrix, because localisation cannot work without delay. Also we need DAW-like editing functions. The system has to run fluently without sacrifices to the workflow even when using full DSP power.”

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