By John Jeffay, NoCamels -
Audiences today want more. Seeing their favorite band in concert, their sports team on the field or a Broadway show is no longer enough. The smartphone generation quickly loses interest, so the challenge is to keep them engaged.
Soundit aims to do exactly that by adding an extra layer to live entertainment. It’s a wearable audio device that adds a soundtrack to whatever else is happening. In a stage show it could play pre-recorded sound effects – raindrops, a tiger roaring in the jungle, a clap of thunder – in addition to the live audio.
At a live gig there ere endless opportunities for artistic effects, switching the guitar or drums channel first to one side of the venue, then to the other.
Sponsors could add their own sounds to any event. Budweiser could play the “pshh” sound of a beer can being opened.
At a football game it could play pre-recorded audio of a crowd roaring when a team scores a point. Or it could be used to so that each side of the stadium hears the chant of their own team.
The device also lights up in different colors. It’s not unknown for somebody to make a surprise marriage proposal during the break at an NBA basketball game. Organizers could arrange for the recipient to have the one Soundit device that lights up on cue.
“The idea is that each person in the audience has a device, which is controlled centrally. It doesn’t replace the regular speakers, but it adds to the audio experience,” says Danny Talmi, CEO of Soundit.
“We basically take the sound to the next level and make each person in the audience inti what we call a ‘sound pixel’. That’s a sound term that we invented.
“We look at the at the audience like as a screen and we look at each person as a controlled speaker. Then we can use the audience to create whatever sort of sound picture we want.”
They’re still developing the device, and says it’s at least 18 months from a commercial launch, but they have done several trials with small groups. Ultimately, they say the technology could be rolled out any event, from a small theatre to the Superbowl Halftime show.
Soundit brings together existing technologies rather than inventing anything fundamentally new, but the clever bit, which has patents pending, is how all devices synchronize over radio frequencies.
Each device is loaded with pre-recorded content and hooked up to the transmitter. “We send a signal which activates the specific audio. The complex part and the part where we have the IP (intellectual property) is how to synchronize it, because that part is extremely complicated.”
Talmi mentions two historic landmarks in audio performance. The first was around 80BCE, when the Romans hit on the idea of an amphitheater, using stepped seating to bring the audience close.
The second was when The Beatles opened the world’s first ever stadium rock concert with Twist and Shout in in 1965. The old Shea Stadium, in New York was fitted with the most powerful speakers available at the time. The Fab Four were drowned out 55,000 screaming girls, but it still heralded a new era in live music performance.
Since then, says Talmi, there have been huge advances in lighting, but not so much in sound. There’s been the advent of huge video screens, lasers and, more recently, radio-controlled LED wristbands.
The British band Coldplay first used them in their 2012 Mylo Xyloto tour, handing out a Xyloband (that’s the brand) to each member of the audience, and synchronizing them to the music to produce some spectacular effects in stadium performances.
Soundit says it’s combining some of the Xyloband lighting ideas with its own sound developments to create a new device and a new experience for live events.
There’s no direct competition in terms of a rival product, says Talmi, but they are competing for a share of the production company budgets, which will otherwise be spent on video art, fireworks or any number of other special effects.
“What we’re working on is not a must, but our hope is that it will become the baseline for live events, and that it will become the industry standard.”
Soundit is still very much in the experimental stages. “We can do a small live performance of 50 people, but it’s not ready to be used tomorrow in Madison Square Garden,” says Talmi.
The device is being developed, with help from the Israel Innovation Authority, as a startup within Vector Engineering & Technologies, a company based in Karmiel, northern Israel. It makes CDs and DVDs, says Talmi, but recognizes that money in the music industry is shifting to live events.
Scaling up Soundit for big events will be challenging and complex. “Let’s say Cirque du Soleil are performing in Vegas,” says Talmi. “We could build the system with them at a fixed venue, so everything doesn’t need to be moved around all the time.
“But providing tens of thousands of devices will be very complex, with a lot of logistic requirements.”
He’s convinced, however, that there’s a market. “Performers tell us they used to just play and the audience was happy.
“Now everybody’s looking at their phones and doing other things or even recording the show on their phones. They’re just not as engaged as they used to be.”
