Tonight I went to Watford Palace Theatre to see my mum performing in a production of the well-known musical, Sister Act.
I must admit that I often find myself distracted at these kinds of performances, as my interest in live sound technology takes over and I spend much of my time analysing the equipment being used and the work of the sound and lighting engineers, rather than actually immersing myself in the show. This time was no different, and in fact I spent a good fifteen minutes of the show thinking back to research I have been doing recently into 32-bit floating-point audio.
Earlier in the week I became aware of a couple of bits of recording hardware that record into this format (including the Zoom F6, pictured below), meaning that they have an absurd amount of dynamic range, and are essentially un-clippable. One of the soloists in the show really started singing her heart out at one point, but unfortunately the volume of her voice was so loud that it clipped the wireless transmitter that she was wearing, and audible distortion occurred. To be clear, this was nowhere near bad enough to ruin the performance, or even bad enough that most in the audience would notice, but it got me thinking…
Applying the same 32-bit floating-point technology as used in products like the Zoom F6 to wireless belt pack transmitters would nullify the issue that currently occurs when they are overloaded – a live sound engineer could just turn down the signal and remove the distortion! Having worked on musicals in the past, I know this can be a very frustrating issue, especially when working with amateur performers who may not place the mic the same distance from their mouth on each night of the same show, causing wildly varying signal levels.
Once again, this requires further research, and will also likely feature in my Cutting Edge essay…
(Sorry for the awful picture mum – it was the only one I could find!)
