Trade show trends point the way to audio convergence.
Usually, right around the middle of day three of most trade shows, someone will bring up the idea of making such shows into virtual enter-prises, with products and services up on the Internet for all to see after attendees validate their online registrations. Day three often finds plenty of minds and feet receptive to the idea of going virtual — even the inevitable post-show soirées could be handled by creating a virtual Michael Todd Room at one of the MySpace-like social networking sites. The huge amounts of money saved on airfares, hotel rooms and booths could be put into R&D and salary increases.
But while products and services can be displayed and demonstrated reasonably well in online environments, what would be missed is the ability to look around and sniff the cross-currents of trends and the adventure of trying to figure out what’s happening now and what’s com-ing next.
At the recent InfoComm show in Anaheim, one clear trend was that the distinctions between live sound and installed sound are fading away quickly. “I guess I realized it when I noticed that touring P.A. rigs were starting to show up being permanently installed in churches,” said Dale Sandberg, senior product manager at Lexicon and dbx. Leaning over the table in a cramped meeting room in the Harman Pro booth, he added, “When you see a VerTec touring rig nailed up in a large church, and then you see smaller P.A. systems in other parts of the house-of-worship campus, you’re actually seeing systems that are replacing the ceiling speakers and other elements of what would have been an installed sound system just a few years earlier.”
Sandberg agrees that the rise of Christian pop music certainly has propelled the trend, but he also sees another level to it. “This isn’t just the audio people buying a P.A. system. This is the IT department at churches and corporations looking at audio systems as though they’re part of a larger installed system, which, increasingly, they are,” he said. “It’s the network guys making the decisions about systems, and audio is part of those systems.”
The idea of a line array as part of a paging system seems jarring at first, but that’s just what’s being seen at some of the poolside “swim” clubs popping up in Las Vegas and elsewhere, where a stage-located P.A. system is also tied into an installed multiroom, whole-club sound sys-tem. Sandberg wondered aloud if live sound is becoming “commoditized,” the way music recording has. But the silver lining for him is that an IT imprimatur on sophisticated P.A.-level sound systems likely means bigger budgets for all systems. “I can see it being easier to put on the balance sheet,” he said.
Although more road gear is being attached to walls with molly bolts, Mark Lopez, marketing manager at Yamaha’s commercial audio systems division, believes that the idea of convergence is also being proved out reciprocally: installed gear going out on the road. “You take Cat5e, wrap it in Kevlar, take it out on the road and now it’s a digital snake,” he said. “We’re seeing more networking equipment going into conduit and being taken on the road.” Lopez mentioned Yamaha’s M7CL digital mixer as an example of a product developed for the installed market that has been finding itself out on tours recently. According to him, “There’s a kind of hybrid set of applications developing around certain products that seem to lend themselves to both installed and live sound. The live guys historically want fast setups and turnarounds, and the installed guys are looking for systems security — but look at the kinds of environments out there in clubs and other venues, and you see why they both want all of that now.”
At speaker-maker D.A.S. Audio, U.S. sales manager Kevin Hill agrees that there is a convergence in progress, though he wonders if the commodi-tization alluded to by Sandberg has already taken place. “A line array is supposed to be a tool; I think it’s being turned into an iPod,” he commented, asserting that the line array and other key digital audio systems elements have become buzz words in some of the most active installed sound markets, such as churches. These markets can be “oversold on overkill” when it comes to putting systems into houses of worship that increasingly double as music and theatrical performance spaces. “It’s understandable that churches are exceeding what can be accomplished with ceiling speakers, but most churches, which don’t have raked seating, can be very wellserved by clusters.”
Dan Montecalvo, manager of OEM products at Audio-Technica, speculates that, in the near future, this convergence of applications could have an impact on product development. “As people use installed system technology on the road, and as more live-sound gear gets integrated with installed systems, at some point it’s going to make sense to adapt some of the products from each sector and optimize them to work in both,” he said.
However, as more live sound technologies like wireless microphones find their way into boardrooms and other corporate spaces, and as presenta-tions become more animated and entertainment-driven, they soon might have an unexpected positive impact in another, more pressing area of audio. “If corporate America experiences first-hand the kinds of ‘white spaces’ problems we’re going to confront,” Montecalvo said, “maybe we’ll have some new allies in how the matter gets resolved.”
Convergence can make for strange bedfellows.
E-mail Dan at ddaley@fohonline.com.
