Since theatre first became popular in the times of the Greek, the use of sound to enhance theatrical experience has been prominent. However, many leaps have been made since then to improve a sound designer’s abilities to create different and intricate sounds in their design processes. The evolution of sound playback systems is a key element in the development of sound design in theatre. Through exploration of the history of sound playback, the current available playback systems on the market and the way sound playback impacts on performance arts, it is evident that sound playback is of fundamental importance to modern sound designer. Through the ability to playback and quickly edit sound cues, a modern sound designer is able to focus on the
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These ones and zeroes were then converted back into sound by a laser which scans the surface of the disc whilst it spins. This was an incredible leap forward for sound on a global scale. Sound was now easily accessible ad more affordable then it had been before. For sound designers, the invention of the rewritable CD was incredibly important. This meant that sound designers could create their own sounds, effects and cue; pick levels and adjust the sound before producing a final copy. It also meant that if a sound wasn’t right they could burn a new sound over the same CD (Glenn, 2014; Tracey; 1986; Schwartz, 2016). This was a massive leap forward from the records and tape recorders that were previously available for use in the theatre. To play back a CD during a performance there were few options available to sound operators. When CD players were introduced into theatrical sound systems, it was a unique situation for operators to adapt to. In their book, Sound and Music for the Theatre, Deana Kaye and James Lebrecht muse about the cross over from track tape decks to CD players. “Early in my career designing sound, I created extremely ambitious sound cue sequences that had to be operated manually… One cue sequence required controlling an eight track tape deck, five auto-cueing DAT players, and two CD players while mixing …show more content…
In 2005, a company by the name of Figure 53 released Qlab. Created for the range of Apple MacBook computers, Qlab, did a very similar job to that of SFX. However, according to Matthew Glenn from the University of California, Irvine “Qlab simplifies the interface allowing for a speedier learning curve and faster workflow processes.” The main strength of Qlab is that it can handle many types of multimedia and playback up to 48 channels per sound card. Not only this but Qlab and SFX both allow routing and editing of sound to be done on the designer’s personal computer, meaning the designers no longer have to heavily rely on the abilities of the operator (Glenn. 2014; Laurel,
These ones and zeroes were then converted back into sound by a laser which scans the surface of the disc whilst it spins. This was an incredible leap forward for sound on a global scale. Sound was now easily accessible ad more affordable then it had been before. For sound designers, the invention of the rewritable CD was incredibly important. This meant that sound designers could create their own sounds, effects and cue; pick levels and adjust the sound before producing a final copy. It also meant that if a sound wasn’t right they could burn a new sound over the same CD (Glenn, 2014; Tracey; 1986; Schwartz, 2016). This was a massive leap forward from the records and tape recorders that were previously available for use in the theatre. To play back a CD during a performance there were few options available to sound operators. When CD players were introduced into theatrical sound systems, it was a unique situation for operators to adapt to. In their book, Sound and Music for the Theatre, Deana Kaye and James Lebrecht muse about the cross over from track tape decks to CD players. “Early in my career designing sound, I created extremely ambitious sound cue sequences that had to be operated manually… One cue sequence required controlling an eight track tape deck, five auto-cueing DAT players, and two CD players while mixing …show more content…
In 2005, a company by the name of Figure 53 released Qlab. Created for the range of Apple MacBook computers, Qlab, did a very similar job to that of SFX. However, according to Matthew Glenn from the University of California, Irvine “Qlab simplifies the interface allowing for a speedier learning curve and faster workflow processes.” The main strength of Qlab is that it can handle many types of multimedia and playback up to 48 channels per sound card. Not only this but Qlab and SFX both allow routing and editing of sound to be done on the designer’s personal computer, meaning the designers no longer have to heavily rely on the abilities of the operator (Glenn. 2014; Laurel,