After furnishing the Kansas City exhibition of Dialog in the Dark with SFX 6, the world's leading live entertainment music/sound playback software, Stage Research has gone on to upgrade the exhibition's permanent Atlanta installation.
Set in complete darkness, Dialog in the Dark, which has toured 22 countries, focuses on tolerance and awareness. Created by Ashoka Fellow Andreas Heinecke, a former German journalist/commentator, the exhibition utilizes scents, wind, temperatures, sound and textures to construct everyday environments and provide perceptual orientation within a world encompassing the remaining four senses. Blind or visually-impaired guides lead visitors through the installation which sharpens one's sense of hearing with
the sounds of rustling waterfalls and bustling communities.
Last November Stage Research supplied SFX 6 to tie together and trigger all of the audio and other sense-awakening effects in the Dialog in the Dark exhibition at Kansas City's Union Station.
"We updated the Georgia installation of Dialog in the Dark using the enhancements and features employed in Kansas City, adding additional triggers in the urban room, enhancing the visitor experience in one of the galleries, and replacing a show control system in another gallery," reports Stage Research cofounder, Carlton Guc who was the project's sound designer. "The original system contractor had configured very large audio racks that created a lot of heat. Our systems operated more efficiently and were more reliable."
Following the temporary exhibition's six-month run, a portion of the Stage Research equipment was shipped to Atlanta to upgrade the permanent Dialog in the Dark exhibition.
Because SFX frees the user from limitation-related technological concerns, he or she can design and execute rich soundscapes effortlessly. Features include the ASIO playback engine supporting 16-bit or better WAV, MP3 or WMA audio files, audio cues that contain mono, stereo or more channels and cues that output to a true matrix (any number of inputs to any number of outputs). SFX 6 also enables one to drag-and-drop multiple sound files to create a multi-channel, synchronized audio cue from existing mono and stereo sound files.
Stage Research was enlisted to lend its support to Dialog in the Dark by Premier Exhibitions, Inc. of Atlanta.
About SFX
SFX is found at all levels of theater from academics to the pros. Professional theaters use the software to create reliable and enriched soundscapes and it has been employed in many award-winning shows, including several Tony Award winners. The academic stage (elementary education through college) and amateur theater appreciate SFX for the high quality of shows it can create and because it can be easily run by novice operators. Students using SFX get the added benefit of learning the software they will most likely work with when they enter the theatrical job market.
SFX 6 provides features that no other product can. It enables designers to refine and create effects on-site rather than having to shuttle back and forth between a studio and performance space. This affords the freedom to optimize sound designs for the acoustics of the space and other components of the performance. SFX 6's newly rewritten audio engine frees the need for an OS playback engine for hassle-free mixing and placement of audio. SFX 6 features an intuitive user-interface and can be programmed to run complex events with little or no user input.
About Stage Research
Stage Research is the developer of SFX, SoftPlot, LightFactory, ShowBuilder: Sound Design and other audio and lighting software. For more information, call 888-267-0859 or visit www.stageresearch.com.
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