Environmental Audio versus Audio Loops

Have you ever been to the Small World exhibit at Disney? Have you ever tried to do the ubiquitous boat ride 10 times in a row? Do you find yourself humming along?

As someone who “lived” in the Small World building for a few months during a project, many years ago, I still feel shivers crawl across my spine every time one of the kids wants to go into the Small World exhibit… The concept of ‘water torture’ is only too familiar. Once that tune is in my head, it tends to remain there for longer than is reasonable.

Remembering lunch at a Rainforest Cafe some years ago, it’s one of those places I have avoided since. Sitting down to eat only to find yourself subconsciously counting down to hear yourself say “cue parrot”, followed about 30 seconds later with “cue monkey” does not make for a great experience.

What can one do to avoid these annoying short audio loops that drive staff and (at least SOME) visitors crazy? Well – there are ways. Of course, sometimes there’s not a lot you can do, and in those cases you’ll have to live with it. Clearly Small World is one of those cases. However, I’ll refer back to a project that we did in the late nineties. We created a system for a restaurant chain called “the American Wilderness Experience” that allowed us to add literally hundreds of audio samples into an audio replay unit’s memory, and then randomize the delivery of these sound sample, with a minimum and a maximum repetition rate for each of the samples. There was a background loop – but it wasn’t a single loop: we created two or three separate low level background loops with a different run length, and ran them simultaneously so that the resulting audio didn’t repeat. The timing was set up such that the loops really didn’t come together again for hours so that ‘repeating’ in the traditional sense wasn’t much of an issue. The background track content provided for that low level noise that helps create a restaurant environment that prevents you from having to listen to everybody else’s conversations. In the wooded areas we created the sound of wind in the trees at high level, the rustling of leaves, and other low level sounds that you’d expect to hear in a forest. In the caves, we’d have sounds of water running in the distance, with dripping noises here and there, combined with a very quiet background noise, just to separate this area from the rest of the space.

On top of that different animals would then ‘pop up’ at different times. Wolves, various birds, rustling noises and a host of other related noises including a thunderstorm ‘show’ (there were in fact a few different ones set up such that one would run every 20-30 minutes, but we had several different files so that none of them would be repeated for at least a couple of hours). The ‘foreground’ sounds were completely randomized, and with 10 or 20 wolf related sound bites with various lengths and intensities, which would be set to be heard no more often than every 30-90 minutes, the behavior of the system was best described as predictably unpredictable. Visitors felt that they heard what they’d expect – but there was never a repeating sequence.

At the time, this system was implemented in 20-some solid state audio players, but since then we have done similar systems using PC computers, providing a non-proprietary solution to our clients. At this point, it is quite feasible to do a system such as this on one or a couple of solid state PCs, reducing rack space and increasing system reliability. It’s a great way to make sure that you create a nice environment rather than a pre-mixed loop which will keep guests coming back, never feeling that they are, somehow, re-living ground hog day.

In total we had just over 40 audio outputs, with a speaker each set up at three different levels in the “trees” that created the environment – some low down, some at mid level, and some high up in the trees.

One late evening while we were first bringing the system up we found one of the electricians wandering around the space trying to see where some poor bird was that he’d heard in the canopy somewhere. After helping him try to find it for a few minutes, we did in the end admit that we had just started the audio system… it took us a while to convince him.

Do you need a non-repeating audio ‘environment’? If so, give us a call – we’d love to do another one!

#audio #loop #looping #audioloop #environmental #environmentalaudio #nonloopingaudio #audiorepeater #restaurant #retail #commercialaudio #audiovisual

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你参观过迪斯尼乐园的“这是一个小世界”吗? – Environmental Audio versus Audio Loops

你参观过迪斯尼乐园的“这是一个小世界”吗?你是不是排十次队为了坐那里的游船？你是不是不知不觉地重复耳边的声音？

作为一个在“小世界”里生活过几个月的人来说，虽然当时是为了做项目，而且过去很多年了，但是如今如果有孩子说想去小世界玩，我每次都会吓得后背发颤。

记得几年前我最怕在热带雨林咖啡厅吃午饭，那里是我试图躲着的地方。坐下来吃饭，然后潜意识里听到自己在说“鹦鹉发声”，三十秒后“猴子发声”，这可不是什么好感受。

我们怎样才能避免这种烦人的无限循环的的声音干扰员工（至少是部分员工）和游客呢？当然，是有办法的。有时可能你真没办法，所以只能忍受。显然小世界就是其中之一。这里，我想谈谈我们在九十年代后期做过的一个项目。我们帮一个叫做“美洲荒野体验”的连锁主题餐厅研发和实现的系统，通过这个系统，我们添加了几百种重复播放的声音元素，并让每个元素按照最小或最大重复率随机播放。虽然有一个背景循环，但那并不是单一的循环：我们创建了2-3个独立低音的背景循环，每个都是不同的播放时长，然后让它们同时运行，这样音频就不会重复。时间控制的设置不会让所有循环在一段时间内同时出现，这样就不会有那种传统的“重复”感，背景音轨内容包含低音噪声，这是帮助餐厅营造就餐环境，让你不会听到周围人的对话。在树木区，我们营造高音的风声，你能听到森林里树叶沙沙作响的声音和其他低音声音。在岩洞里，我们营造远处水流和或这里或那里滴答水滴的声音，加上非常安静的背景噪声，使这里区别于其他区域。

上面说到的不同的动物声音可以在不同时刻突然出现。狼、各种鸟、沙沙声和众多相关声音，甚至还有一个大雷雨的“呈现”（由不同声音组成的一组声音呈现大概持续20-30分钟，但我们有几组不同的声音组文件，这就确保了在几个小时内都不会出现完全一样的声音搭配）。最引人注意的声音是完全无序设置的，10或20种和狼嚎差不多的声音被分割为不同的长度和强度，所以每30-39分钟你不会听到重复的，可预见的出其不意是对这个音频系统最好的解释。

系统被安装在20个固态音频播放器中，但这之后我们就开始使用PC电脑完成类似系统，对我们的客户来说，PC电脑的优势就是非专利解决方案。这样一来，在一个或多个固态PC电脑上完成这样的系统就变得非常可行，减少了机柜的空间并增强了系统的可靠性。相比一个预混循环的音频设置，对于营造一个极佳环境来说，这是最好的方式，这会增加你的回头客，不让他们莫名其妙地感觉自己好像是过着日复一日生活的土拨鼠。

总体来说，我只有40多个音频输出，树上的每个音箱设置3种不同声音级别，从而营造整体环境，有些是低音的，有些中音，有些在树上的是高音。

在项目安装期间的一个夜晚，我们第一次安好了整个音频系统，一个电气工程师以为这个空间什么地方有个倒霉的鸟飞不出去了，他听到棚子附近有鸟叫的声音。我们还帮他找了几分钟，后来大家才发现我们是刚刚打开了音频系统……我真是费了半天劲儿说服他。

你需要一个不重复的音频环境吗？速速联系我们，我们很乐意再做一个！

#音频#循环#音频循环#环境#环境音响#不循环音频#音频中继器#餐厅#零售#商业音响#音频视频

#audio #loop #looping #audioloop #environmental #environmentalaudio #nonloopingaudio #audiorepeater #restaurant #retail #commercialaudio #audiovisual

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Environmental Audio versus Audio Loops

Have you ever been to the Small World exhibit at Disney? Have you ever tried to do the ubiquitous boat ride 10 times in a row? Do you find yourself humming along?

As someone who “lived” in the Small World building for a few months during a project, many years ago, I still feel shivers crawl across my spine every time one of the kids wants to go into the Small World exhibit… The concept of ‘water torture’ is only too familiar. Once that tune is in my head, it tends to remain there for longer than is reasonable.

Remembering lunch at a Rainforest Cafe some years ago, it’s one of those places I have avoided since. Sitting down to eat only to find yourself subconsciously counting down to hear yourself say “cue parrot”, followed about 30 seconds later with “cue monkey” does not make for a great experience.

What can one do to avoid these annoying short audio loops that drive staff and (at least SOME) visitors crazy? Well – there are ways. Of course, sometimes there’s not a lot you can do, and in those cases you’ll have to live with it. Clearly Small World is one of those cases. However, I’ll refer back to a project that we did in the late nineties. We created a system for a restaurant chain called “the American Wilderness Experience” that allowed us to add literally hundreds of audio samples into an audio replay unit’s memory, and then randomize the delivery of these sound sample, with a minimum and a maximum repetition rate for each of the samples. There was a background loop – but it wasn’t a single loop: we created two or three separate low level background loops with a different run length, and ran them simultaneously so that the resulting audio didn’t repeat. The timing was set up such that the loops really didn’t come together again for hours so that ‘repeating’ in the traditional sense wasn’t much of an issue. The background track content provided for that low level noise that helps create a restaurant environment that prevents you from having to listen to everybody else’s conversations. In the wooded areas we created the sound of wind in the trees at high level, the rustling of leaves, and other low level sounds that you’d expect to hear in a forest. In the caves, we’d have sounds of water running in the distance, with dripping noises here and there, combined with a very quiet background noise, just to separate this area from the rest of the space.

On top of that different animals would then ‘pop up’ at different times. Wolves, various birds, rustling noises and a host of other related noises including a thunderstorm ‘show’ (there were in fact a few different ones set up such that one would run every 20-30 minutes, but we had several different files so that none of them would be repeated for at least a couple of hours). The ‘foreground’ sounds were completely randomized, and with 10 or 20 wolf related sound bites with various lengths and intensities, which would be set to be heard no more often than every 30-90 minutes, the behavior of the system was best described as predictably unpredictable. Visitors felt that they heard what they’d expect – but there was never a repeating sequence.

At the time, this system was implemented in 20-some solid state audio players, but since then we have done similar systems using PC computers, providing a non-proprietary solution to our clients. At this point, it is quite feasible to do a system such as this on one or a couple of solid state PCs, reducing rack space and increasing system reliability. It’s a great way to make sure that you create a nice environment rather than a pre-mixed loop which will keep guests coming back, never feeling that they are, somehow, re-living ground hog day.

In total we had just over 40 audio outputs, with a speaker each set up at three different levels in the “trees” that created the environment – some low down, some at mid level, and some high up in the trees.

One late evening while we were first bringing the system up we found one of the electricians wandering around the space trying to see where some poor bird was that he’d heard in the canopy somewhere. After helping him try to find it for a few minutes, we did in the end admit that we had just started the audio system… it took us a while to convince him.

Do you need a non-repeating audio ‘environment’? If so, give us a call – we’d love to do another one!

#audio #loop #looping #audioloop #environmental #environmentalaudio #nonloopingaudio #audiorepeater #restaurant #retail #commercialaudio #audiovisual

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