Impluse response at the Royal Shakespeare Company
XR Network+ has collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) to conduct an acoustic analysis of the Swan Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) in Stratford-upon-Avon. This activity supported the work of “Theatre virtually everywhere”, a collaborative project led by the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama as part of the XR Network+ RSC Research and Development Challenge.
In collaboration with creative technologists from the University of York’s Audio Lab and Dr Aglaia Foteinou, a researcher in acoustics of heritage sites, the XR Network+ team carried out an ‘impulse response’ analysis to record the acoustic properties of two RSC theatres.
The acoustic data will be paired with digital twins (3D digital recreations) of the Swan and RST theatres to provide actors with the opportunity to rehearse on a virtual stage and hear how their performance might sound from different locations in the audience. In future, the acoustic data could also be used to create digital theatre productions.
To conduct the analysis, the team visited the RST and Swan theatres (in between performances of Hamlet and Edward II). The team placed four Genelec speakers on the stage and Soundfield B-format microphones in multiple locations around the empty theatre to capture different audience positions. The speakers emitted a 15 second sine sweep, a resonance test which involved varying the sound frequency from low to high pitch ( 45 Hz – 20 kHZ), and using microphones to receive the sound at different locations. The data was used to measure the acoustic and spatial properties of each theatre.
The impulse response analysis showed that the two theatres are similar in their acoustic properties. Both theatres are designed to minimise reverberation so that audiences can more easily hear the speech of actors on the stage. However, each theatre also has its own unique acoustic ‘fingerprint’ due to different room sizes and staging. These ‘fingerprints’ enhance the digital twin to provide a more accurate and holistic representation of the theatre environments.
The XR Network+ project team on stage at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, with working lights in between shows.
Categories: Performance, Research, Technology