panLab Console brings spatial audio to Southbank Centre

panLab Console, a new spatial audio solution from Innovate Audio, has enabled a surround sound performance at London’s Southbank Centre on 4 November, when cellist and composer Peter Gregson presented a performance of his 2021 album, Patina, in the centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer.

Patina was written and recorded for spatial audio, so a live surround sound presentation was a natural step – albeit one that required a touch of audio innovation. Called Patina 360, the presentation, in which Gregson was accompanied by the Carducci String Quartet, was planned by sound engineer Brett Cox, with help from one of the Southbank Centre’s senior sound technicians, Tony Birch.

Building on its proven panLab 3 software, Innovate Audio’s panLab Console, launched at the PLASA Show in September (where it was given a commendation by the PLASA Awards judges) adds fast and accurate spatial audio functionality to a range of live mixing consoles. Birch had been involved in the development of panLab Console after seeing a post from Innovate Audio’s Dan Higgott on social media, and had big plans for its future use, so it was an obvious choice for this project.

A large and dynamic area, the Foyer has a capacity for 900 guests and is used for a range of events including awards ceremonies, club nights, receptions and product launches. The plan for Patina 360 was to deliver a surround sound format with the all-important height layer.

With Higgott developing the 3D user interface, which is an essential feature of panLab Console, Birch made plans to achieve the desired immersive sound reinforcement with the new system, eventually being able to conduct a demonstration.

At the heart of the sound system was a Yamaha QL5 mixer. For the performance, Birch created a conventional 7.1 surround sound system (minus the centre channel) consisting of Meyer Sound M’elodie (the ultracompact high-power curvilinear array cabinet) and UPJ -1Ps (the compact 10” speaker). In addition, he included a ‘height’ layer of six miniature Meyer MM-4 speakers, pointing upwards into six of the iconic inverted pyramids in the Foyer’s ceiling.

Summing up, Birch says, “In this and most other spatial audio instances, with panLab Console you can get the source to be where it needs to be, very quickly. While there’s nothing new in sending to a multidimensional speaker system, there is something new in the speed and accuracy with which panLab Console can achieve this. And importantly, like its sibling panLab 3, panLab Console is not a critical component in your workflow: you can park your sources where they need to be, save that to a console scene and turn panLab Console off if you’re not using it for any sequenced or live movement.”