I visited (in SF) for the first time a few nights ago and just keep thinking about it!
It's a space for immersive audio. You sit in the center of a room, surrounded by a 32-channel hemispherical speaker array. I heard a mix of Dark Side of the Moon—really amazing.
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I've heard the 5.1ch mix, and this was quite different: the extra degree of freedom let them create a lot of spatial separation between the instruments. Drummer there, choir on ceiling, keys at 2:00, etc. Made it easy to follow each instrument, almost like listening to stems.
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My first thought was that this is is a really good format for high-fidelity recording and playback of live performance. It feels like I'm in the room with Pink Floyd, playing right now. But I'm more interested in how the medium lets you do things that aren't possible in realtime.
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The instrumentalists are roughly locked in physical location, but there are all kinds of other layers of sounds roaming around the room: phaser effects dancing around the room, the choir rising and falling vertically, cash machines jostling, heartbeat in the floor, etc.
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It seems quite demanding on the source material: you need to have a ton going on musically to take advantage of the extra degrees of freedom.
I wonder how the mix was made, practically. They note that they started from the quadrophonic… but the isolation must have been so hard!
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Anyway, I highly encourage visiting Envelop. A really unique and fascinating institution!
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Also, they've developed some really fascinating software for creating immersive audio. Just look at these control surfaces! "Delay boids"!! Also: there are lights in the space with sychronized performacne. Software for that too. envelop.us/software
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CCRMA at Stanford goes deep into spatial sound. They've traditionally had a fall concert called Transitions where they set up a 24-channel system in their courtyard and play experimental music on it. Intense but lovely! (And they have a spherical "listening room"...)
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