Acoustics

The VR Queen’s Theatre has been enhanced with acoustic modelling to accurately reproduce the sounds of the theatre from both the stage and auditorium. A similar development of the Komediehuset model is currently in production.

Acoustic Modelling

Although it is impossible to see real time living actors inside VR Queen’s it is not impossible for them to be heard.

To add accurate sound environments into the VR theatres, all the factors that impact on the acoustics of the theatre, including the building materials and stage machinery need to be considered. 

With the Queen’s theatre the acoustic factors included:

• the locally made Adelaide bricks;

• shingle roof;

• unseasoned timbers: sugar gum, red gum, blue gum, and stringybark;

• canvas and wood facades and pelmet;

• wrought iron candle holders and chandeliers and metal lighting towers and reflectors;

• ropes, pulleys, canvas flats and drop cloths, etc.,

• and a thousand spectators who were dressed in their summer clothing.

Four listening points are placed throughout the theatre: one on the stage, and one in each of the auditorium areas. While the complexity of the sounding sounds can be heard from the listening position on the stage and the ground floor of the auditorium, additional listening positions have been added to the dress circle and gallery for researchers working on the projection techniques used by nineteenth century actors.

The VR Queen’s model has five sound sources, one from the stage and another four placed on the ground level of the theatre. This decision reflects the large number of spectators seated and standing in this area of the auditorium and the ambient sound leaking through the West wall of the theatre from the tavern. Additional sound sources in the balcony and gallery may be added in further iterations of the model.

Anechoic Recording

To accurately reproduce the sounds of the actors and spectators within the VR Queen’s model, all the sound source files were recorded in an anechoic chamber, an acoustic environment designed to deaden reverberation. When these files are played back in the VR theatre, the sound is mediated through the acoustic modelling of the Queen’s Theatre.

Paul Reichstein performing in the anechoic chamber at the Adelaide University facility during the initial experiments in the Queen’s project. Photograph Julie Holledge

Spectator Sounds

Booing, shrill and piercing whistling, hissing, and cries of order to quieten disruptive spectators were commonplace in the popular London theatres; these sounds of spectatorship travelled with the migrants to South Australia.

To accompany the prologue that opened the theatre, a sound library was created by a group of actors in the anechoic chamber consisting of whistles, laughter, muffled exchanges, different types of applause, and a variety of sounds external to theatre, in particular noises from the next-door tavern. Out of these recordings, a separate soundscape was created for each of the four source points in the auditorium that reflected the class, gender, and behavioral differences of the spectators.

Sound Sources Auditorium Locations

A1 Stage

A2   Spectators seated mostly female.

A3   Spectators seated female and scattering of seated male.

A4    Spectators male both seated and standing.

A5     Spectators male standing.

Completed soundscape of all the auditorium source files with the performance as heard from middle of the ground floor auditorium.

Download the acoustic model of the Queen’s Theatre.