The 2024 Roskilde Festival provided the stage for an extraordinary performance by the band Heilung, whose performance took on a new dimension thanks to their collaboration with Meyer Sound. Using the Spacemap Go spatial sound tool from Meyer Sound, the band created an immersive sound experience that transformed traditional music into a captivating spatial production.
Music, sound and technology in symbiosis
Heilung, known for its deep connection to prehistoric cultures and ritual sounds, worked with Meyer Sound engineers to create a performance that transported the audience not only aurally, but also visually and emotionally into another world.
The band, which consists of musicians from Denmark, Norway, and Germany, combines traditional instruments and rituals from the Iron Age with modern music techniques and is known for its unique live performances. They describe their musical concept as “amplified history,” a mixture of archaic sounds and modern technology to transport the audience to eras long past. Heilung combines nature sounds, such as drumming on animal skins and the ringing of stones, with singing techniques like throat singing to create an atmosphere that feels like a shamanistic ritual.
For their performance at Roskilde Festival 2024, they opted for an enhanced audiovisual experience. This is where Meyer Sound came in to take the immersive experience to a new level with state-of-the-art technology. The challenge was to maintain the authentic ritual atmosphere while exploring the possibilities of spatial sound.
Heilung at Rosklide Festival 2024
The technology: Meyer Sound and Spacemap Go
At the center of the powerful stage performance was the spatial sound tool Spacemap Go from Meyer Sound. This tool makes it possible to distribute sound in a space in such a way that the audience has the impression of being surrounded by sound from all sides. Heilung worked closely with Arve Gotfredsen, a technical support specialist at Meyer Sound, for two months to develop the soundscapes for their show. The challenge was to create the most immersive experience possible without losing focus on the music and ritual.
Spacemap Go enabled the band to translate their musical ideas into a spatial sound design. A smaller speaker system installed in a studio in Denmark served as an initial test environment to simulate the sound distribution. The ideas developed there were later transferred to the large Arena Stage with 17,000 spectators.
Spatial sound design with Spacemap Go
Meyer Sound’s Spacemap Go is a spatial sound design and audio mixing tool. It gives sound engineers, artists and designers the ability to control sound in space to create a fully immersive experience. Thanks to Meyer Sound’s powerful GALAXY processors and an intuitive iPad-based user interface, users can dynamically move sound through space to create captivating soundscapes.
Key features of Spacemap Go
- iPad-based control: Spacemap Go is operated via an iPad app that allows sound sources to be moved with a simple tap. The graphical interface displays speaker arrangements and sound paths, and these can be manipulated in real time using simple gestures. This makes the tool extremely user-friendly.
- Scalability: The system can be easily adapted to different requirements – from small rooms to huge arenas. It supports up to 32 input and 256 output channels, making it suitable for a wide range of applications, including concerts, theater performances and immersive installations.
- Real-time control of spatial sound: Spacemap Go can be used to create and play sound paths in real time. This means that sound sources can be moved dynamically through space, creating a deep immersion in the soundscape. This can be controlled manually or programmed in advance, depending on the requirements of the show or installation.
- Integration with popular software solutions: Spacemap Go integrates seamlessly with DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) such as Ableton Live, Pro Tools or Logic Pro. It can also be used with show control programs such as QLab, making it particularly versatile for live and studio environments.
- Creative freedom: Thanks to the user-friendly interface, even less experienced users can create complex spatial audio effects. This opens up a whole new range of creative possibilities, whether at concerts, in theaters or in art installations. Sound designers can move sounds freely through space, whether it’s a helicopter flying by or a windy atmosphere surrounding the audience.
Spacemap Go has already been successfully used in a variety of creative environments. For example, sound artist Bill Fontana used the tool for an installation at the Kunsthaus Graz, while award-winning sound designer Leon Rothenberg used it for an off-Broadway production.
Arena Stage: A technical masterpiece
Finn Jansen, FOH-Engineer at Roskilde
The Arena Stage at Roskilde Festival is an imposing venue, 70 meters wide by 50 meters deep, with room for thousands of spectators. To fill the entire space with the immersive sound of Heilung, Meyer Sound relied on a combination of 46 large-format PANTHER loudspeakers and twenty-four 2100-LFC subwoofers. These were supported by a further 36 LEOPARD loudspeakers and six 900-LFC units as delay systems. Additionally, ULTRA-X 40 point source loudspeakers were installed in various areas to provide even sound distribution.
All speakers were controlled by the Galileo GALAXY processor, which allowed the sound engineers to dynamically change the sound image during the show. The particular challenge was to synchronize the sound across the entire stage without causing latency issues.
“For example, we couldn’t have the drummer in one speaker and the singer in another. The solution we came up with was sounds that put you in specific places. These could be sounds of nature, or if it’s a futuristic passage, they could be sci-fi sounds or city sounds, whatever.”
Christopher Juul, bandleader Heilung
By cleverly placing the sounds, they could be placed in specific positions in the room. To do this, the X40s were ‘fed’ various reverbs and sound effects from the console using a matrix.
“Together with the acoustics of the tent, this creates the feeling of being in a cathedral or something similar, and not in a tent. I think the Galileo [GALAXY processor] is the centerpiece of everything we do here, because it’s possible to create this good matrix and we can still change it from time to time.”
Finn Jansen, FOH Engineer Healing
Immersive sound: more than just effects
A central aspect of the Heilung performance was the decision to focus the sound more on atmosphere than on special effects. The band did not want the immersive sound to degenerate into a mere technical gimmick. Rather, the sound environment was intended to underscore the spiritual and ritualistic nature of their music. Christopher Juul, the band’s leader, compared this approach to the introduction of 3D images to cinema: “It’s sometimes funny when something jumps out at us, but for a whole movie or show, it would be too much. We wanted to go deeper instead.”
This approach also helped to overcome technical challenges, such as synchronizing rhythmic sounds over long distances. Since the Arena Stage was so large, traditional stereo setups could have caused significant latency issues. Instead, Heilung used the technology to spatially distribute sounds and thus “transport” the audience to different places – be it in a natural environment or in futuristic soundscapes.
Meyer Sound and Roskilde: A Fruitful Experiment
Technik Rosklide Festival 2024
For Meyer Sound, the collaboration with Heilung was just one part of a larger project at Roskilde Festival. The company also used Spatial Sound to create immersive soundscapes on other stages, such as the Gloria Stage. In addition, a specially designed Spatial Tent in the artists’ village allowed visitors to experiment with the technology themselves. Here, engineers, artists and producers were able to develop new creative approaches to the use of spatial sound in live performances.
Meyer Sound sees these projects as a kind of test run for future festivals and performances.
“My hope would be to come back to Roskilde next year and see how the seeds we planted this year grow into new spatial experiences for the audience and new creative possibilities for the artists.”
Leonard Blanche, Technical Support Specialist at Meyer Sound
The future of immersive live performance
The collaboration between Meyer Sound and Heilung at Roskilde Festival 2024 marks a significant step in the development of immersive sound design for live events. The use of *Spacemap Go* and advanced loudspeaker technology succeeded in taking the performance of Heilung to a whole new dimension. The audience became not just spectators, but part of a ritual experience that merged sound, space and visual elements into a single immersive whole.
This performance shows that the future of live music lies not in mere sound reinforcement, but in the creative use of space and technology. Artists like Heilung and technology companies like Meyer Sound are leading the way towards a new kind of concert and festival experience that goes far beyond traditional performances. The coming years will show how this technology will continue to develop and revolutionize the live performance landscape.
Cover photo: Uncle Allan.
