Sound Design

by Hal Chaffee
President
Technical Exhibits Corp.
Chicago, IL

Left, Sound projected for a Museum Exhibit Right, Sound Projected for a Trade Show Exhibit (Photos courtesy of Bob Todrank American Technology Corp, San Diego, CA)

Designing sound for an exhibit is a craft requiring the blend of science and art. For the world of museums and trade shows, an audio/visual designer with experience is often worth the expense if you want your exhibit to grab the viewer's attention and have a memorable message or story. With today's demands to increase booth attendance, you should be going all out to use the best communication tool available -- sound!

You can find designers of exhibit sound in a variety of places. You can also find independent audio/visual designers in resources such as EXHIBIT BUILDER's Source Book Directory under Audio/Visual Production. Some audio/visual equipment vendors also do sound design or can refer you to a sound designer. There is always the Yellow Pages or you can call the ICIA (International Communications Industry Association) for suggestions on design consultants and independent consultants.

To meet the multi-sensory requirements of today's exhibits, you should have an independent A/V design consultant on your design team -- ideally at the start of the project. The consultant will work with you to develop the technical solutions to realize your concepts. The designer should prepare the technical drawings and specifications for the bid package, help evaluate the bids and inspect the work by the A/V contractor.

The budget needs to be adequate for the exhibit. Sound can be a singular sensation that makes an exhibit a wild success. See the May/June 2000 issue of EXHIBIT BUILDER for one exhibit where sound provides impact -- Controlling A Tornado.

One of the principal audio design concerns is noise spill-over from one exhibit to another. Localizing the sound is critical to audio effectiveness.

The upper limits of audio levels are regulated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration which has established safe short term and long term sound and noise exposure for the work environment. These guidelines should also be applied to education and leisure environments to avoid levels potentially damaging to visitors.

Sound designers and architects can help you meet the requirements of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) that became law on July 26, 1990. Title III affects public facilities in twelve categories which include (#3) places of exhibition or entertainment (theaters and stadiums), (#4) places of public gathering (auditoria and convention centers), (#8) places of public display or collection (museums and libraries), (#9) places of recreation (amusement/theme parks and zoos), and (#10) places of education. One of the critical phrases affecting the A/V design is "full and equal enjoyment." Specifically, the need to provide services to the disabled in an integrated setting is required. The Act addresses auxiliary aids like hearing-assist systems.

Currently, the National Park Service is looking into providing the blind visitor with two audio tracks simultaneously ... one for normal sound such as voices, the other to describe the visual presentation.

There are three categories of sound content production: voice, music and sound effects:

1. Interactive exhibits. How do you want to interact with the visitor? (A) With voice recognition and voice text to speech systems now available the options have expanded for the user interface. (B) Information storage costs have dropped so much that it is now feasible to tailor an exhibit to the visitor. A child may get one presentation and an adult a different one -- both from the same spot in the exhibit. An interactive exhibit at McDonald's headquarters several years ago contained specific film clips with audio of Ray Kroc that were played in response to up to 400 questions the visitor could enter on a system.

Maybe you should be taking your sound to the visitor/customer over the Internet. I recently accessed about 40 different steam locomotive sounds on the www.phoenixsound.com Web site.

2. A music background is another type of environment you might need to set the mood and again a sound designer can make a big difference. Music is particularly effective in adding an emotional content to an exhibit.

3. In order to create a 24-hour sound environment like a forest or a swamp requires someone who can find the right sounds, sequence or randomize them, realistically reproduce the right sounds taking into account all the acoustic properties of that room or space and any ambient noise, have the sound come from the right spot, use low maintenance equipment and spend money on equipment wisely. You may want to go into a Rain Forest Cafe to get a few ideas.

Don't underestimate sound, a compelling sense. One vendor, Stop and Listen, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, once compared the eye to the ear. Articles on laboratory studies show that the ear is faster than the eye. The mind is able to understand the spoken word in 140-milliseconds. A printed word can be understood in 180-milliseconds. "Psychologists speculate that the brain translates visual information into aural sounds the mind can comprehend." Other laboratory studies show that people remember more words if they hear the words rather than if they see them.
In his 1986 book, Exhibit: Planning and Design, Larry Klein wrote that in the museum field, audio/visual technology should not be inappropriately obtrusive in the presentation of real objects such as art, specimens and artifacts. The A/V technology should not be developed as a related, but basically independent presentation where the physical space is designed and the hardware selected. Instead, the A/V should be dependent on the exhibit materials displayed and the story line.

Useful resources in planning sound design can be found on the Internet. Michael Stocker, Lagunitas, CA, has several interesting articles on his Web site (www.msa-design.com) and Garth Paine has one called Activated Space (www.activatedspace.com.au). For more audio advice, you can order User Friendly - Hands On Exhibits That Work, a book by Jeff Kennedy for the Association of Science Technology Centers, available through their publications department (202) 783-7200, ext. 140. eb