JoeCo BlackBox Player helped bring surround sound to the city of Melbourne, Australia for Christmas. Systems integrator Sound Environment replayed 24-channel surround sound landscapes synchronised to 7,500 channels of lighting as part of a Christmas tree sound and light show that formed a centrepiece of the city’s Christmas Festival.
The BlackBox Player is a software add-on for JoeCo’s BlackBox Recorder that has been specially developed for synchronous replay of backing tracks and surround stems for live shows and themed entertainment. Playlists can be stored on USB Flash drive and tracks cued up for instant replay. The Player can be triggered using timecode, GPI, QWERTY keyboard, MIDI commands and JoeCo Remote for iPad. Multiple playlists can be stored for quick changes or alternative show formats.
Bryce Grunden, director at Sound Environment, said: “I love the machine. We have one unit installed in the show that runs over Christmas, as well as a permanent installation in a viewing platform here in Melbourne. For the Christmas show, the unit runs as a Master with 7500 channels of synchronised lighting and also slaves to time code. The other unit is permanently looping material and also plays other tracks when instructed over RS232 from the AMX.â€