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The Les Paul Big Sound Experience

Education | Entertainment | Museum

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When the Les Paul Foundation set out to celebrate what would have been Les Paul's 100th birthday in a big way, Balance was happy to join the band. Partnering with MRA Mobile Experiential Tours, the team created a stunning mobile tour, the Les Paul Big Sound Experience, that resulted in a year-long birthday bash for the revolutionary inventor and musician.

Innovators themselves, the creative team created five interactive exhibits and two animated videos to tell the story of perhaps the most influential and important individuals in the music industry.

Project image — left
Project image — right

Immersive Technology Applications

Mixing It Up

Mixing It Up

Touch Screen Application

Being able to sit in the studio with Les Paul at the mixing board is a dream for many musicians. Balance crafted an interactive kiosk so guests can get a taste of just that. The dual-screen interactive features a digital mixing board that rivals an actual sound studio and invites visitors to create a custom multitrack mix of a never-before-heard raw recording of Les Paul's “Brazil.”

Visitors are guided through the experience by Liz, an on-screen engineer at Les Paul's famous studio in Mahwah, New Jersey. Liz guides users step by step as they create their own 4-channel recording. On the top screen, visitors take one of Les' original raw recordings off a disc from the Smithsonian to a multi-track recording, an essential part of modern music.

Below the instructional screen, visitors use a touchscreen as their digital mixing board and follow Liz's guidance on how to adjust the volume of each track, listening to it by itself or with the rest of the instruments. One by one, the Les Paul recording, bass, rhythm, and drum tracks are adjusted until each plays at the volume the user wants. Then, visitors add effects to each track as Liz guides them and explains more about the effects as they go.  

Finally, visitors master their track during the mastering process, the final step of audio post-production. All that's left to do then is enjoy the mixed masterpiece. Guests can enter their contact information to receive a link to a branded website with their downloadable master file and social share buttons.

Living Room Lab

Living Room Lab

Touch Screen Application

To get a sense of the man, it's fun to look back at the curious kid who started experimenting with sound at a very young age. Using items around the house to create new sounds with his guitar and voice, Les Paul's mother encouraged him to take apart normal household items to make his music. The Living Room Lab features a photo of a young Les Paul with his mom in their living room and showcases a few of the items he modified to discover new unique sounds.

In this fun interactive, visitors choose from five hot spots: a phone, phonograph, player piano, guitar, and radio. Users select the hot spots to access information and videos about how the items were used. The Balance animation team created 2D animated videos for three of the featured items, letting visitors interact with the on-screen phonograph, player piano, and phone to have their own fun modifying the sounds the various items can make.

Effects Videos

Effects Videos

Touch Screen Application

The musical effects that we know today weren't always so easily made and accessible. Today musicians use pedals and digital effects. Les Paul invented several recording effects using interesting inventions such as discs and tape recorders.

Balance created three videos: Delay, Phase Shifting, and Variable Speed Recording--each highlighting a different effect and shows how Les created it. The fascinating videos are fully animated in 2D with a professional voice-over and feature Les appearing as a 2D snippet, cut out.  

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Multitrack Videos

Multitrack Videos

Touch Screen Application

Balance created a 2D animated video attract to engage visitors with a corresponding video that highlights how Les Paul created multitrack recordings. Upon touching the button, a short video, fully animated in 2D, begins showcasing this special contribution the innovator made to music.

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What

What's Your New Sound Touchscreen

Touch Screen Application

Visitors step into the role of producer to create their own multitrack recording in this ultra-fun interactive experience. A custom attract screen prompts guests to engage with the touchscreen and then the fun begins. The phrase “Les Paul's Big Sound Experience” is repeated in a loop and visitors are guided to add an echo, chorus, or distortion voice effect. Once the desired effect is selected, users layer in instruments--choosing from multiple guitars, bass, keyboards, and drums. They then choose from three musical variations: smooth, rockin', or edgy. Guests can even throw in sound effects like a revving motorcycle or a screeching hawk to really customize their end product.

Then, the jam session can officially begin. Guests hear their original creation in the background and are able to add one more layer. This is where the jamming part comes in. They can add cowbells, a snare drum, a cymbal, or a voice saying “Les Paul” as often as they'd like in the 30 seconds that the music is playing.

But the fun doesn't have to end when the jam session is over. Guests can provide their email address to receive a link to a branded website where they can access their downloadable track and even share it with friends on Facebook or Twitter.

Guitar Revolution Touchscreen Applications

Guitar Revolution Touchscreen Applications

Touch Screen Application

A born inventor, Les Paul developed several new guitar body styles that would produce the sounds we are familiar with today. This touchscreen interactive experience displays four of his most famous guitars: the Rail, the Log, the Klunker, and the 1952 Gibson Gold Top. Using photos provided by MRA of actual guitars from museums all over the United States, Balance modeled and textured photo-real 3D models of each guitar.

As visitors approach the exhibit, large monitors mounted in portrait position give the illusion that the guitars are actually there and slowly rotating. Guests can swipe to rotate the guitars themselves, touch featured hot spots to learn more, and listen to audio clips of the guitars playing. Extended content even includes quotes from the legend himself, Les Paul.

Get In the Picture Touchscreen Application

Get In the Picture Touchscreen Application

Touch Screen Application

Pick a Les Paul and strike a pose. Even though fans can't get a photo with the real Les Paul, the creative team at Balance created the next best thing. Visitors choose from three photo options: young Les, when he was still known as Rhubarb Red, middle-aged Les, or an older version of the music icon. Once selected, the camera displays Les and the visitor on screen together. Guests can adjust their position and click the Take Photo button when they are ready. Color treatments are even applied to ensure that guests and their chosen Les Paul appear to be in the same era.

Once the photo is taken, visitors can send the photo to their email to receive a keepsake from their day spent learning about the inventor and musical legend.

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The Idea

Create engaging interactives and videos to celebrate and showcase the contributions of musical icon and inventor, Les Paul.

Services

Working in concert with creative partners always strikes a chord with us. From fine-tuning video content for the best in visual storytelling, to creating engaging interactive experiences that highlight the magic behind the music maker, creating compelling visitor experiences is creative fun that we take seriously. And utilizing our tools to showcase another Wisconsin-born innovator's creative concepts? That's just music to our ears. 

The Result

The experiences were so successful, that even after the year-long, traveling exhibit had completed its tour, the amazing interactives live on at Milwaukee's Discovery World Science and Technology Center.
“MRA mobile experiential has worked with the Balance Studios team to create multiple digital interactive experiences for national mobile tours, both in the US and Canada.

The Balance team worked closely with our team to develop a series of digital touch screen interactive programs and short animations for the Les Paul Foundation’s national tour called Les Paul’s Big Sound Experience. We found the Balance team to be an excellent collaborator, creating a series of fun and educational interactive experiences that brought Les Paul’s legacy to life. Balance offered our team outstanding support on the development and management of a series of complex external server systems that allowed visitors to quickly and easily download custom-created audio and photo content. Balance created easy-to-use content management systems (CMS) that helped our team to capture thousands of pieces of visitor contact information, which we provided to our client on a regular basis.

The Balance team was highly responsive to our needs, and worked with us and the client team to create meaningful and memorable visitor experiences that connected effectively with our target audiences. Their creative input and problem solving skills were notable. They are a valued partner to the MRA team.”

~ Jim Notarianni, Client Group Director, Educational Outreach

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