Yamaha: Hairy Creature Speakers

A collaborative project with Yamaha and Tord Boontje, Manabu was responsible for creating a kinetic 12.2 channel soundscape for the launch event at Tracey Neels in Marylebone, London. Played back by a bespoke arrangement of 12 speakers, the composition consisted of two parts, a musique concrete soundscape using Yamaha field recordings, and a postmodern minimalist piece of music for piano and string quartet. 

The bespoke playback system was built from the ground up to take into account the size and shape of the venue and also the placement of the speakers. Through detailed coding, there was also the ability to pre-programme specific moves of sound around the room, which could then be triggered on the night to draw people’s attention to key areas of the installation.

[all photos courtesy of Yamaha Design]