7up | Music Lifts You Up

Fake Love

This was a project that Fake Love did for 7up in 2015. I lead the creative technology team for this unique concert experience.

The ask for the project was to create an amazing musical experience for an audience of hearing impaired individuals. We had to bring music to life through other senses like sight and physical sensations. The performer for the concert was the EDM DJ Martin Garrix, so the music itself had a lot of driving bass and drums to have some clear musical relationships to the things we installed in the space.

There will be a more detailed tech description below, but we used things like custom made live generative visuals all around the space; cymatics experiments that showed the soundwaves of the music through vibrations in water; heavy duty bass transducers that vibrated special platforms on the concert floor to provide additional physical sensation; vibrating backpacks that could be worn by a select group of attendees; and controllable high power fog machines and fans to provide extra sensations during big musical moments. The attendees loved the event.

The concert itself was a private event and was filmed for a commercial that was later cut down and used as a large campaign for the brand. The resulting video received over 5 million views on Youtube and the campaign and experience won a Gold Clio.

Technical Approach

We had about 4 weeks from concept to live date for this project, so we had to work quickly. A lot of time investment was done in designing the space itself, determining the types of music representations that could be done, and experimenting with the cymatics so that we could get good vibration visuals in water and other fluids.

Software:
- openFrameworks v0.84 for custom visuals driven by audio input and manual control
- VDMX for additional overlay effects and control - OF app passed to VDMX via Syphon
- Small openFrameworks applications for controlling the fog machines and fans
Hardware:
- Mac Mini and Mac Pro (trashcan)
- Various Midi Controllers for live visuals
- Arduino/Relays for controlling the powerful fans/wind machines
- Enttec DMX controllers for Fog Machine control
- Cameras for filming the cymatics of water vibration
- Tons of Speakers, amplifiers, audio distribution amplifiers
- Buttkicker Amps and Transducers for shaking platforms
- Tons of standard monitors and HDMI DA's for sending one signal to multiple monitors
- 20k lumen projector for visuals