Andrew Knight-Hill on loudspeaker orchestras & immersive artistry

Professor of Music and Sound Arts at the University of Greenwich, Andrew Knight-Hill leads the Sound/Image Research Centre, a hub exploring immersive audio through creative practice. He recently caught up with Headliner to talk loudspeaker orchestras, spatial storytelling, and why respecting the artist’s intent matters more than ever in today’s tech-led world.

Where did your love for music and sound first begin?

I think I was really lucky growing up because different members of my family had different musical interests. My dad had lots of Beatles records and pop music from the '60s and '70s. 

My mum had this box set of classical records with Holst and Beethoven, and my uncle was really into jazz. So there was a real mix of different musical styles that I grew up listening to.

What are you into these days?

Gradually, I got more and more interested in the more experimental things, like the later '60s stuff the Beatles were doing with reversing guitars and doing strange things. Then I was really into Radiohead, Sonic Youth, and electronica.

I suppose I transitioned to thinking of the studio itself as an instrument. When I was about 10, I got this radio boombox thing with two tape decks. I used to record the weird static at the far end of the AM band and double it across tapes.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I guess that was a precursor to the sound design and composition work I do now.

What sparked your interest in studying music technology?

I was always interested in the creative aspects of music and recording. I always knew I wanted to make music, to write music. For me, it was the opportunity of experimentation and trying things out, being a mad scientist – but not with exploding chemicals, with exploding sound effects. I saw sound design as something I might like to explore. 

Through that, I became really interested in how it works: how do sounds link with images? How can we sit there and believe that a T-Rex is coming at us in Jurassic Park when it's pretty hard to record a T-Rex these days?

Was there ever a piece of music or a soundtrack moment that made you want to dig deeper?

2001: A Space Odyssey. If you think of the Ligeti music, those are striking visual sequences when they go through the Stargate. 

But also the music – clusters of close harmonic voices, creating textures and masses of sound that slowly evolve and develop. That blurring of whether it's a sound texture, or how the individual voices come together to create this wall of sound – that really interests me.

How does your research into audience perception inform your approach to immersive audio?

I'm not a scientist or a psychologist, but I guess I'm intuiting it through creative practice. I'm interested in how all creatives are secretly tuning into this psychology. You want a monster, so you choose an organic source as the basis so people understand it. 

I think it's about understanding what kind of sound textures will communicate to people. It has to play this game of being subliminal. I don't want people to hear the edits I've made. I just want them to hear the sound itself. We often talk a lot about the technology and the gadgets. For me, the tools are a means to an end, they're not the result.

That comes across clearly in your new book, The Art of Sound. Why was it important to make that distinction?

It's more to do with the dialogues and the narratives that we have, the way we talk to each other about what we do. People talk about their gadgets because it's easier. You can say, 'I used this plugin,' but it doesn't tell you why you chose to do it. I'm more interested in that creative decision process. 

We interviewed 17 amazing Hollywood sound designers, people from the UK, and electronic music composers. All of them started by talking about their gadgets, but as we dug into it, we got beyond that and into the creative choices. That's what we really want to know about.

Who were some of the people you spoke to for the book?

Paula Fairfield does all the creature sound design for Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. Nina Hartstone, the first European woman to win an Oscar for sound editing on Bohemian Rhapsody. Anne Kroeber, who worked with Alan Splet and David Lynch. 

Randy Thom from Skywalker Sound. George Vlad, who does a lot of field sound recording. Onnalee Blank, who mixes Game of Thrones and worked on Underground Railroad. Steve Fanagan, who worked on Normal People.

Did Paula Fairfield share anything about the sound of the dragons?

She always finds a backstory for all of her creatures. It's not just an angry monster. There's a reason why it's angry. She tries to create a sense of connection, that it's a real, living, breathing animal. She uses recordings of her dog cuddling up to her for some of those really close, breathy sounds.

Have any recent films stood out to you in terms of sound design?

I really enjoyed The Substance. All of those gloopy, squelchy sounds – you really feel it. I really enjoyed Dune. I saw it a few times in the cinema. They have beautiful, expansive scenery shots that allow for layering of music and sound design to create the textures of that environment.

How is immersive audio evolving in electronic music?

It’s really exciting that people have embraced spatial audio. There’s a long tradition in electroacoustic music of using multi-channel speaker arrays. People have been composing with space for a long time. I hope we can bring those traditions to people creating spatial music today.

Can you tell us about the Loudspeaker Orchestra project?

We’re agnostic in terms of spatial sound formats. We don’t use just one system. The project came from the question of how do you perform an electronic music piece made in the studio. People started by pairing up stereo speakers and fading between them live. 

Then gradually, more and more speakers were added. We like going to different spaces – Crystal Palace Park, St Alfege Church, the Rotherhithe Brunel Museum. We curate concerts for those spaces to make use of the building and the acoustics.

You've got Genelec monitors across your facility – what drew you to them?

Genelec provides a really clear monitoring solution. The 8000 series are robust, so I can hand them off to students and not worry. We've had great results. 

We load them into flight cases, take them to weird venues, and we know they’re going to work. I was blown away by the spatial clarity from the Ones series. For our new studio with a near-field spatial array, that was the only way to go.

How does Genelec support your work across different immersive formats?

We wanted to be able to deliver DTS:X, Atmos, as well as eight-channel and 16-channel formats. Genelec helped us create custom positioning in their GLM software, aligning our array with phase and EQ correction. It's also useful to compare aligned vs deliberately misaligned setups when we're out in the world, so we can make creative decisions.

How do the monitors perform in a live immersive setting?

We’re always really pleased. We're not trying to achieve super high sound pressure levels. It’s about spatial positioning and clarity. We started off 10 years ago with 8030s, now we’ve got 8050s, 1032s, and are about to get some 1038s. Even outdoors, like on the bandstand at Crystal Palace, they performed really well.

The university recently launched SHIFT, the new immersive hub – what do you hope to achieve with it?

We're really grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The goal is to open up this world and bring people in. We’re creating professional development training programmes, weekend short courses, and concerts with the loudspeaker orchestra. We want people to come and play with this stuff, too.

What’s coming up next?

In April, we're doing a performance in a bombed-out church in Woolwich using recorded acoustics from its sister church. In June, we're performing under the Cutty Sark. And in November, our Sound/Image Festival returns for four days of concerts, talks, screenings, and installations. It’s our 10th year, and we’re planning a big programme of concerts across southeast London.

Listen to the full interview below: