Panorama – LDS Conference Center

Earlier this week, I needed to go up to Salt Lake City to pick my younger sister up from the airport. My friend Jason Graham is an audio engineer for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the “Mormons”) If you’ve watched “Music and the Spoken Word” in the past few years, you’ve heard the results of some of his work.

I visited Jason after he was done for the day and he stuck around for a while so I could shoot this set of images. All of the lighting people have left for the day, so the lights you see here are just the default work lights. Although I think these lights look just fine, as you pan around you can see how many lights they have that they can work with and it’s easy to imagine what someone with talent could do to make this place look even more amazing.

About the panorama

While you view the panorama of the LDS Conference Center you can click on the amazon MP3 link at the bottom to hear some songs of the Tabernacle Choir singing – I’m not a huge fan of music on web pages, but this is one place I will make an exception since it fits the mood of the building.

About some of the sound equipment

Some of the microphones that are hanging down are used only to generate sound for use in-house. There are a number of thin microphones hanging down that are used to create reverb and make the sound feel more natural to people sitting in different sections of the Conference Center. Though other groups sing on this stage, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is by far the most frequent group performing here. One feature of the stage you will notice is that on the walls there are several large white speakers. These speakers are set up to help the choir hear each other – on the women’s side of the stage, the speakers play a mix of the men’s side and vice versa. By pumping sound out to the choir like this, it replicates the same experience that the choir has naturally signing under the parabolic dome in the nearby Tabernacle.

Some other things to look for

If you are familiar with lighting equipment, you will notice a couple of softboxes in the seating section set up around a chair. If you aren’t familiar with lighting, you will notice a couple of big trapezoid (which are the softboxes). This is where Lloyd Newell recites the Spoken Word portion of Music and the Spoken Word. I’m not sure why the scaffolding is set up there, and there is a cherry-picker out in the back too that is used for cleaning.

Touring the building

The several small groups of people you see in the background are part of guided tours that the church provides for free. If you are ever in Salt Lake City, it would be worth your while to take the tour of this building and several of the nearby buildings. In fact, if you just have a hour-or-two layover at the Salt Lake City Airport – you can even get picked up and taken on some tours and then brought back in time for your flight. (And yes, it is truly free – it’s sponsored by the Church and the Chamber of Commerce, the airlines, and a few other groups)

Count the microphones – win a prize!

It’s also impressive how many microphones there are. If you count them all up and post a guess for how many microphones you think there are on the stage (and hanging over the stage) of the Conference Center, I’ll get Jason to judge and in a week or two the person who is closest will get a personal comment posted from me congratulating them. You can also try to guess how many microphones are in use when they record an episode of Music and the Spoken Word here (which would include any mics on instruments, etc). The person closest with that guess will also win a virtual high-five.

Added bonus: See what Amazon thinks you need to buy today

I don’t want to brag about my wealth, but I’ve made $3 this year from people buying stuff from Amazon. It’s quite exciting. The recommendations in the box below are NOT something that I picked out – but something Amazon picks based on what they think you should buy (or rather, what they think you might be likely to buy). So don’t complain to me if you see something funny going on down there…

Tags: architecture, conference center, lds, mormon, organ, panorama, Photography, salt lake city