NBC News Explores the Hollywood Bowl’s L-Acoustics Machine-Learning Upgrade NBC News Explores the Hollywood Bowl’s L-Acoustics Machine-Learning Upgrade...

Outdoor amphitheaters are notoriously unforgiving acoustic environments. The Hollywood Bowl, carved into the Bolton Canyon hillsides with over 17,500 seats, amplifies every atmospheric challenge: thermal shifts, canyon breezes, ambient metropolitan noise, and punishing throw distances.

NBC News recently went behind the scenes to explore the venue’s most comprehensive sound upgrade in decades. NBC News’ Steve Patterson sat down with L-Acoustics Co-CEO Laurent Vaissié to discuss deploying our new L1, the 26 points of surround, and the software that makes it all possible.

The broadcast perfectly illustrates the stubborn physical compromise audio engineers have faced for decades: stage bleed. Walking across the stage, NBC host Steve Patterson notes, “The age-old problem with live performance is how to keep the artist’s microphone from picking up all that excess stage noise.”

Mid-sentence, the heavy background music bleeding into his microphone suddenly vanishes. He continues in complete clarity, noting that with the new technology engaged, “sound engineers can cut through the noise for a more pure experience that the audience can really feel.”

That capability, which NBC dubs the “real secret sauce” of the Bowl’s new system, is Source Intelligence.

“It can be the drum set, the guitar, or the echo of the venue itself that feeds back into the vocalist or the singer’s microphone,” Laurent Vaissié explains in the segment. “We’ve developed a technology through machine learning that recognizes the pattern of the voice and is able to eliminate the noise from the signal and give the engineer the purest form of the vocal signal as possible.”

Crucially, this is not generative AI, and it is certainly “not auto-tune,” Laurent confirms to the NBC host with a laugh. The software makes no synthetic alterations to the performance. As the segment makes clear, if a singer is off-key, they will stay off-key. The software removes stage crosstalk before the signal hits the console, leaving front-of-house engineers with an uncontaminated source.

Suspended beneath the Bowl’s concentric arches, our L Series enclosures deliver that pristine audio to 17,500 seats. Audiences head to the Bowl for the music, the setting, and the picnic baskets. When the hardware and Source Intelligence work seamlessly, the engineering disappears. You can simply listen to the music and enjoy the experience.

Watch the segment to hear Source Intelligence in action.