“Ace sound design.”
- Alexis Soloski, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Excellent sound design.”
- Ben Brantley, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A haunting score.”
- LOS ANGELES TIMES
“Ominous...”
- LOS ANGELES TIMES
“A clever, pop-inflected score.”
- GOTHAMIST
"McElver best exemplifies the weird rightness of [Richard] Maxwell's aesthetic experiment."
- Charles McNulty, LOS ANGELES TIMES
Nominated for a 2015 Bessie for Outstanding Sound Design/Original Music for The Wooster Group's EARLY SHAKER SPIRITUALS
Sound Designer BOBBY McELVER works with spatial audio technology, original sound design, and music in the performing arts. Company member of The Wooster Group 2011-2016. Current associate with Andrew Schneider. As an expert Ableton Live user and Max programmer, he builds new tools for sound design and audio-reactive visuals for live performance. He specializes in the intersection of performers and technology, designing interfaces and flexible systems for experimental theater, dance, and live music. He is also a musician and often performs his scores live with his custom setups.
In 2018, he fabricated a Wave Field Synthesis array with 372 loudspeakers (discrete channels!), based on research at EMPAC. This is one of the most extensive WFS arrays in the world, allowing him to place sound accurately in 3D space — making sound holograms, or “holophones.”
In 2020 he became Associate Professor of Sound Design at University of California, San Diego, where he heads the MFA in Sound Design. His research focuses on Wave Field Synthesis and Spatial Audio for the performing arts. He has since built an additional 256-ch WFS array for research and development.
Read more about Wave Field Synthesis.
EVENT & CONCERT DESIGN
Audio reactivity for video and lights. Interactive tools for artists. Playback engineering.
