Bob Dylan Center - Immersive Audio Experience

What would the Bob Dylan Center be without sound? For the new museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, our team created an immersive audio experience that envelops visitors in the music and life of one of the most influential artists in American history.

The astounding longevity of Dylan’s career posed daunting challenges to our team. With 60 years of music and footage to showcase, we had to balance: Engaging the visitor without distracting or overwhelming them; Giving the visitor agency to define their journey; Avoiding sound bleed between media components

Our solution enables visitors to stay “eyes up” during their visit while they curate their experience across the Center. We enhanced our core Art Processors app—which provides audio playback, positioning, proximity detection, and an experience engine—to virtually eliminate the user’s need to do anything. They tap in-house devices across glowing symbols near key exhibits to access relevant audio through headphones. The effect is magical: artifacts tell their own stories, visitors peek into Dylan’s mind through his own words.

The system delivers sound to headphones with no more than 50 milliseconds of latency to ensure the audio never overlaps or falls out of sync. Visitors always hear the audio they want at exactly the right moment—critical for immersion. We also matched the in-house devices with other Bluetooth beacon touchpoints so that when people move between experiences or floors, the device fades out the audio and provides the right directions on what to do next. This ensures the experience is responsive; all visitors need to do is tap into what interests them. For visitors who like to get hands-on with the exhibits, we also created playful opportunities for enhanced interaction, from a digital jukebox to a sound-engineering experience in a mock recording studio.

Seamlessly integrated, thoughtfully designed, and flawlessly deployed, the immersive audio experience puts the visitor’s focus right where it belongs: on Dylan’s musical legacy. According to Steve Higgins, managing director of the American Song Archives, “We hear all the time from visitors how well the synchronization works and how much it enriches the overall experience.”