In 1998 John Cavalla with Archey & Cavalla was faced with creating sound for the Life Underground Exhibit at the Field Museum in Chicago. A new exhibit was being installed that recreated the experience of being shrunken down to insect size and traveling through an underground cavern. Jex Fx provided large animatronics insects that would come to life as patrons toured through the exhibit. It was the responsibility of Riverview and Archey & Cavala to provide audio for each portion of the exhibit for the complete underground experience.

John Cavala quickly went to work on creating digital files to load into a sampler that would run repeatedly. Thus giving the attendants the impression they were being reduced down to miniature size and hearing all the animals they encountered along the way. Riverview created the zoning audio system that provided the flexibility to, not only hear back round noises throughout the exhibit, but also draw attention to each animal as they came to life. Each zone was equipped with Jbl Control 25 loudspeakers, with an additional Control 18s Subwoofer to give that extra punch were needed. The speakers were strategically positioned to give localization to each aspect. At any moment you could walk into a centipede, fire ant, cricket, wolf spider or giant crawfish and feel like the sound you were hearing was coming from the creature.

Each specific zone in the exhibit was routed through a Dbx 2231 stereo 1/3 octave equalizer to create custom equalization were needed. Power for the loudspeakers was driven by a series of Crown Mt-600 power amplifiers. Each channel of the stereo amplifiers was assigned a specific task for recreating audio, providing an adaptable gain structure for any application.

All of the system equipment was housed in Middle Atlantic Work series equipment racks, located in the satellite control room behind the exhibit. The controller was then provided single switch operation with a Furman Ps-8r remote able power sequencer.

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