The d&b Soundscape. Setting the scene. Backnang, Germany 06.02.18. Imagine for a moment it’s a moonless night in late July. You’re out walking in the countryside, ahead of you your dog is lost in the darkness, but you can hear her body brush against the bracken that shoulders the rough path. The air is still, yet alive with the concert of insects that inhabit the night. A fat old wood pigeon, startled by your passing, clatters clumsily through the foliage of a nearby tree and flaps off towards the fading light in the West. Far behind you comes a rumble of thunder, close enough to be exciting, yet comfortingly distant; you will be safely home before the torrent begins to fall. We cannot always see, but we know what is around us. How is this possible? Science tells us hearing is easily the keenest sense we possess; thanks to a quirk of physics the data available to our ears is five thousand times richer and greater than that which reaches our eyes. The fact our brains can process this enormous amount of information quickly and easily is the legacy of earlier times when large predators roamed every corner of the inhabited world. Humans were on the menu and needed to know when danger approached, even when they couldn’t see it. Anyone who has ever walked home late in the night and heard the ominous sound of heavy footfall approaching behind will connect to this sense. Step into their shoes and you will notice immediately how the brain focusses in on the foot-steps, all other sounds, wind, traffic, whatever, suddenly shrink into the background. Listen longer and closer and you will identify if those footsteps are rhythmic and natural, or irregular and sinister; you will also discern their direction and distance to within a couple of metres. This primal sense is with us still and is one reason why the pleasure of music, drama and singing is common to almost every tribe, culture and civilisation. Whether you’re sitting in a grand salon the size of a tennis court listening to five men in frock coats and powdered wigs play unamplified violins, or camped beside a large bonfire on a hillside overlooking Barcelona surrounded by Gitanos playing guitars and clapping in complex rhythms, your pleasure in it will be profound. To be amongst musicians can be an ecstatic state. Curiously this doesn’t pertain to a pop concert in quite the same fashion, while amplified sound can raise huge excitement through its ability to be loud, it cannot recreate the acutely visceral sensation of being amongst the music we experience in the natural world of campfire or salon. In simple terms amplified sound masks the primal ability to detect direction, speed and texture. Until now … The background. Landscape: all the visible features of an area, often considered in terms of its aesthetic appeal. Soundscape: all the audible features of an environment; the sound of a place, an event, an experience, or life. The concept of soundscape and landscape share the same basis; perception of their physical occurrence by a person, one visual, the other aural. The terminology used to describe the d&b Soundscape, how it is created, presented and manipulated, draws from the International Standard ISO 12913-1:2014(E) Acoustics –Soundscape. This can be found online at https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:12913:-1:ed-1:v1:en The technology The d&b Soundscape has three component parts; a signal processing engine and two optional software modules. The processing engine hardware is a familiar format of signal processing and matrix, one that any sound designer knows and uses every day. The software components firstly provide the En-Scene object positioning tool, which allows individual placement and movement of up to sixty-four ‘sound objects’. Secondly, the room emulation software En-Space, gives a means to add room emulation of reverberation signatures to any given space. The d&b Soundscape is a two-layered technology. The basic layer is the configuration, the setup, done as usual in the d&b ArrayCalc software modeling tool. Then, there is the creative layer, were the sources, the sound objects - the performers and instruments - are placed, where pan and room acoustic are set... And as with any d&b solution, the R1 Remote control software gives you all the control and oversight you need. The d&b DS100 Signal Engine is a revolutionary audio system processor with Audinate Dante networking. A matrix to organize signal paths over large numbers of channels, incorporating extensive control in the 64 inputs and 64 outputs, with level and delay settings at all crosspoints. A matrix with many uses, including the beautiful yet true listening delivered by the d&b Soundscape with its two software modules d&b En-Scene and En-Space. A matrix that integrates into the d&b System reality, which in turn comprises loudspeakers, amplifiers, rigging, transport solutions and includes networking accessories, not least the DS10 Audio network bridge, an interface between Dante audio network and the AES3 inputs of the d&b amplifiers. The terminology. Sound source, or Sound object is where the sound originates, the physical position, a place in space and time. It is the source of the original sound; this is positioned or placed where it will be perceived to emanate from within the Soundscape. The term Sound object is defined in the ISO standard. Source orientation describes the perception of the aural effect coming only from the physical location of the Sound object, be this a person speaking or singing, or an instrument, or any other object creating the original sound. Acoustic environment is sound at the receiver from all sound sources as modified by the environment, actual or simulated, outdoor or indoor, as experienced, or in the memory. Object positioning defines the physical location of the Sound object; this is represented on the control surface of the d&b En-Scene software. It is important to understand that a stationary Sound object cannot be placed in the middle of the d&b En-Space system, for example in the middle of the audience. While it is possible to create the illusion a Sound object is moving through the audience, it is not possible to make this stationary. Positioning or Placement is where, within the physical environment, the sound object is located; this is visualized within the graphical interface of the d&b En-Scene software. Creating an acoustic environment that emulates a room in the open air, creates an ‘intimate’ experience. Properties of sound objects Localization describes the effect when a Sound object is defined, theoretically sound from the location of the object propagates spherically from the object’s position. Sharpness of localization is defined by the resolution of the loudspeaker system; the larger the number of loudspeakers each listener can hear, the sharper the localization will be. Reverberation signature within the room emulator describes the properties of a room measured, then converted to data which is convolved and added into the d&b Soundscape within the DS100 Signal engine. Time considerations Even though the source location can be perceived as the same aurally and visually, the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light through air always delivers timing differences, sound takes time. Diotic - pertaining to or affecting both ears, a useful word as a Soundscape only works if both ears hear it. +++ Press contact International: Sara Sowah, Phone: +44 1453 837084, E-mail: sara.sowah@dbaudio.com Headquarters: Uwe Horn, Phone: +49 7191 9669-433, E-mail: uwe.horn@dbaudio.com About d&b audiotechnik. d&b provides professional audio solutions to accurately transfer passions through high-end quality speech and music reproduction. d&b is internationally regarded as a leading company for sound reinforcement systems in installed and mobile applications, with a reputation for quality of construction, standard of service, system integration principles, and pioneering technological development. Founded in Germany in 1981, d&b headquarters is located in Backnang, near Stuttgart, where research, development and production take place. Together with branch offices worldwide, the d&b team numbers more than 450 co-workers. www.dbaudio.com Press information. d&b audiotechnik GmbH, Postfach 1440, 71504 Backnang, Germany Phone +49-7191-9669-0, Fax +49-7191-950000, press@dbaudio.com, www.dbaudio.com Managing directors: Amnon Harman (Chairman/CEO), Markus Strohmeier, Jens Nilsson Place of business: Backnang; registered at Amtsgericht Registergericht Stuttgart HRB 725789 VAT identification number DE 144 740 009