East Kowloon Cultural Centre officially opens with d&b Soundscape x 5 for tech-driven art.
Hong Kong’s brand-new East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC) is a HK$4.1 billion pioneering arts complex focused on immersive and technology-driven performances, namely Arts-Tech. Its intent is to serve as a specialised ‘living laboratory’ that nurtures and supports creative productions through digital innovation, AI, and integrated technologies - all the way through conceptualization, development and rehearsals to performing live. To that end, the EKCC has embraced the most advanced equipment, including d&b Soundscape, installed throughout the venue for immersive, and all-options-covered sound.
A Swiss-army knife solution
“Soundscape just plays nice with whatever you’re trying to achieve,” explains Kelvin Yuen, Education and Application Support Service Manager at d&b. “But without good guidance, a venue like EKCC might think is needs a sound system for live concerts, a separate system for cinema content, and a third system for variable acoustics. This can quickly get out of control cost-wise, installation-wise, and operator overhead, when in fact you can do it all with Soundscape.”
Theatreplan’s Executive Director Mathew Smethurst-Evans turned to d&b audiotechnik UK for an audio solution that could take the EKCC into the future, both in terms of emerging technology and product lifespan.
Four d&b Soundscape systems, designed and integrated by d&b audiotechnik Greater China, deliver uncompromising sound across the EKCC’s pre-production and live performance venues. Studio spaces, known as ‘Incubators’, and a work-in-progress venue called ‘The Lab’ both offer 360° setups using E and V-Series loudspeakers, and the ultra-compact, flush-mountable 44S; The Theatre, with its 500 seats, thrust stage format is similarly equipped for fill and surrounds, with V-Series arrays for mains.
The largest venue, The Hall, is a multipurpose 1200 capacity space with a proscenium arch. More than 100 loudspeakers strategically encircle the room, with five full-range Y-Series arrays installed above the stage. Meanwhile, in collaboration with Dolby Atmos, a d&b Custom Solutions engineered pre-rigged dolly, comprising five ViP and Bi-SUB ‘sets’ provides the venue’s cinematic sound, with B22-SUBs for Dolby’s signature low frequency effects. The whole rig can be wheeled into place ready for Dolby’s acoustically transparent screen to drop in front of the loudspeakers. It all happens at the speed of business, so that film and live events can run in tandem.
All four integrated d&b Soundscape systems are powered by efficient, next-generation amplifiers, including the high-density, install-specific 5D. A fifth, mobile Soundscape system ensures on-demand capability and flexibility.
Connecting space and story
“An immersive system like Soundscape can create effects far richer than before,” says multi-award-winning Sound Designer, Ha Yan-pui, reflecting on the EKCC’s opening premier, Highlights – The Memories of Charles Kao, a musical inspired by the life of Nobel Physics Laureate and ‘Father of Fiber Optics’ Charles Kao.
“We used En-Scene for many moving sound elements, and I particularly love En-Space for its ability to simulate different rooms and produce powerful envelopment.” When Kao receives his Nobel Prize, Ha uses En-Space’s emulation of the Stockholm Concert Hall to sonically envelop the audience in the ceremonial dignity and grandeur of the moment with profound authenticity.
“I could never go back to stereo,” adds Johnny Yim, acclaimed musician and the production’s musical director.
d&b En-Scene is Soundscape’s object-based positioning and signal management tool that enables engineers to independently position and move up to sixty-four sound objects such as an instrument or actor onstage. En-Space is Soundscape’s in-line acoustic room emulation software for building or enhancing an acoustic environment or changing the ‘signature’ of a space completely using one of d&b’s pre-captured rooms, as Ha did with the Stockholm Concert Hall inside the EKCC’s main hall.
Transforming artistic creation and collaboration
At just a few months old, the full value of Soundscape at the EKCC, for designers, engineers, artists, and the venue itself is yet to be harnessed, but its capability is undoubtedly game changing. Knowing The Hall’s acoustic signature can be emulated within Incubators is an empowering prospect for incoming shows eager to pre-produce, pre-mix, and rehearse in the most realistic acoustic environment. It’s an in-venue journey that frees The Hall from rehearsal time and offers incoming productions – creatives and technicians - a rare and exciting Arts-Tech experience few others can provide.
“Sound is a creative discipline,” says Adam Hockley, Global Performing Arts Manager at d&b. “But depending on a director’s priorities, and sometimes because the role isn’t always fully understood, the sound designer often isn’t brought into the creative team until much later in a show’s developmental journey.
