New East Kowloon Cultural Centre Features d&b Soundscape

	All four integrated d&b Soundscape systems are powered by amplifiers, including the high-density, install-specific 5D. A fifth, mobile Soundscape system ensures on-demand capability and flexibility.

Hong Kong's new East Kowloon Cultural Centre (EKCC) is a HK$4.1 billion arts complex focused on immersive and technology-driven performances, namely Arts-Tech. Intended as a "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, all-options-covered sound.

"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 it 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."

Mathew Smethurst-Evans, executive director of the consultancy Theatreplan, turned to d&b audiotechnik UK for an audio solution. "The EKCC, and the region's technicians care very much about the longevity of equipment: Will it stand up to daily use, will it just keep working? And d&b products do just that. Incoming engineers also know that someone at d&b will have been part of the component selection and system configuration. It's a real testament to d&b's outreach training and accessibility of information, and it's put this venue at a very particular quality level."

Four d&b Soundscape systems, designed and integrated by d&b audiotechnik Greater China, deliver 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-degree setups using E and V-Series loudspeakers, and the ultra-compact, flush-mountable 44S; The Theatre, with its 500 seats and 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. 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.

All four integrated d&b Soundscape systems are powered by amplifiers, including the high-density, install-specific 5D. A fifth, mobile Soundscape system ensures on-demand capability and flexibility.

"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 premiere, 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, the production's musical director. "The difference between immersive audio and stereo or surround sound is tremendous, especially in a large venue. With an immersive system, the sound is evenly distributed across the audience rather than relying on just two arrays. Regardless of where you sit, you hear a consistent, high-quality mix. Physically, more speakers should mean more interference, attenuation, and delay, but the Soundscape processor handles all of that intelligently."

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.

"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. But at EKCC, with such completely integrated technical facilities, the opportunity is there for the sound designer to join the table much sooner, and with the most cutting-edge technology available at every stage of the process, from rehearsals in the studio to the main auditorium. And when sound is fully integrated from the start, there's no telling what can be achieved technically and creatively, and ultimately for the audience what that experience might be."