The d&b Soundscape Inspires Visitors at AES New York 2017

	Ralf Zuleeg presenting the d&b Soundscape technology at AES NYC.

The d&b audiotechnik demo room on the convention floor of the Javits Center was busy this past week with visitors eager to participate in the first ever d&b audiotechnik demonstration program at AES New York. Those sessions, presented several times daily, offered comprehensive insight into the d&b Soundscape, which is set to bridge the gap between the physics of loudspeaker system design and the creation of artistic material. Soundscape will operate on the user-friendly DS100 platform, empowering sound designers and engineers with multidimensional source placement, acoustic room simulation, and signal matrix processor capability. AES attendees had a chance to experience the d&b Soundscape first hand before its official release in early 2018.

With this technology, the possibilities for source localization and acoustic emulation give sound engineers and artists the ability to build sophisticated, dynamic audio experiences. "Soundscape allows us to rethink the role sound plays both in terms of its social and cultural context, and the relationship between the listener and their environment," d&b product manager and co-presenter at AES, Marcus Bäumler explains. "By making Soundscape part of an everyday toolkit, we like to think we've made the familiar extraordinary and the extraordinary familiar. The point is the path to realizing creative ambitions is not that difficult."

Co-presenter at AES Ralf Zuleeg, head of sales services and application engineering at d&b, added "Soundscape doesn't just represent the crossover between art and science, but an interrogation of our relationship to sound, space, and time. In many ways, this is unchartered territory for d&b, and society in general. Sound reinforcement -- and our listening experience -- is no longer defined by physics alone, but the unlimited power of the imagination."

Soundscape was not the only d&b technology highlighted at AES. Visitors also had the opportunity to learn about noise prediction modelling in the "Immission Mission" presentation, given by Daniel Belcher of d&b research and development and Nick Malgieri of the d&b US support team. "Immission Mission" walked participants through the workflow of NoizCalc, a software tool for accurately predicting noise immissions from sound reinforcement systems and their potential effect on surrounding communities.