d&b Soundscape Sets a New Record with Silence Wang at Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium In August, Chinese singer Silence Wang's Age of Romance World Tour played ten consecutive shows at Beijing's iconic Bird's Nest stadium in what is believed to be the largest-ever d&b audiotechnik Soundscape deployment in a stadium environment to date. Supplied by OST Productions, the system brought immersive spatial audio to more than 60,000 audience members each night. Bringing this system to fruition required close collaboration and trust between the d&b Greater China office, d&b's local and global EAS teams, OST Productions, and Silence Wang's long-standing sound designer, Jin Shaogang. Shaogang has many major concert tours, broadcasts, and landmark national events (including chief sound design for the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony) to his credit. "The d&b SL-Series is exceptionally beneficial when used with Soundscape," he says. "With its full-range directivity, there is remarkably little energy emitted from the rear of the cabinets. When 360-degree arrays and delay speakers share the same trusses, this precise pattern control prevents low frequencies from spilling backward into the delay zones, audience seating, or backstage areas, preventing unwanted bass bleed across the entire stage." Shaogang adds, "Soundscape dramatically expands the stadium sweet spot, from around a third of the venue to an impressive 60-70% of the entire audience area. Its performance in spatial imaging, layering, and depth delivers an immersive experience that traditional stereo simply cannot match. The moment the lights come up, and the music kicks in for the very first song, you instantly feel an overwhelming sense of grand impact and vast spatial openness. I believe artists will use Soundscape wherever venue conditions allow." Driving the system was d&b Soundscape's central processing engine, the DS100. Sam Wang, head of mobile sales and senior system engineer at d&b audiotechnik Greater China, explains, "In a stadium-scale Soundscape 360 system, every listener should be able to follow sound in motion with precision. By optimizing loudspeaker layouts through Function Groups and managing object latency with the DS100's delay mode, we minimize phase interference across the system. This preserves accurate spatial positioning, smooth panning and consistent localization throughout the venue. Audiences experience coherent dynamic movement and rotational audio effects that remain stable, clear, and engaging across the entire listening area." Delivering this experience in such an environment took a record-breaking SL-Series system design, beginning with a main frontal system of seven hangs of KSL8/12, with two hangs of SL-SUB flown behind. Providing the 360 Soundscape were 22 hangs of GSL8s strung along the ceiling bowl. Then came 22 groups of V10P providing two rings of fills, and an additional SL-SUB array, while the system was completed by more than 150 KSL8 cabinets as outer fills, side fills, rear delays and side delays. All loudspeakers use ArrayProcessing to optimise performance. Key to this implementation of Soundscape was d&b's Create.Control software, which is designed to simplify and expand the creative use of the d&b Soundscape. "Create.Control lets us move fast," explains Lucchi Federico Tobia, responsible for Soundscape Enablement at d&b audiotechnik Greater China. "With more than 400 snapshots and 300 animations programmed in just one month, speed and simplicity were essential. Songs can be built quickly, automation keeps the show running smoothly, and offline programming means projects can be prepared in advance, then scaled to any venue. For touring productions, it makes complex Soundscape workflows efficient, flexible, and easy to adapt." 
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