The power of d&b Soundscape has helped to deliver an unforgettable live sound experience for Chinese music superstar Silence Wang. During August, the performer’s Age of Romance World Tour played a 10 shows consecutive shows at Beijing’s iconic Bird’s Nest stadium, in what is believed to be the largest ever d&b Soundscape deployment in a stadium environment to date. Supplied by OST Productions, one of China’s leading national specialists in sound solutions for large-scale concert touring, the system succeeded in bringing immersive spatial audio to more than 60,000 audience members on each night of the unprecedented run.
Silence Wang (‘Wang Sulong’) is one of China’s most successful contemporary singer-songwriters and music producers. With 12 studio albums since 2010, he has built a huge following across China and Chinese-speaking audiences internationally. He recently entertained his global fanbase with a series of major arena shows across Asia, North America and Oceania. However, with this most recent landmark run of performances, Wang has set a new benchmark, becoming the first original singer-songwriter to undertake a residency employing Soundscape at this scale at Beijing’s National Stadium. Bringing this impressive 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. As one of China’s most distinguished live sound designers and producers, 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. As Silence Wang’s chief sound director, he is known for his commitment to premier sound systems, delivering mixes of exceptional detail and balance, while preserving vocal clarity.
Commenting on this experience, Shaogang said: “The d&b SL-Series is exceptionally beneficial when used with Soundscape. 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 added: “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 is d&b Soundscape’s central processing engine, the DS100. Highlighting its vital role, Sam Wang, Head of mobile sales & 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 optimising loudspeaker layouts through Function Groups and managing object latency with the DS100’s delay mode, we minimise phase interference across the system. This preserves accurate spatial positioning, smooth panning and consistent localisation 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 takes 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 are 22 hangs of GSL8 strung along the ceiling bowl. Then come twenty-two groups of V10P providing two rings of fills, and an additional SL-SUB array, while the system is 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.” This was a milestone application for d&b Soundscape, demonstrating how immersive audio can scale from intimate performance spaces to the world’s largest concert productions in the most iconic stadiums.
