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D&B AUDIOTECHNIK: SOUNDSCAPE CREATES SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE David Sheppard of Sound Intermedia and d&b audiotechnik’s Adam Hockley discuss how Soundscape can maintain audio impact with fewer on-stage performers.
Since March 2020, technology has been harnessed in many ways to create entertainment spaces that maintain the feel of a traditional live event, while following COVID-19 guidelines. Take Least Like the Other, Searching for Rosemary Kennedy, for example – a theatrical performance backed by the Irish National Opera. With the rising tide of COVID-19, the logistics of this touring performance, which features an entire ensemble cast and live orchestra, seemed suddenly unfeasible. So, if the show was to go ahead, the production would need to find an innovative way to recreate an orchestra that was no longer in the room… Enter, David Sheppard of Sound Intermedia. “As a touring artist working around the world, I reached a point where I struggled to justify touring with the ongoing climate crisis,” commented Sheppard. “I began looking at new ways of how we can bring the experience
of a performance to an audience without having to tour the ensemble with us.” This mindset meant Sheppard was the right person to find a COVID-19 compliant solution to this particular theatre project. Understanding that simply streaming playback of an orchestra using either an in-house PA or regular line array would not cut it, he explored the possibility of using a Soundscape solution to create a more immersive audience experience. Using d&b audiotechnik Soundscape, the sounds from the orchestra could be placed into different areas of theatre, powered by a DS100 Signal Engine. “We were lucky with this project in that the composer [Brian Irvine] is very forward thinking and was very excited about the level of control Soundscape could give the production.” The reinvented show went into rehearsals in a warehouse in Belfast that in a previous life had been used to host raves. The space was transformed 14
