ArrayProcessing brings tailored coverage to Sydney Opera House
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: ArrayProcessing was used to power the d&b audio system in use for this year’s Vivid Live at Sydney Opera House (SOH). Now in its seventh year, Vivid Live prides itself on ‘pushing the boundaries’, both in musical style and the technical structure supporting it. The opera house’s head of sound and A/V therefore suggested to the festival curator that he wanted to implement the control software into the Concert Hall for this year’s programme.
‘It was good timing for us,’ said Jeremy Christian, head of sound and A/V at SOH. ‘Pushing the boundaries is about trying something new, and Vivid Live offers a really broad spectrum of contemporary musical content against which to make a judgement on effectiveness and utility. It’s easy to assess something as great, but how easy and useful it is to apply is what really matters. When we came to implement d&b’s ArrayProcessing we already knew of its potential from our experience at a d&b event in Germany. Downstream of the festival we have realised there are capabilities within ArrayProcessing way outside our original expectations, and that could have significant benefits for SOH and for our audiences in the future.’
The manufacturer’s sales service and application manager, Ralf Zuleeg, travelled to Sydney prior to the festival to assist with ArrayProcessing’s deployment. ‘I have a long association with SOH. They have been d&b users for many years now, so it was natural I should be there. But of course Jeremy’s team is more than proficient technically, as you would expect in such a prestigious venue. In fact when it came to it, as we started work in the Concert Hall, it was almost a competition between them and me to see what results we could achieve.
‘ArrayProcessing does not eliminate the need for a system to be correctly rigged in the first place. This is not beam steering,’ explains Mr Zuleeg. ‘You map your room in the ArrayCalc simulation software as normal, and as we all know, you cannot correct for the horizontal coverage of any line array beyond the physical aim of the loudspeaker system as rigged – that would defy physics. ArrayProcessing also allows for the reallocation of energy from any part of the listening area, to any other part, within the confines of mechanical pre-given vertical coverage.’
Having been installed, the Concert Hall audio team discovered that sound coverage to the rear of the hall was so good that the existing delay cabinets were no longer required. As a result of this, the project scope was expanded to include the use of ArrayProcessing in the theatre’s Joan Sutherland Theatre (JST).
‘We were originally just going to apply ArrayProcessing in the Concert Hall,’ continued Mr Christian, ‘but we were so impressed with the improvements we decided to do the same in the Joan Sutherland Theatre (JST) as well for the duration of the festival. The JST is home to our opera productions and doesn’t have a permanent large-scale sound reinforcement system like the Concert Hall, so we installed a temporary system of d&b V-Series, the smaller cousin to J-Series, which we rented in from Eighth Day Sound Australia.’
‘That said, implementing ArrayProcessing means using d&b’s new D80 amplifier to drive everything, and that’s predicated on one amplifier channel per cabinet,’ furthered Mr Christian. ‘So although many d&b products are passively crossed and only require one channel per box, the gains with which we are familiar in linking two V-Tops together on one channel are lost. The fact that ArrayProcessing means we no longer need to deploy delays in either of our main performance venues is highly significant, and the truth is we can easily see places where we can usefully redeploy our delay loudspeakers elsewhere in the building.
‘Although Vivid Live was a temporary installation, we already see some great opportunities ahead,’ further explained Mr Christian. ‘In the JST we have experimented for several years now with 3D sound. Based on what we know already it’s easy to see how the addition of ArrayProcessing could impact the listening experience. In the Concert Hall we are thinking about something equally radical.
‘It’s important to cater to the varying needs of our patrons; for example some choose seating positions based on sightlines, others on proximity to stage. The point is listeners by nature have differing sensitivity to sound levels. Don’t forget, it’s not just rock concerts where we use sound reinforcement, a jazz recital averaging 94dB could still be too loud for some,’ concluded the head of sound and A/V. ‘But with ArrayProcessing we have a very realistic prospect of sculpting out a quieter zone within the audience listening area, and patrons could preselect seats in that area. Now that really is listening à la carte.’