Commissioned by Arjun Bahl of Most Technical India who co-ordinated production for the event, sound design was by Out Board's Dave Haydon and involved multiple surround zones running parallel 3D surround and dynamic delay-panning effects simultaneously for the dance-floor, dining room and lounge areas plus, in a global first for the TiMax system, animated surround sound installed in the luxurious men's and women's washrooms.
A separate surround system ran a continuously looping atmospheric soundscape of heartbeats, industrial sound effects and rhythm beds in the venue's 20m long entrance tunnel, with additional hidden speakers along the 30m long outdoor pathway leading up to the venue. The soundscape gradually faded over to the DJ mix as the evening progressed, with all areas experiencing simultaneously the dynamic surround panning effects happening on the dancefloor.
In addition to sets by premier Indian Bollywood and techno DJ's, the night was headlined by multi-platinum Dutch DJ Sidney Samson flown in especially for the event. Multiple TiMax SoundHub Cues alternately focused the mix tight onto the DJ booth before swelling it into a wide stereo image, plus slow, medium and fast spin, chase and zig-zag pan effects, all triggered by Dave Haydon using soft keys on the Mac. He worked closely with Immersive's John Munro and Martin Harvey to synchronise specific audio pan moves with their live-mixed video content and effects being mapped onto the complex multi-element DJ booth structure.
As well as the surround panning and immersive soundscaping, TiMax also provided all system EQ and zone level control across 30 speakers comprising quad dancefloor, lounge and tunnel zones, stereo diners feed, entry path and quad surround for the washrooms. Dancefloor PA was flown d&b Q1's for main and surround, two stereo pairs of T10's built into the DJ booth, and six QSubs built into the stage with a B2Sub either side.
Lounge, bar and dining room were covered by multiple individual EAW JFL210's, eight VAL trapezoidal speakers and a pair of QSubs handled the tunnel soundscape, and eight compact EAW's hidden in the ceilings delivered the client-stipulated washroom surround reinforcement. System engineer Samir Kripliani from Room Tone collected DJ sources via a Yamaha M7CL console feeding a TiMax2 SoundHub S32, then to d&b D6/D12 amps and Lab Gruppens.
(Jim Evans)
