Newly arrived in Gateshead’s Metrocentre shopping precinct – the fifth Treetop Golf venue in the UK, joining Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester and Caardiff – represents an acceleration in the theatrical ambition of the themed leisure brand. The installation was carried out by Full Production Ltd with audio by RavenAV.

The attraction’s two 18-hole family-focused golf courses – one a Tropical Trail and the other an Ancient Explorer Trail – both use high-resolution 3D, object-based immersive soundscape environments, as well as show-stopping automated moments, created by the show control capabilities of TiMax SoundHub.

One TiMax SoundHub-S32 with Dante networked I/O manages the three holes per course where the theme is brought to life with lighting and animated immersive audio. In the Tropical Trail area, the scene is set with localised audio objects such as birdsong that travels from shrubbery up to tree level and down to another area of low shrubbery and back again, as well as accurately placed insect and animal noises and actions that are enhanced with tree shakers.

EM Acoustics EMS-41 ultra-compact two-way passive loudspeakers, powered by the first UK appplication of Powersoft Unica amplifiers, provide the distributed reinforcement, hidden and disguised within scenic birdhouses.

‘We used TiMax just to make it special and believable,’ says Dan Roncoroni of RavenAV. ‘When you shut your eyes you are in the middle of a jungle, you can hear the content localised accurately anywhere you are in that space. TiMax does a really good job at handling audio objects; it’s more immersive, the loudspeakers disappear, and you just hear the content. You don’t hear where it’s coming from.’

To be expected on the ‘stand-out’ holes, the win-or-lose moments have a high degree of automation, both audio and visual. Themed characters, such as Baron Von Batwing (the vampire bat) in the Ancient Explorer area, have a wide selection of comments to make about golfing performances. The A/V content – 80 per cent of which is new for the Gateshead site, produced in 4K for spatial audio by sound designer, Dave Shepherd – is executed in randomised loops scripted in QLab rather than in TiMax, to help keep the content fresh for both customers and staff.

Audio consultant and TiMax specialist, Roncoroni’s involvement with Treetop Golf started when Full Production MD, Steve Richardson, approached him for assistance with audio improvements at an existing venue in Birmingham. Full Production had already taken the lighting and visual elements at the Midlands attraction to a whole other level in order to provide a standout experience for customers and pushed for audio quality to match.

With audio spill between holes cleared up and the themed characters’ speech made clear and intelligible, Roncoroni was brought in again almost immediately to up the game with spatial audio for the new Gateshead venue – before the venue’s design was actually finalised. He describes it as a ‘chicken-and-egg’ moment because, though the client wanted pricing, a design was needed to base it upon, with the flexibility of TiMax considered ideal for adapting to any inevitable variations.

With only rough architects’ course outlines to go on and no contractor drawings, Roncoroni planned out the first audio design using educated guesswork. ‘Thankfully it translated to an almost completely successful design,’ he confirms. ‘We had to move some elements of the equipment at the last minute, but it’s pretty much unchanged.’

‘Dan did a great job, as he always does for us,’ says Richardson. ‘We were keen to push the spatial audio elements on this project following our work together in St Michael’s Cave in Gibraltar (also with a TiMax system).

‘The installation on this site ran for around eight months and a lot came down to design and build after system designs and schematics were submitted. Having the flexibility of the TiMax system in our minds gave us a whole other level of confidence that last-minute changes could be dealt with efficiently. Ultimately, we are proud of the product we have delivered. it truly does sound breathtakingly good.’