Staged at the Singapore Indoor Stadium and considered one of eSports largest events, the recent Defense of the Ancients 2 live world championship was hosted by the game’s developer. Calling on d&b Soundscape for an immersive audience experience, Aural Fixation owner Jason Waggoner served as live sound designer and department lead.

The sound system primarily handles game sound, announcer commentary and video playback in the arena, as well as supporting live entertainment elements. While d&b has been part of the event for several years, Soundscape was used due to be used in 2021 but Covid-19 saw the event cancelled at the last minute – making 2022 was the first time the audience was able to experience its capabilities.

For Valve, the game audio in the arena needed to sound as close as possible to what it would be like if the audience were wearing headphones or watching at home.

‘This audience is used to watching at home on Twitch and YouTube, probably on headphones, and so we needed to deliver something more akin to that experience but at the same time had all the excitement of a live show,’ Waggoner says.

As part of d&b’s ArrayCalc, Waggoner used d&b’s Soundscape Simulation software. The visualisation tool is designed to accurately model a Soundscape system’s real and perceived acoustical performance within a space. The En-Scene simulation tool allows d&b users to evaluate how the spatialisation created with a Soundscape system will be experienced, which helps in optimising system design early in production planning.

‘This feature allowed me to deploy the system in a non-traditional way, and have a lot of flexibility in how the content was delivered to the audience,’ Waggoner says.

‘The way Waggoner distributed the game sounds in Soundscape gave a deeper and wider image than a traditional distribution, especially juxtaposed against our very forward “mono” vocal channel which was evenly distributed – also thanks to Soundscape – across all sources,’ adds FOH engineer, Ian Davidson. ‘The result was a subtle, but very effective immersive experience.’

Waggoner’s audio team paired Soundscape processing with a d&b V Series loudspeaker systems and ArrayProcessing. One of the major challenges of the audio production of this competition is working to keep as much audio as possible off the stage itself. The show that happens on Twitch is the same show that happens in the arena, so if that sound is getting onto the stage and players can hear it, they may pick up something going on in a different part of the game that would potentially give them an unfair advantage.

To help prevent this from happening, Waggoner says the pattern control and cardioid nature of the V series was critical to the system’s success in the arena. Additionally, the team used ArrayProcessing, an optional software function within tArrayCalc software. ArrayProcessing uses an optimisation algorithm to determine tailored filters helping control the behaviour of a d&b line array system arranged in a LRC configuration across the entire listening area f the 12,000-seat stadium.

‘Being able to use ArrayProcessing is pretty crucial because of the even coverage that you get and the more consistent frequency response across the audience area. But it’s also very effective for something else unique to eSports: the play-by-play commentary is in the arena, not in a booth like they would be for a traditional sports broadcast ,’ Waggoner says. ‘Using the cancellation functions within ArrayProcessing helps prevent as much extraneous audio as possible from echoing into the commentators’ headsets. That’s critical for broadcast.’

Waggoner says that the audience, many of whom travelled from far and wide for the tournament, got to experience a show of epic proportions and audio quality.

‘This production is really about rewarding fans for their loyalty with this unique immersive sound experience. Every year there’s a lot of focus and a lot of energy put into the live production and trying to find ways to create an arena setup that is maybe a little bit beyond just a normal sports event.’

More: www.dbaudio.com