d&b audiotechnik KSL directivity proves key for China’s TV hit ‘Our Folk Songs’.
The popular Chinese online video platform iQIYI stages the ‘Our Folk Songs’ variety show competition, which aims to reignite the country’s interest in traditional songs and bring generations and provinces together. The grand production sees performers from across China perform live to an in-house audience and viewers at home from two studios housing three stages, all of which use a d&b audiotechnik KSL system.
KSL directivity
To limit spill from the main loudspeaker setup to the microphones being used by performers on the stage during recording, the main system’s directivity control was fundamental to the success of the show. China’s ‘audio master’, Jin Shaogang, a famous musician and acoustician, served as an audio consultant on the show. He collaborated with well-known sound engineer and founder of Nanjing OST, Zhang Xiaonian, the production’s sound director. Zhang was responsible for the sound system’s design, employing the d&b ArrayCalc simulation software to tweak and adjust the loudspeakers to ensure that every musician and audience member heard the music as they should.
“The whole programme mainly revolved around the concept of folk songs, but the theme of each episode was different,” says Zhang. “With this in mind, we designed the sound system to be individually dedicated to that show’s theme and performance format. The flexibility of the d&b system and the use of ArrayCalc helped us to switch quickly to the different audio requirements as we changed the scenes for each programme recording.”
On the central ‘Welcome’ stage, the team specified a d&b KSL system comprising KSL8 loudspeakers rigged in a left-right formation with 12 cabinets on each side. The low end was augmented by six SL-SUB subwoofers, with front-fill taken care of by V10P point source loudspeakers from the d&b V-Series, renowned for their exceptional performance in the vocal range. For monitoring, six M4 2-way wedges were placed on the stage.
d&b ArrayCalc was used to simulate the sound coverage on all of the stages. Zhang and the sound design team were able to carefully consider loudspeaker placement for each stage and musician assembly area, taking into account load-bearing issues and the hardware’s impact on the aesthetic design of the scene.
In addition to the main Welcome stage, the ‘Power Sparrow’ stage also used a main KSL8 system with 12 cabinets per side, left-right, bolstered by five SL-SUB subwoofers and four M4 monitors for the performers. The smaller ‘Force Sparrow’ stage was rigged with d&b AL90 augmented array loudspeakers, formed with three per side using an AL Flyingframe, with bass coming from two SL-SUB subwoofers and monitor duties via two M4s on the stage.
A separate musician assembly area benefitted from a left-right formation of d&b V10P loudspeakers and a V-SUB subwoofer. All of the d&b equipment was sourced from rental partner, Nanjing OST.
The original content programming for ‘Our Folk Songs’ by iQIYI has reportedly attracted billions of online streams and reached viewers across China, resonating with various demographics.
