D&B AUDIOTECHNIK X BEARDYMAN AT ISE

For d&b audiotechnik's immersive sound demonstration at ISE 2024 in Barcelona, Defasten's Patrick Doan created a series of audiovisual sequences. Commissioned by Michaël Al-Far of Malfmedia, the sequences would complement the music of Darren Foreman, known as Beardyman.

Already familiar with the producer's beatboxing, live-looping, genre-defying style spanning drum and bass, trance, country, reggae, and techno, Doan thought it would be an excellent opportunity to use Notch to push the limits of audio-reactive visuals.

The visuals centred around an abstracted, 3D spherical mesh core designed to respond dynamically to low, mid, and high frequencies. Working with a super-wide panoramic seven-screen, 270-degree surface with an 11K horizontal resolution, the creative team could easily emulate an ideal late-night club environment.

Doan found the most significant challenge to be synchronising moving "sound objects" from d&b audiotechnik's Soundscape software with Notch. Without a direct way to interface between the two or time to travel between Berlin and the UK before the show dates in Barcelona, the team found their solution in using timecoded screen recordings of Beardyman's Soundscape sessions as a reference for translating spatial audio movements from sound to sight.

The show was warmly received by the ISE crowd, with one attendee describing the experience as "drug-like without drugs," perfectly illustrating the team's success in creating highly trippy yet organic immersivity at the world's largest AV systems integration show.