Cover feature: Out of the woods

Located south of Shanghai, the Fengxian District is a beautiful natural environment incorporating Shanghai’s largest forest park and 31.6km of coastline. In recent years, the government has identified Fengxian as one of five new satellite cities for Shanghai. Accordingly, a number of landmark, international-standard projects, which take advantage of the local natural beauty, have been built.

One of these is the Nine Trees Shanghai Future Art Centre, located in the heart of Fengxian Central forest park and designed by French architectural company, Frederic Rolland International. This ‘theatre in the forest’ is surrounded by trees and water, and has a three-petal shape that resembles a sprouting seed from above. The centre includes a 1,200-seat main theatre, a 500-seat multi-functional theatre and a 300-seat small venue, as well as an art gallery, creative centre and two outdoor stages, the Forest Stage and the Waterfront Stage.

As an international performance venue for the future, the arts centre set four goals in relation to its architecture, theatre, sound system and content. ‘The positioning of the Nine Trees Shanghai Future Art Centre is different from the existing performance venues in Shanghai,’ says theatre consultant Le Shengli, who worked on the project. ‘In the past, a theatre of this size had to be equipped with dismantable acoustic reflection panels. We hope to break through the limitations of architectural acoustics here with electronic methods and give audiences and performers a better experience.’

After extensive research and listening trips to the US, the arts centre decided to use Meyer Sound’s Constellation acoustic system for the first time in China in the main theatre, which has two auditorium levels and a 30m-deep stage. The solution – a digital approach to controlling reverb time and early reflections to enhance the sonic clarity and resonance of a space, integrating loudspeakers, microphones, DSP, patented algorithms and proprietary certification techniques – was supplied by Meyer Sound’s Chinese distributor, Shanghai Broad Future Electro Technology (SBF). The system consists of 160 speakers, 16 subwoofers and 56 microphones, and has been divided into two areas, one for the stage and one for the audience. The stage system consists of 20 microphones, 24 UPJunior-XP and 25 UPM-1XP speakers, while the audience section includes 36 microphones, 34 Ashby-5C and 15 Ashby-8C ceiling speakers and 62 UPM-1XPs. Low frequencies are handled by four MM-10XP and 12 UMS-1XPSM subwoofers.

The project took almost two years from system design to construction, with SBF, Meyer Sound in the US and the venue owners working closely to complete a large and complex system. More than 20 engineers from SBF worked onsite, while Meyer Sound’s global brand strategist, Tim Boot, oversaw the project from concept to purchase, and senior vice president of marketing, John McMahon, led a team of four people to provide full support, including system alignment.

The Constellation system requires all speakers and microphones to be located very accurately. All speakers in the auditorium are mounted in cavities treated with sound absorption material to avoid a comb filter effect, and are concealed behind sound-transparent cloth that underwent extensive testing by Meyer Sound.

Processing for the Constellation system is run on Meyer Sound’s D-Mitri digital audio platform, whose nerve centre is located in the equipment room on the fourth floor next the stage. Ambient sound signals are collected by 56 microphones and input to three DAI-24 input modules, where they enter a processing system consisting of a DCP core processor, DVRAS processing module and DCM core matrix. After calculations made by the system’s algorithm, the result is output to all 176 speakers through eight DAO-24 output modules. All speakers are powered by 22 MPS-488HP 48V IntelligentDC power supplies.

D-Mitri’s parameters can be remotely monitored and controlled via CueStation software. The original physical reverberation time of the main theatre is 1.1s, which can be varied up to almost 7s when using the Constellation system. Parameters such as warmth, strength and brightness can also be adjusted to tailor to the theatre’s acoustics, depending on the type of performance. Meyer Sound has set up 11 user presets for the venue, which include opera, symphony, jazz and chamber music, with five presets reserved for future expansion.

In addition to Constellation, the main theatre is also equipped with a standard sound reinforcement system. Thirteen Leopard line array speakers per side are flown as the main L-R system. This can be derigged and used as a portable system for the outdoor stages. There is also an L-C-R system concealed in the sound bridge above the proscenium using a combination of JM-1P arrayable loudspeakers and UPQ-1P wide-coverage speakers with a constant-Q horn. The left and right channels include four JM-1Ps on top and one UPQ-1P underneath, while the centre channel includes four JM-1Ps on top and two UPQ-1Ps below. Two 1100-LFC subwoofers are concealed on each side of the stage with one UPQ-1P positioned above the subs to provide down-fill for the main system. Six MM-4XP miniature loudspeakers are installed on the stage lip for front-fill.

In front of the stage lip is a 108-seat orchestra pit that can be raised up and down. Eight MM-4XPs are installed along the handrail of the orchestra pit, providing front-fill to the front rows when the orchestra pit is raised up. In addition, one UPM-1P has been installed under each side of the balcony for rear in-fill. Two UPQ-1Ps and two UPQ-2Ps are used as stage monitors.

Various microphone brands including DPA, Neumann and Shure are in use at the theatre. The source signals enter a Yamaha Rivage PM7 console equipped with RPio622 and RPio222 I/O racks through a patch panel on the stage. A Yamaha CL5 console with two Rio3224-D I/O boxes is used as a backup or monitor console. Signals are transmitted between the PM7 and CL5 via Dante. The PM7 is also connected to an Avid Pro Tools workstation through Dante for recording or playback. After mixing, the signals are sent to the three Meyer Sound Galileo Galaxy 816s in the rack room.

In keeping with the natural environment, the multi-functional theatre’s brown interior represents the earth, while everything is flexible to fulfil its brief of versatility. The seats can be pushed in and pulled out, and there are multiple partitions to subdivide the area. The main PA system of 12 Meyer Sound LINA linear line arrays with 750-LFC subwoofers can be flown or stacked to meet the requirements of different events. An MJF-210 was chosen as a portable monitor system. All speakers are managed by a Galileo Galaxy 816 processor, and a Yamaha CL5 console is also provided here.

The small theatre has water as its theme, with dark grey aluminium tubes embedded in the wall to resemble raindrops. The equipment includes two Meyer Sound CAL 64 steerable column arrays, two UPJ-1Ps, two 750-LFC subwoofers and six MJF-208s as portable monitors, with a Galileo Galaxy 816 processor for speaker management. The FOH console is a Yamaha CL1. ‘The original intention of the small theatre design was to stage natural acoustic performances that don’t need to use reinforcement systems, such as string quartets,’ explains Qi Yumin, SBF’s technical engineer. ‘Therefore, only the back wall has been treated with sound absorption. Using the CAL steerable column speaker not only fits with the interior décor, it also provides high speech intelligibility in applications such as stage announcements.’

The first performance took place at the theatre in August 2019, when almost 1,000 spectators, including government officials, audio professionals and musicians, watched the Shanghai Opera House Symphony Orchestra conducted by Xu Zhong. After the performance, composer Jin Fuzai said: ‘The blending between the various instruments of the entire orchestra is extremely good, and the system reproduces the music very well. As the first Chinese theatre to feature the Constellation system, I would give it over 90%.’

The Nine Trees Shanghai Future Art Centre was officially opened in October 2019 when it co-hosted the China Shanghai International Arts Festival. The centre will be run by China Dream Live Entertainment, which plans to introduce a variety of performances taking advantage of the facility’s unique sonic environment.