Wayne Powell is the Global Artist Relations Manager for d&b audiotechnik, and he’s been getting more and more interested in how independent artists and musicians are using spatial audio. He was in Austin, Texas with an array of 13 speakers enabling a spatial audio mix for Roman Rappak’s annual Ristband mixed reality live performance. I had a chance to catch up with Powell to learn more about his journey into the immersive audio realm, why spatial audio storytelling experiences are currently capturing his attention, and some of the other trends, exciting immersive artists, and immersive audio hotspots around the world.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.438] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR Podcast. It's a podcast that focuses on the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So I'm continuing on my coverage from South by Southwest, and I'm in the middle of talking about the ways that musicians are using VR. Thank you so much for having me. And so Wayne is talking around being in the music industry. So D&B Audio Technic does a lot of speakers for big audio like concerts and high end theater shows. And so they're starting to look at immersive audio as like a new frontier for collaborating with these different up and coming spatial audio artists who are doing interesting like storytelling and musical things. They have this proprietary format that does wave field synthesis where you can place audio objects with all the different speakers. So they basically have to measure where the speakers are at and they're able to create these audio objects on this 2D plane anywhere in the center of where those speakers are at. So it was really quite an amazing experience to be able to check out what Roman was doing, but also just to have a chance to talk to Wayne and also just to get a sense of like what's happening in the spatial audio scene from his perspective, what's getting him excited around space. different musicians and artists and storytellers and the ways that they're using the spatial audio technologies. So overcoming all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Wayne happened on Tuesday, March 11th, 2025 at Southwest Southwest in Austin, Texas. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:04.702] Wayne Powell: My name's Wayne Powell, I'm artist relations at D&B Audio Technic. We're like a leading touring speaker company, professional audio company, but we're kind of exploring, I like to call them adventures, in spatial audio.
[00:02:18.078] Kent Bye: Great, maybe you could give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into this space.
[00:02:22.748] Wayne Powell: So I spent about 25 years, I'm going to use the phrase babysitting in a non-patronizing way, babysitting tours and looking after artists and engineers, looking after shows. And then in the last several years, I've started looking into spatial audio and applying the same kind of empathy and care as to how people can craft that their art in a different way.
[00:02:44.522] Kent Bye: Yeah, maybe you just give a bit more context for the company that you're working at as well and what they do and what they're kind of known for.
[00:02:49.708] Wayne Powell: Great. Yeah, so D&B Audio-Technica, yeah, really prevalent in sort of musical theater and live sound. So we look after Taylor Swift and Beyonce and most of the West End and Broadway will feature our equipment. But what I'm really excited about in my role at D&B Audio-Technica is what does the future look like? And the answer is we don't really know. But actually, more importantly, we're not the people to know what the answer is. So a big part of my job is to seek out artists and, as I like to call them, adventures. Like Wristband is a perfect example where spatial audio is a natural fit for this sort of MR, VR kind of world. And go, well, how do we make, how does sound make these experiences better? Yeah.
[00:03:30.505] Kent Bye: Great, and so how did you come across Roman and what he's doing there with Wristband?
[00:03:34.471] Wayne Powell: So actually, it feels like there's a really, as big as the video and lighting and audio communities are, it feels like a real front line where there's not many of us around that are trying to blend everything together. So actually, to answer your question, I was introduced by a friend of mine that I worked on another immersive project. He introduced myself to Roman and Ann. And then... And we kind of hit it off. I don't think it's that complicated. Sometimes you just go, I get it, you know?
[00:04:06.878] Kent Bye: And so what was it that really caught your attention in terms of rather than babysitting bands on tour that you wanted to get into spatial audio? What was your first exposure to the potential for where these new trends of audio might be going here in the future?
[00:04:20.560] Wayne Powell: That's such a good question. It's storytelling, genuinely. That's why I think once spatial audio started happening more and more often, I loved the ability to talk about the audience journey. And I think a lot of what I did before was all about once people got into a room and listened to a concert, and then they'd go home. And the whole idea of the journey. What do they feel like when they come? What happens before they come into the room? What happens when they're in the room and when they leave? And whether there's a headset or whether there's a screen, it doesn't really matter. You're just having some empathy for the... We've all been to those gigs, right, where there's a grumpy sound engineer playing the Ramones and you've come to see a folk band. There's a little bit of that, where you just think... How do you make people feel comfortable or uncomfortable and take them on a journey rather than just a thing that plays?
[00:05:13.401] Kent Bye: Yeah, Roman was telling me that you have like a 64 speaker setup that he goes and experiments with some of his latest sound mixes. So maybe you could talk a bit about some of the studios that you have really decked out to kind of explore the potentials of the spatial audio that you have available for like immersive artists to come kind of tinker around.
[00:05:32.666] Wayne Powell: Yeah totally. As a company we've been so used to knowing the answers for like four decades and now we've got this spatial audio thing and we've realized that we're not the people with the answers anymore. There's a whole creative community of the ones that can feed us so D&B Audio Technic have invested in studios in cultural centers all around the world and There's no other way to frame it. We can all learn from each other. So we've got the technology, but what's the use of the technology unless you've got someone who wants to tell a story? And so iTech in London is a great example where we've got some amazing LED walls, some amazing broadcast technology, and some spatial audio technology. And then it's the playgrounds. You can put a creative person and go, what do you want to do? What's your story? And there's a real delight in just going, you're treating it like a playground in that fashion. And I think that's what the industry needs as well. This can't be elitist. It can't be, oh, you need so much money or you need access to a studio. D&B have realized that actually what we need to do is just make these things accessible and then keep our mouth shut and our ears open.
[00:06:39.375] Kent Bye: What's some of the best spatial audio experiences that you've had?
[00:06:43.601] Wayne Powell: I take a great delight in the genre breaking spatial audio stuff. So for example, it's one of the most asked questions of me is, What genre of music is spatial audio good for? I really struggle with that because it's an artistic thing. And so some of the real delights is there's two bands, one's called The Breath and one's called Stick in the Wheel. Both of them are folk duets and they really leaned into what can we do, what journey, what story can we tell? and they're just folk music right so they're there to tell a story so this is their wheelhouse you know this is what they do but if you spoke to space audio folks it's like oh well maybe you can electronic music or something based on daw or atmos but it's a the humanistic storytellers of folk music i think are the ones that are absolutely nailing it already
[00:07:36.240] Kent Bye: Have you come across Darkroom based out of London?
[00:07:39.243] Wayne Powell: Yeah, I have as well, and they're doing some fantastic stuff. I think I'm going to put my D&B hat on the floor for a moment. I think we're in a position where sometimes in our respective fields there's a competitiveness with technology, but we're not there yet, and I just like seeing really good stuff. And so the guys at Darkfield, the guys at Punchdrunk, There's lots of people that are doing really good stuff. And there's lots of people doing OK stuff. And yeah, good stuff is good stuff. And that's the important bit.
[00:08:08.646] Kent Bye: Yeah, I just saw the Nowhere is When We Are stars tonight. It's playing at the University of Texas Performing Arts Center, and it really blew me away because it's a combination of matrix of lights, so like these Christmas lights hanging down, but it creates a grid, and so just playing with the different shapes and movements and... biomimicry of nature. But it was also like a special audio, so like a whole array of speakers all around the room. And the way that he was using that to tell stories was just really remarkable. Really some moving and poignant moments. If you have a chance to go check it out, I'll give you the link. But yeah, I don't know if you've seen any other, like, Because there's been a lot of these spatial immersive rooms and places to exhibit work. And I know that last year at Tribeca, there was some spatial audio that was playing. I didn't have a chance to see it. But I'm just curious if you've seen like there's these new emerging immersive art exhibition centers and if you've seen a trend towards also integrating more and more spatial audio.
[00:09:11.656] Wayne Powell: Yeah, I haven't seen the exhibit you spoke of, but I can totally get where you're coming from. I almost like how we can use spatial audio to sort of illustrate the unknown, whether it's like plants growing in the ground. I was really fortunate to be part of the exhibit called Particle Shrine, and it was actually in London in the Science Gallery, but they linked up particle detectors, subatomic particle detectors to MIDI instruments and OSC driving devices and vibrating mirrors. So you sat in a room while these subatomic particles that we can't see, can't touch, can't feel, are passing through the ground a hundred times a second. And then they make a mirror vibrate, or a light turn on, or a sound move. And for me, that was so... It's quite an emotional thing, because you're like, I can't see it. but I've got this technology telling me it's there. And I think maybe it's to say I haven't seen what you were talking about, but I think there's an alignment to that that I really adore. Yeah.
[00:10:16.182] Kent Bye: Yeah, it kind of gives you a sense of mimicking the constellations and looking into the space. But yeah, a really beautiful way that Andrew, the director, was using both the grid of lights with the spatial audio. I'm going to be talking to him tomorrow, just kind of unpack it all. But here at South by Southwest, With Wristband and this immersive audio exhibition, there's Roman Rackbeck who's showing this VR experience, but also a whole array of speakers. You told me it was like 13 different speakers, so maybe you could just give me a little bit more of what's happening with the immersive sound array of speakers that you have here and what the magic is to kind of make it all work together with this object-oriented way of being able to position sound in all these different locations.
[00:10:58.766] Wayne Powell: Cool. I hope I can answer as eloquently as you asked, Kent. So we have a processor that treats sounds like objects. And so we can tell that processor where the speakers are in the room. So in this case, there's a room with 13 speakers, 12 point source, one sub. and then we can place a sound object anywhere in the room and then the processor will take that sound and calculate as if it was an acoustical source in real life. It's delay and level and panning. So there's a lot of spatial audio where it's just panning only. but actually our ears, we've got one on each side of our head for a reason and they're to help us align and understand where the sounds are coming from. So it's really important for our spatial audio that there's a delay element. And so what Roman's done is placed all these sounds around the room and then each speaker tries to replicate that initial acoustical wavefront so the listeners in the room feel that that sound's coming from where Roman determines.
[00:11:57.553] Kent Bye: Yeah, I just saw the VR experience in the beginning of the night, had a chat with Roman, and then just right before we chatted, had a chance to listen again without the VR headset. And I almost preferred it without the VR headset just to be able to notice the subtle nuances and differences in the sound. I mean, I'm glad that I saw both, but I feel like there was something around just the pure audio experience of hearing the fidelity of all the little sounds that are coming from different places and so in terms of the algorithms to kind of spatialize it is it using something like ambisonic algorithms or is it something like your own processing in order to translate all these channels that are being fed in into like this sound field with kind of xy coordinates yeah so it's probably closer to wave field synthesis but actually there's a lot of our own algorithms because
[00:12:42.406] Wayne Powell: Because we're used to doing rock and roll tours, we're trying to design a system that can move from different spaces and different venues night after night. So what we've done is design a system that's based purely on delay and level and algorithms that help us transpose that. Because the touring element's in our DNA, we've created a technology that we want to move from place to place rather than having... four days of setting up and i guess this leads to that accessibility thing right the system we put in today me and the guys from hmx live it took us two hours and we've got a spatial audio system up and running and i think that's key for the accessibility that everyone else can do it rather than i mean this technology is not new it's been around for 30 40 years but it's getting quick now and it's accessible so that's the cool thing
[00:13:34.605] Kent Bye: Yeah, Roman mentioned that there's some sort of calibration process that you have to do to have your system know where each of these speakers are positioned in space. So I'm wondering, what is that calibration system in order to make it work?
[00:13:46.129] Wayne Powell: I think Roman's been really kind there. So there's the calibration system that, we run a calibration system that tells us all of our speakers are working correctly. Whether it's a tent at South By, or whether it's at Wembley Stadium, or the Sydney Opera House, it's the same calibration. But actually all we need to do is tell the software where the speakers are. and once software knows where the speakers are, and that's just good old-fashioned measuring tape. So, yeah, Roman's been very generous there, but we just tell the processor where the speakers live and everything else looks after itself.
[00:14:17.165] Kent Bye: Okay, yeah. He said there was a calibration process. I didn't know how automated it was, but it sounds like it's back to the roots of just giving an actual measurement for how big the room is and everything, so, yeah.
[00:14:26.132] Wayne Powell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I should have given a better answer rather than the honest one. But yeah, for us, it's kind of what we do is just go, let's make sure everything sounds good and it's working first. And so we still follow that preset. And the objects look after themselves. So the stuff that Roman played today, We prep that in London in a very different space. And so once we know we've done the speaker's work, once we tell the software the speakers are, we know everything else looks after itself. And whether it's a different shape room or a size room, yeah, it's all good. Calibration's quiet, yeah, it's a simple thing.
[00:15:01.482] Kent Bye: And it seems like that there's been this kind of paradox of emerging technologies, which is that it's so new that it's kind of cultivating a market, which means that most of the artists and creators that are working in it don't really have the funds or resources to have everything that they need to really push everything to the limit, up until it's like there's an underlying flywheel of innovation where you have to have a market that then is getting revenue and profit so that it can grow. but it still needs entities to kind of give these catalysts to either sponsor or help kickstart the innovation. And the artists, given a little bit of resources, can push the edge for what's even possible, which then starts to grow an entire new ecosystem. So just wondering how you start to think about this state of where spatial audio is now and where you are trying to help to catalyze and cultivate this community of artists and creators and storytellers.
[00:15:49.175] Wayne Powell: That's so hard and good at the same time. So... It may be similar to people you choose to speak to at the podcast. Sometimes it's just on gut. I think we're in a nice place right now that with spatial audio and immersive experiences, there's no right answers. And I quite relish that. And so sometimes you can just meet people and feel they're infectious or they've got good ideas. And you can just go... Let's go on an adventure. I like that term adventure, but you know that everyone wants a good quality outcome. Maybe in 10 years time, we won't be able to be in a position to go on these adventures where we can just follow things to a natural conclusion just to learn from it, you know? And I think we're in a nice place now where we can do that. And certainly that's kind of my raison d'etre at D&B is to find folks and then go, let's go on an adventure and we can work out, then learn something on the way, you know?
[00:16:45.498] Kent Bye: I'm curious to hear your take on some of the different emerging spatial audio formats that are out there. You know, everything from ambisonics, there's Dolby Atmos, which is like very much a proprietary format that I wouldn't imagine that you would be implementing Dolby Atmos, but maybe you are if there's people that are authoring things in that. But there's also other emerging spatial audio formats that are out there. And so I'm just curious to hear some of your take on some of the standards or formats that you're seeing emerge, or things that you're interested in helping to provide support with your array of speakers?
[00:17:16.816] Wayne Powell: Yeah, I think it's a really privileged position to go that our format's the best. The number of creatives and artists using Spatial Audio is growing, but actually, if I was gonna kind of put my, sort of lick my finger and put it in the air, I'd say 20% of the artists I worked with last year were predominantly ambisonics. And so the question is, is it my job to kind of convert them in an evangelical way? Or do I just say, well, actually, you've created this thing. How do I transpose it into a venue or a space that can work? And I think that's, for me, the important bit. I think over time these technologies through necessity will homogenize a little bit but actually it feels like a really privileged position to kind of go the way is our way and there's nothing else. Of course I see a lot of benefits in D&B Soundscape. The delay is a really big thing that makes a huge difference. But actually, you take some other technologies, and we've worked on really large concerts, and they work from the inside out, and we work from the outside in, and then, yeah, it's a really good question.
[00:18:22.061] Kent Bye: So is D&B Soundscape, is that your proprietary format?
[00:18:25.265] Wayne Powell: Yeah, so I work for D&B Audio Technic and so soundscapes are a proprietary format but also it's a really good bed because it's such an agile technology that actually we're not shy that you can superimpose Atmos, you can superimpose Ambisonics and some of my greatest and favourite projects have been using Soundscape to kind of bring other technologies in. I think that's the way that everything has to go. Not just because I work for D&B Audio Technic, but it's for the artists, right? We want them to tour, we want them to do more of it. So we've got to make it easy for them.
[00:18:56.562] Kent Bye: So if they did want to mix like Dolby Atmos with your own proprietary format and with some ambisonics, you can kind of blend all those together?
[00:19:04.488] Wayne Powell: Yeah, actually, so there's a handful of venues in London that come to mind where we've got soundscape systems in. King's Place is one of my favorites, and we did about 70 spatial audio shows at King's Place in the last 18 months. And about 20 of those were actually Atmos playbacks. And I think that's where we kind of just have to put our... There's no privilege there. Like, if an artist comes in and says, I've got a playback in Atmos, Who's important, the manufacturer or the artist and the audience? And so that's, if the sales guys aren't like it, that's kind of where I go with it. And I'm very confident in our technology that it will hold out and stand the test of time for that.
[00:19:44.876] Kent Bye: What are some of the premier places to go have like a really amazing special audio experience?
[00:19:52.922] Wayne Powell: Oh, that's a really good... I guess I'm going to ask a question back, if I may. Because there's live music Spatial Audio experiences or theatre Spatial Audio. I had a real epiphany seeing the Lehman Trilogy at the South Bank. And for anyone who hasn't seen that, that's a three-hour play about banking. And I was engrossed. I mean, that ticks every box that you didn't know was there. So that's amazing. There's also, there's some stuff that a company called Right Left are doing, or sorry, Left Right, with a national trust, and they're called Origins. And that's much more meditative, compulsive, thought-provoking sort of stuff. And I think that's the cool thing about spatial audio, is that journey aspect. You're not just standing on your feet or sitting in a chair. Maybe you're laying on your back and you're looking at a screen above your head and you're just turning your phone off and forgetting about stuff. Maybe that's the joy of it.
[00:20:53.188] Kent Bye: Great. So what's next for you in this space? And what do you see as kind of the things that you're most excited about?
[00:20:59.391] Wayne Powell: As ever, I'm just hanging on the coattails of clever, creative, amazing people. I've just finished supporting an AI project with Holly Herndon at the Serpentine. And that was, again, I didn't do much. It was just a privilege to support. And then that's moving to, hopefully moving to Berlin. And again, you just... We're in a nice space where I get to sit in a room and watch clever people do clever stuff and steal some stories and put them in my back pocket for next time. There's also a Punch Drunk. They're doing an immersive theatre piece in South Korea and that's the same again. Folks have been telling really good stories for a long, long time. And yeah, now's a good time to sort of keep your mouth shut and your ears open and learn a bit.
[00:21:44.300] Kent Bye: Are there any other immersive artists that you've been working with that you want to just give a shout out to in terms of other people that you see are doing really innovative work in this space?
[00:21:52.270] Wayne Powell: Yeah, I did something really, I tell you what, I love the unusual. So November last year, I worked at the Pompidou with Bjork. And if you've never been, the Pompidou's got like a six-floor escalator on the outside of the building called the Caterpillar. And we created, on six escalators, an immersive experience. So you start on the ground floor and you work your way up through the Pompidou Centre, finishing on the sixth floor, looking over Paris. And I love that because at the beginning, nobody knew if you could do it or if it was possible. Hence the adventure thing. And so it doesn't have to be a big name. There's some I genuinely love the folk duets with the great ideas. Or there's a really talented musician called Maddy Ashman. He's a cellist and guitarist and a phenomenal musician. Amazing talent. I'm really looking forward just to having some time with her in a studio and spatial audio and just listening and watching to see what someone does when they've got all the toys and all the tools to have a play.
[00:22:55.248] Kent Bye: Awesome. And finally, what do you think the ultimate potential of all this new emerging forms of immersive storytelling and spatial audio might be and what it might be able to enable?
[00:23:08.909] Wayne Powell: I don't want to sound functional, but I generally see it like a marginal gains thing, like an athlete. The difference between two people running a good race can be just like 1%'s diet, 1%'s sleep, 1%'s stretching but you kind of accumulate those and so I generally think the really good stuff's going to be that kind of magical equation where it's 1% storytelling, 1% audio, 1% visual and all those little marginal bits will just come together nicely and then people go oh man but like all the best musical albums there's no formula there's no maths for that it would just be someone just crafting it a little bit like that so I'm not sure if that answers your question. I'm really sorry. But I think that's the exciting thing, is working out, is watching other people and just going, oh, that's good. That's what that little 1% was to make it. Do you know what? The VR stuff that the Roman does is a perfect analogy of that, where they kind of switch between virtual reality, mixed reality, a live performance, and they blend that so well. I've not seen that done before, and I think that's a real...
[00:24:20.535] Kent Bye: that kind of for me that kind of answers that question in a nice way yeah awesome and is there anything else that's left and said that you'd like to say to the broader immersive community
[00:24:30.151] Wayne Powell: John, you've asked loads of really good questions. I'm used to talking to trade publishing stuff and so trying to articulate something that they can understand. This is my first time at South By and so working for a predominantly audio company, being an audio guy for years, I celebrate people telling stories and sharing ideas. I don't think there's enough of that in the immersive audio or spatial or any kind of experience i think it just needs more of that and the wxo are really good at it and south by are really good at it and uh certainly podcasts it just it just needs to be more like um because that's how we will get better right yeah yeah for sure and uh yeah it's super exciting to be able to come here to south by and to see the type of setup that you have here that you hope to
[00:25:13.189] Kent Bye: bring over for roman and yeah it just sounds really quite amazing and i'm really looking forward to seeing where other artists and storytellers take this technology here in the future so thanks again for joining me here on the podcast to give us a little bit of a glimpse of where this is all going here in the future so thanks so much thanks and that's a treat thanks Thanks for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. And there is a lot that's happening in the world today. And the one place that I find solace is in stories, whether that's a great movie, a documentary, or immersive storytelling. And I love going to these different conferences and festivals and seeing all the different work and talking to all the different artists. And sharing that with the community, because I think there's just so much to be learned from listening to someone's process to hear about what they want to tell a story about. And even if you don't have a chance to see it, just to have the opportunity to hear about a project that you might have missed or to learn about it. And so this is a part of my own creative process of capturing these stories and sharing it with a larger community. And if you find that valuable and want to sustain this oral history project that I've been doing for the last decade, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Every amount does indeed help sustain the work that I'm doing here, even if it's just $5 a month. That goes a long way for allowing me to continue to make these trips and to to ensure that I can see as much of the work as I can and to talk to as many of the artists as I can and to share that with the larger community. So you can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voices of VR. Thanks for listening.
