Bosch at Wonder Full, New Attraction in Singapore

The largest light and water spectacular in South East Asia has opened on the doorstep of the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Using lasers, searchlights, LEDs, video projectors, and giant water screens to create stunning visual effects, Wonder Full is a 360-degree sensory experience portraying light and water creating life, choreographed to an original score.

Wonder Full features new and exciting technology that took the international firm Laservision three years to develop and refine. A team consisting of 100 specialists in architectural, design, creative, musical, engineering, technical and IT resources was drawn from its Hong Kong, Australian, and Singaporean offices.

Three massive water screens illuminated by high definition video projection and optically pumped full color laser systems face the audience at the Event Plaza, Marina Bay Sands entertainment venue featuring adjustable platforms. The Event Plaza is flanked by custom-designed media towers which bathe and envelope the audience in a three-dimensional fantasy that includes surround sound, special effects, and dynamic lighting.

The original sound score, recorded by the 140 piece Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, is heard through 7.1 surround sound generating over 50,000W of sound reinforcement. The music is broadcast simultaneously on the event sound system and on 103.9 FM -- the official Marina Bay Sands radio station -- Wonder Full Waves, so attendees can tune in and listen in real time as they watch the show.

In the past Laservision has successfully completed a number of installations using Bosch professional audio products, utilizing the expertise of Bryan Davidson, Bosch's senior engineer / manager for permanent installations.

"For this project Laservision wanted a high impact surround sound system which would be able to cover approximately 40m [131.2']," explained Davidson. "It also had to have a very low profile so as not too obscure the water fountains. I built a model in EASE finally settling on the Electro-Voice large format line array system; two vertically stacked EV XVLS deliver a very tight vertical dispersion allowing sound to be thrown across water to the audience area whilst not spilling into other areas."

The EV XVLS speakers are a custom made waterproof version and also deploy EV's hydrophobic grill cloth, which stops water entering the box. Each water screen has two XVLS speakers.

The deck area, where 10,000 people can sit, has three different orientations; it can be a flat deck or either elevated or declined at the front. The audio system had to work in each one of the orientations, so Davidson spent a lot of time tweaking the system. ,p> In order to ensure that technical equipment didn't affect the aesthetics of the building, eight multimedia towers--four located either side of the audience area--were designed to house the rest of the speakers as well as some spot lights. The media towers are large cylinders 19.6' high off the ground, constructed from perforated stainless steel. When there is no show, these cylinders hide and protect the technical equipment. At show time a lifting mechanism raises the cylinders by 9.8', the speakers go up into position and a searchlight pops out of the top.

"I placed four EV XLD281 compact line array cabinets plus an EV X-sub subwoofer in each media tower which gave me the 7:1 surround sound" said Davidson. "These also employ the EV hydrophobic grill cloth; I consulted with the brilliant Dave Carlson from EV in Burnsville in order to work out the exact grill perforation requirements so that the sound could exit correctly and the cylinder didn't resonate."

All of the speakers are driven by a total of 21 Dynacord H5000 amplifiers each of which has its own RCM26 remote control module. This is all networked together via three NetMax N8000 networkable matrix systems which allow audio distribution while also delivering full remote monitoring and supervision of the speakers. Audio was distributed from the main control room to two rack locations via CobraNet interfaced by Laservision propriety show control system which delivers the 7:1 feed.

"I used SysTune to align the system," remarked Davidson. "It has a plugin module for NetMax so I can open up SysTune and look at the frequency response etc in one window whilst in the other window I can have the relevant EQ block in NetMax open so I can do real time tuning as I walk around the area."

The software platform IRIS-Net is used to control and supervise all of the amplifiers, NetMax's and speakers connected to them under a user friendly GUI.