Historically, predicting noise emissions from festivals and events with multiple stages using systems from different manufacturers has presented a challenge for engineers. Each system relied on its proprietary tools, and the lack of interoperability often resulted in inconsistent noise predictions, making it difficult to meet environmental requirements. However, that is all changing with the introduction of the new SDE standard.
The result of a groundbreaking collaboration between L-Acoustics, d&b audiotechnik and SoundPLAN, SDE is a revolutionary, manufacturer-agnostic standard for noise prediction across multiple sound systems.
The new standard provides a unified method and file format to ensure reliable, consistent, and comparable predictions in environmental noise software. It defines how to export data from system design software, such as d&b’s ArrayCalc or L-Acoustics’ Soundvision and details the methodology for calculating complex acoustic interactions. This includes calibration and decoherence factors, ensuring the highest level of accuracy at any distance – something that hasn’t been possible until now.
The development has been met with universal approval from the regional representatives at both companies, with Wissam Shaheen, Education and Application Support, d&b audiotechnik Middle East, describing it as “a welcome step forward”, and Mehdi Khelil, Head of Application, Middle East, Africa & Eurasia at L-Acoustics stating that it will “change the quality of the conversation” between the region’s sound system designers and permitting authorities.
“The Middle East has become increasingly mature in the way it approaches large-scale outdoor events, with environmental noise now rightly treated as part of responsible planning, permitting, health and safety, and community impact,” commented Shaheen.
“For us, this thinking is not new. Through ArrayCalc and NoizCalc, d&b has long connected loudspeaker system design with environmental noise prediction, because good design is not only about achieving level for the audience; it is about controlling energy with intent. That is where directivity, consistency and control become so important: more art for the audience, less noise for everyone else,” he added.
“What makes SDE particularly valuable is that it takes this principle beyond one manufacturer’s ecosystem, giving consultants, production teams, organisers and authorities a more consistent way to assess complex, multi-stage sites.”
With SDE, system technicians can export their designs as standardised SDE files, which can then be imported into environmental noise software like SoundPLAN. This streamlined, secure and fast workflow as well as the consideration of complex acoustic summation for the correct calculation of coherent sources (considering phase), allow consultants and event organisers to perform equivalent calculations in order to accurately predict noise emissions for festivals with multiple stages and systems from different manufacturers. In the future, the SDE format will be made available to other manufacturers and other noise management software.
Describing the Middle East as “one of the most exciting, and frankly, one of the most demanding, markets for large-scale live events right now”, Khelil referenced Saadiyat Nights in Abu Dhabi – an open-air programme on Saadiyat Island, surrounded by residential villas and buildings – as a recent example where noise management was crucial. “These are events happening in and around lived-in environments, with communities and authorities who need to be brought along on the journey, not presented with a fait accompli after the fact,” he explained.
“When designers can sit down with a venue or permitting authority and show a genuinely accurate, manufacturer-neutral noise model, a prediction grounded in the full acoustic behaviour of the systems being deployed, the dynamic shifts,” he added. “At Saadiyat Nights, that meant designing an L2 system shaped by precise noise prediction from the outset: a consistent audience experience inside the footprint, and minimised spill into the residential areas beyond it.”
He furthered: “For us, the Middle East isn’t a market we’re watching from a distance. It’s one where the appetite for world-class production is already there. SDE helps make sure the infrastructure around that production, including the planning, the design, and the community engagement can keep pace with it.”
Jochen Schaal, Managing Director at SoundPLAN, concluded: “SDE will set a new benchmark for noise prediction in the audio industry. Its innovative, collaborative approach promises to establish SDE as an industry standard, simplifying workflows and delivering the most reliable and accurate prediction of noise emissions from different sound system manufacturers to date.”
The new SDE standard is available now. For L-Acoustics users, SDE is currently available to consultants trained and certified by L-Acoustics, and through the company’s Environmental System Design service. For d&b users, SDE is accessible directly within ArrayCalc.
Photos: d&b audiotechnik, L-Acoustics, SDE
