Spatial Audio - Books & Articles

Stereo is everywhere. The whole culture and industry of music and sound became organized around the principle of stereophony during the twentieth century. But nothing about this-not the invention or acceptance or ubiquity of stereo-was inevitable. Nor did the aesthetic conventions, technological objects, and listening practices required to make sense of stereo emerge fully formed, out of the blue. This groundbreaking book uncovers the vast amount of work that has been required to make stereo seem natural, and which has been necessary to maintain stereo's place as a dominant mode of sound reproduction for over half a century. The essays contained within this book are thematically grouped under (Audio) Positions, Listening Cultures, and Multichannel Sound and Screen Media; the cumulative effect is to advance research in music, sound, and media studies and to build new bridges between the fields. With contributions from leading scholars across several disciplines, Living Stereo re-tells the history of twentieth-century aural and musical culture through the lens of stereophonic sound.

An overview of emerging topics, theories, methods, and practices in sonic interactive design, with a focus on the multisensory aspects of sonic experience. Sound is an integral part of every user experience but a neglected medium in design disciplines. Design of an artifact's sonic qualities is often limited to the shaping of functional, representational, and signaling roles of sound. The interdisciplinary field of sonic interaction design (SID) challenges these prevalent approaches by considering sound as an active medium that can enable novel sensory and social experiences through interactive technologies. This book offers an overview of the emerging SID research, discussing theories, methods, and practices, with a focus on the multisensory aspects of sonic experience. Sonic Interaction Design gathers contributions from scholars, artists, and designers working at the intersections of fields ranging from electronic music to cognitive science. They offer both theoretical considerations of key themes and case studies of products and systems created for such contexts as mobile music, sensorimotor learning, rehabilitation, and gaming. The goal is not only to extend the existing research and pedagogical approaches to SID but also to foster domains of practice for sound designers, architects, interaction designers, media artists, product designers, and urban planners. Taken together, the chapters provide a foundation for a still-emerging field, affording a new generation of designers a fresh perspective on interactive sound as a situated and multisensory experience. Contributors Federico Avanzini, Gerold Baier, Stephen Barrass, Olivier Bau, Karin Bijsterveld, Roberto Bresin, Stephen Brewster, Jeremy Coopersotck, Amalia De Gotzen, Stefano Delle Monache, Cumhur Erkut, George Essl, Karmen Franinovic, Bruno L. Giordano, Antti Jylhä, Thomas Hermann, Daniel Hug, Johan Kildal, Stefan Krebs, Anatole Lecuyer, Wendy Mackay, David Merrill, Roderick Murray-Smith, Sile O'Modhrain, Pietro Polotti, Hayes Raffle, Michal Rinott, Davide Rocchesso, Antonio Rodà, Christopher Salter, Zack Settel, Stefania Serafin, Simone Spagnol, Jean Sreng, Patrick Susini, Atau Tanaka, Yon Visell, Mike Wezniewski, John Williamson

Providing vital reading for audio students and trainee engineers, this guide is ideal for anyone who wants a solid grounding in both theory and industry practices in audio, sound and recording. There are many books on the market covering "how to work it" when it comes to audio equipment--but Sound and Recording isn't one of them. Instead, you'll gain an understanding of "how it works" with this approachable guide to audio systems. New to this edition: Digital audio section revised substantially to include the latest developments in audio networking (e.g. RAVENNA, AES X-192, AVB), high-resolution surround and parametric audio coding, workstation processing technology, mastering for iTunes, and loudness normalization Coverage of immersive audio systems such as Dolby Atmos, Auro 3D and WFS along with recent developments in audio object coding Sections on digital radio microphones, loudspeaker sensitivity issues and development, and highly directional loudspeaker systems Substantial new sections on recent developments in audio network device discovery and control and the Open Control Architecture

Explores the principles and practical considerations of spatial sound recording and reproduction. Particular emphasis is given to the increasing importance of multichannel surround sound and 3D audio, including binaural approaches, without ignoring conventional stereo.The enhancement of spatial quality is arguably the only remaining hurdle to be overcome in pursuit of high quality sound reproduction. The rise of increasingly sophisticated spatial sound systems presents an enormous challenge to audio engineers, many of whom are confused by the possibilities and unfamiliar with standards, formats, track allocations, monitoring configurations and recording techniques. The author provides a comprehensive study of the current state of the art in spatial audio, concentrating on the most widely used approaches and configurations. Anyone wishing to expand their understanding of these cutting-edge technologies will want to own this book.

Spatial audio and 3-Dimensional sound rendering techniques play a pivotal and essential role in immersive audio experiences. Head-Related Transfer Functions (HRTFs) are acoustic filters which represent how sound interacts with an individual's unique head and ears anatomy. The use of HRTFs compliant to the subjects anatomical traits is crucial to ensure a personalized and unique spatial experience. This work proposes the implementation of an HRTF individualization method based on anthropometric features automatically extracted from ear images using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Firstly, a CNN is implemented and tested to assess the performance of machine learning on positioning landmarks on ear images.