In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel and Bjørn Jacobsen are joined by electronics engineer Ben Supper from London, UK.
Ben Supper started Supperware in 2018, with the aim of making hardware and software to meet the needs of professional musicians and engineers who work with immersive audio. The challenge has been to meet their needs for high accuracy, speed, and as little impact on their budget as possible. The first product to reach general sale is a head tracker, without which there’s no point making anything else. He has spent a total of twenty years working as a product engineer and occasional manager for ROLI, Focusrite, and others. Some products he’s particularly proud of co-developing to include the ROLI Seaboard, and the Novation Launchpad and Mininova. Before most of this, Ben obtained a PhD in the field of spatial psychoacoustics from Surrey in 2005 and was a graduate of the Tonmeister course in 2000. It is Ben’s dream to make immersive audio work commercially this time around, and not to frighten away those casual experimenters and distractible creatives on whom its commercial and artistic success will completely depend.
In this episode, we dive deep into the topic of head-tracking for audio, and Ben expertly explains the advantages of using trackers for spatial sound and the process of making them.
Supperware is giving away a free tracker to one of our lucky listeners! It’s very easy to enter – all details in the episode – submit your entry by Friday the 5th of March 2021.
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Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Emma Rees and included music by Rhythm Scott.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel and Bjørn Jacobsen are joined by sound artist and disability advocate – Andy Slater from Chicago, US.
Andy Slater is a Chicago based media artist and disability advocate. He is the founder of the Society of Visually Impaired Sound Artists and director of the Sound As Sight accessible field recording project. His current work features the sounds of antiquated assistive technology, field recordings, spatial audio design for virtual and augmented reality, video games, and films. He works with analogue and FM synthesis in his sound design process with a lean towards retro-futurism, Classic sci-fi and video game sound, and blurry analogue tape charm. Andy has a masters in Sound Arts and Industries from Northwestern University and holds a BFA from the School Of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In this episode, Andy shares his unique journey full of frustrating battles and success stories. You will hear excerpts of Andy’s conceptual artwork and find out about his mission of making the world of audio tech for blind and visually impaired people more accessible.
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to show your support please consider becoming a Patreon. Not only are you supporting us, but you will also get special access to bonus content and much more.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Emma Rees and included music by Rhythm Scott.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel and Bjørn Jacobsen are joined by the founder of A Sound Effect – Asbjoern Andersen from Copenhagen, Denmark.
Asbjoern Andersen is the founder of A Sound Effect (asoundeffect.com), the world’s largest site for independent sound effects, and is also the co-creator of Soundlister.com, featuring portfolios of thousands of audio professionals from around the world. Along with his team, he also runs the Audio Jobs newsletter and Audio Jobs groups on Facebook and LinkedIn.
In this episode, Asbjoern tells us how he built the biggest independent sound effects marketplace in the world along with an entire ecosystem of practical resources for audio professionals. We also discuss MPEG-H Authoring Suite and the role of the sound designer in the AAA Game development set-up.
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to show your support please consider becoming a Patreon. Not only are you supporting us, but you will also get special access to bonus content and much more.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Emma Rees and included music by Rhythm Scott.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel and Bjørn Jacobsen are joined by Dubbing Mixer and owner of 8dB Sound – Alan Sallabank from Bristol, UK.
Alan Sallabank is a sound engineer with over three decades of professional experience in post-production. From an early age, he has been fascinated by the power of sound to communicate a story, be it musically or spoken, factual or scripted. He has built his own equipment, designed and built mix rooms and foley/ADR facilities, and developed workflows. Whenever new equipment or software arrives, he is always looking at how it can be made to do more than it says on the tin.
Since 2013 Alan has run and owned 8dB Sound – an independent post-production facility, now located near Bristol, UK. He specialises in immersive digital audio and remote workflow, but still has a very weak spot for classic seventies turntables.
In this episode, Alan shares his experience on best practice for remote working and collaboration for audio as well as the evolution of immersive audio in traditional broadcast and TV media.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Emma Rees and included music by Rhythm Scott.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by Executive Director, and Creative Technologist at L-Acoustics Guillaume Le Nost via Zoom from London, UK.
Driven by a passion for sound and technology, Guillaume has built a career in both the artistic and technical domains.
After getting two MScs in electrical engineering and signal processing from Ecole Centrale Paris and IRCAM, he started a research career in 3D sound, and received a PhD in Acoustics. He then performed as a professional rock musician and managed an indie music label before going on to co-found the start-up AudioGaming, a pioneer in audio synthesis technologies and French Ministry of Research award-winner.
He joined the L‑Acoustics R&D department in France in 2009 where he led projects on acoustic measurement and simulation, and developed new signal processing algorithms for integration into L‑Acoustics software and amplified controllers. Guillaume moved to London in 2012 to head the company’s research efforts into immersive audio for live sound. Since then, L-ISA object-based audio technology has been deployed in more than 5000 live shows, from clubs to arenas across the world, with artists such as Aerosmith, Lady Gaga, Bon Iver, Alt-J, or the BBC Proms.
In this episode, Guillaume talks about how the live sound industry is undergoing a quiet revolution by adapting immersive audio and how their latest L-ISA technology empowers sound engineers to break through long standing conventions.
The binaural audio excerpt by Molecule from the Acousmatic 360 tour, performed live at “Printemps de Bourges” with a 12.1 system. The spatialization is done in real-time using L-ISA by a live mixing engineer Herve Dejardin.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by Grammy Award-winning percussionist and composer Evelyn Glennie via Zoom from Cambridgeshire, UK.
Dame Evelyn Glennie is the first person in history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, performing worldwide with the greatest orchestras, conductors and artists. Evelyn paved the way for orchestras globally to feature percussion concerti when she played the first percussion concerto in the history of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1992. Evelyn has commissioned over 200 new pieces for solo percussion from many of the world’s most eminent composers to vastly expand the percussion repertoire. She regularly provides masterclasses and consultations to inspire the next generation of musicians. The film ‘Touch the Sound’ and her enlightening TED speech remain key testimonies to her innovative approach to sound-creation. Leading 1000 drummers, Evelyn had the honour of a prominent role in the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and now has over 100 international awards, including the Polar Music Prize and the Companion of Honour. She was recently appointed the first female President of Help Musicians, only the third person to hold the title since Sir Edward Elgar and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Evelyn is currently creating The Evelyn Glennie Collection with a vision to open a centre that embodies her mission to Teach the World to Listen. She aims to ‘improve communication and social cohesion by encouraging everyone to discover new ways of listening as proven in her book ‘Listen World!’. We want to inspire, to create, to engage and to empower’.
In this episode, Evelyn talks about her unique journey and perspective as a musician and dives deep into her long-time mission – to teach people how to listen.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
Image credit – Produktion Bärbel Recktenwald England
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is talking to the innovative sound technology company Krotos whose mission is to improve the way sound is designed and performed.
The Founder and CEO – Orfeas Boteas and General Manager Matt Collings dive deep into the creation of the company and software development, along with our guest speakers Mark Lanza and Bjørn Jacobsen sharing their unique perspective on how Krotos tools can enhance creativity when designing audio for films and games.
Orfeas Boteas is the founder and CEO of Krotos. Krotos’ audio software has been used in top films, series and video games such as The Avengers, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Jungle Book, Frozen, Cyberpunk and Far Cry. Previous to founding Krotos he worked in post-production, music composition and location sound. He holds a BSc in Music Technology and Acoustics and an MSc in Sound Design from the University of Edinburgh. He was a Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellow and received two Edge awards for his work at Krotos.
Matthew Collings has successfully led prototyping and project managed the development of Krotos’ major software projects due to be released in recent years: Weaponiser, Dehumaniser Live, Reformer and Reformer Pro. He has worked for Krotos since 2015, driving the technical development of the company, and as a board member. As a composer, he has produced projects for the 50th Design Biennial in Ljubljana, Slovenia (2014), Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Art (2014), Gaudeamus Musikweek in Utrecht (2015), and Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Mark A. Lanza MPSE is a sound designer and supervisor for Sony Pictures Television, he has worked for major studios as well as several prominent independent sound facilities. He has crafted sound for many directors including Oliver Stone, James Cameron, Bryan Singer, and Phillip Noyce. His 250+ credits cover the gamut from Sci-Fi blockbusters like Independence Day and Starship Troopers to Natural Born Killers and True Lies. He has won a Bafta award for his work on JFK, and he took home a Hollywood Post Alliance award for his supervision for the Grimm TV series. He has over 30 MPSE nominations and a win for Phillip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams. He is also the President of the Motion Picture Sound Editors, on the board of directors for EIPMA, and on the Executive Steering Committee for the Television Academy.
Bjørn Jacobsen is a sound designer coming from an electronic music background, he currently runs his own studio from Copenhagen Denmark called Cujo Sound from where he works on numerous game audio projects and recently finished the very well-received indie game DARQ and working on titles such as The Settlers, Divinity Fallen Heroes, The Ascent, Straits of Danger and more. Previously Bjorn has been working in-house at AAA studios such as CD PROJEKT RED, IO Interactive, Sharkmob and CCP Games, having been able to work on great titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, HITMAN, EVE Online, EVE Valkyrie and some unannounced and prototype projects.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Isaac Joel, Yung Koolade and Knobs Bergamo.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by technical sound designer and XR evangelist Kedar Shashidhar via Zoom from LA, US.
Kedar Shashidhar is an XR creator with a focus on spatial audio design and technologies. With a focus on creative research and development, he has worked to help develop new tools, create content, and explore the boundaries of audio in new realities. Most notably he has contributed to the development of various audio toolsets including Steam Audio, Ossic, and Magic Leap Soundfield Audio. He also formed an indie game studio, Blackout VR, focused on developing audio-only games. Kedar is also an active voice for audio in new realities having previously spoken at Audio Engineering Society, GameSoundCon, Indiecade, and more. In his time at Magic Leap, Kedar was working on bringing the newest innovations in mixed reality audio to content creators in order to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible for audio in new realities. Currently, Kedar is working on the next generation of virtual venues and concerts in XR with Stage XR.
In this episode, Kedar speaks candidly about his time at Steam Audio, Ossic and Magic Leap, whilst sharing insights on cutting edge tool development for spatial audio and gives personal advice on how to keep high-level creativity and performance whilst maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by world-famous experimental psychologist and Professor at the University of Oxford – Charles Spence via Zoom from Oxford, UK.
Professor Charles Spence is a world-famous experimental psychologist with a specialization in neuroscience-inspired multisensory design. He has worked with many of the world’s largest companies across the globe since establishing the Crossmodal Research Laboratory (CRL) at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University in 1997. Prof. Spence has published over 900 academic articles and edited or authored, 15 books including, in 2014, the Prose prize-winning “The perfect meal”, and the international bestseller “Gastrophysics: The new science of eating” (2017; Penguin Viking) – winner of the 2019 Le Grand Prix de la Culture Gastronomique from Académie Internationale de la Gastronomie.
In this episode, Charles opens up about the world of multisensory design focusing on how sound affects our perception of taste and much more.
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Charles Spence Extended Bio
Much of Prof. Spence’s work focuses on the design of enhanced multisensory food and drink experiences, through collaborations with chefs, baristas, mixologists, chocolatiers, perfumers, and the food and beverage, and flavour and fragrance industries. Prof. Spence has worked extensively in the world of multisensory experiential wine and has also worked extensively on the question of how technology will transform our dining/drinking experiences in the future.
The research conducted at the Crossmodal Research Laboratory in Oxford has garnered widespread media attention across the globe, including in The Economist (February 4-10th, 2012, p. 74), and The Financial Times (3rd June, 2013, p. 14; http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6bc0fa04-c175-11e2-9767-00144feab7de.html#axzz2VEbNyXiR) and has been profiled in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/02/accounting-for-taste). Over the last decade alone, Prof. Spence and the CRL have been featured in more than 3,000 newspaper articles, radio interviews, and television programs.
Prof. Spence frequently delivers consumer neuroscience lectures and courses to global companies, and business schools and schools of business administration, such as at Los Andes, Rosario University, and Javariana University in Colombia, the Saïd Business School, Oxford, and the Singapore Business School.
Prof. Spence has been awarded numerous national and international prizes for scientific excellence, including the 10th Experimental Psychology Society Prize, the British Psychology Society: Cognitive Section Award, the Paul Bertelson Award, recognizing him as the young European Cognitive Psychologist of the Year, and, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany): ‘in recognition of past accomplishments in research and teaching’. In 2008, together with Dr. Max Zampini, he was awarded the 2008 IG Nobel prize for nutrition for his work on ‘the sonic crisp’
We want to hear from you! We really value our community and would appreciate it if you would take our very quick survey and help us make the Immersive Audio Podcast even better: surveymonkey.co.uk/r/3Y9B2MJ Thank you!
Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by senior academics of University of Derby Dr Bruce Wiggins and Duncan Werner via Zoom from Derbyshire, UK.
Dr Bruce Wiggins graduated with a 1st class honours in Music Technology and Audio System Design from the University of Derby in 1999. His interest in audio signal processing spurred him to continue at Derby completing his PhD entitled “An Investigation into the Real-time Manipulation and Control of 3D Sound Fields” in 2004 where he solved the problem of generating Ambisonic decoders for irregular speaker arrays and looked at the optimisation of binaural/transaural systems. Bruce’s research into Ambisonics has been featured as an impact case study in the national Research Excellence Framework in 2014 and will be again in 2021. His latest work is based around the auralisation of rooms to very high order Ambisonics with head-tracking.
Duncan Werner graduated from Aston University in Electrical/Electronic Engineering in the late seventies, but as a keen musician moved towards the music industry gaining work as a recording and touring musician in the UK and Europe, subsequently being employed by the London-based Chrysalis Music Group as studio sound engineer. This was followed by postgraduate Music Technology studies at City University London. Research interests include immersive music production, in particular the GASP system (Guitars with Ambisonic Spatial Performance) based at the University of Derby. He has been programme leader for BSc Music Technology since its inception in 1995 and is currently Programme Leader for MA Music Production.
In this episode, we dive into the collaborative project GASP (Guitars with Ambisonic Spatial Performance), discuss the Sound in Space Symposium, and current research projects for immersive audio.
Cat Fantastic Mix 1: applies post-production timbral morphing and dynamic spatialisation. This is the first GASP binaural demo track in the podcast; the original ‘raw’ guitar is at the beginning which then morphs through timbral and spatial variations up to around 1.10 when the raw guitar returns. Performed by Jack Hooley, production by Duncan Werner and Emma Fitzmaurice. The recording has no overdubs, that is, the final production is derived from one single guitar performance. Post-production included experimenting with ‘timbral morphing’, where multiple versions of each string, each with different timbres were printed on time-synchronized parallel tracks, thus allowing crossfading between individual string timbres, then mixing together the respective tracks. The timbral morphing works well and we have now developed templates for real-time timbral morphing for live performance applications.
Pale Aura: performed by Dominic Dallali, production by Jack Hooley and Dominic Dallali. This is the first GASP binaural demo track in the podcast; the original ‘raw’ guitar is at the beginning which then morphs through timbral and spatial variations up to around 1.10 when the raw guitar returns. The recording has no overdubs, that is, the final production is derived from one single guitar performance. This track is the guitar part of the song Pale Aura by the band Periphery; it is in the genre of progressive metal. It turned out to be quite a dramatic production, with rapid changes in location for close temporal events. The guitar part consists of some highly syncopated timing elements, which have been mapped to rapid location switching. There is a good range of amp distortion timbres employed for different parts of the performance. A low kick drum was included to provide the listener with a sense of meter as the guitar performance which includes several syncopated elements.
Prelude to Life: composed and performed by Fred T Baker, production by Charlie Box and Duncan Werner. This is the first GASP binaural demo track in the podcast; the original ‘raw’ guitar is at the beginning which then morphs through timbral and spatial variations up to around 1.10 when the raw guitar returns. The recording has no overdubs, that is, the final production is derived from one single guitar performance. Post-production timbralisation is a mix of both NI Guitar Rig and instrument samples. Melodyne’s pitch to MIDI conversion was applied, the MIDI note events were then arranged to trigger various instrument samples e.g. orchestral strings with other sampled and synthetic sounds. Upon reflection, the timing of pitch to MIDI conversion worked very well, such that the nuances of the guitar performance are precisely captured.
GASP is ‘Guitars with Ambisonic Spatial Performance’. The project is the design, realisation, and application of a spatial-audio guitar production system; it is aimed towards guitarists, music producers and spatial-audio sound designers. GASP is an ongoing University of Derby research project, where our interest in Ambisonic algorithmic research and guitar sound production is combined with off-the-shelf hardware and bespoke software to create an Ambisonic based immersive guitar sound system. Applications include:
Live performance as an immersive spatial sound instrument, either as a solo instrument or as part of an ensemble, for both small or large format theatre or concert systems
Audio post-production immersive sound for on-line spatial audio applications such as YouTube and Facebook 360, including Virtual Reality applications
Guitar performance analysis and tuition tool, where on-screen displays enable identification of notation and performance artefacts which provide feedback to the player
A research tool for performative applications, with significant potential for use in the Sound Arts world
We’ve recently set up a GASP page: www.gaspproject.xyz which includes links to some of our example demo GASP productions, as well as the project timeline, posters and includes our paper ‘Development of an Ambisonic Guitar System’ which was presented to ‘Innovation in Music’ conference at the University of West London in December 2019, it’s due for publication by Routledge as a book chapter sometime in 2021. https://www.routledge.com/Innovation-in-Music-Future-Opportunities/Hepworth-Sawyer-Paterson-Toulson/p/book/9780367363352
Dring, M., Wiggins, B. (2019) The Transparency of Binaural Auralisation Using Very High Order Circular Harmonics. Reproduced Sound 2019 – Proceedings of the Institute of Acoustics, p165-173, Vol. 41. Pt. 3 2019, Bristol, UK
Wiggins, B., Dring, M., (2016) AmbiFreeVerb 2—Development of a 3D Ambisonic Reverb with Spatial Warping and Variable Scattering. 2016 AES International Conference on Sound Field Control. University of Surrey, Guildford, UK.
Wiggins, B. (2017) Measured Reverbs for Ambisonics and VR. Sounds in Space Research Symposium 2017, Derby, UK. (Video)
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Credits
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Michelle Chan with the help of Emma Rees and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
