In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by John Kyle Varley on Skype from Halifax, Canada.
John Kyle is a musician/music producer and founder of Frameworks Productions, a production company that specializes in creating musical scores for virtual reality and 360º film. At the end of 2017, Frameworks worked with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity to develop generative music processes using spatial audio. He recently gave a talk on spatialized 3D audio and generative music at VRTO2019, the annual Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo in Toronto, Canada.
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Music Theory and Composition from St. Francis Xavier University in 2006, he cultivated years of experience as a touring, recording, and teaching musician and switched to music production later on in his career.
Today, Oliver and John Kyle discuss the influence of sound and music in virtual reality and the creation of Frameworks Productions.
In this episode of Immersive Audio Podcast, Felix Thompson, with the help of insightful guest speakers, will look at Audio for Augmented Reality, and how it’s changing peoples’ lives today.
Augmented reality, or AR for short, is an industry that’s been silently booming over the last couple of years. Unlike virtual reality which totally immerses the user, AR offers a blend of the physical and the virtual worlds.
With the huge success of Pokemon Go, which allows people all across the world to see Pokemon floating around in real life via their mobile devices, augmented reality developers want to take the next step in revolutionising how we hear the world too, making augmented reality experiences for tourism, education, music – and even reinventing hearing aids.
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Guest Speakers
Elliot Graves, Atlantic Productions
Elliot leads Atlantic Productions’ Immersive and Digital content. As an immersive experience Director, he works across all XR technologies including augmented reality, virtual reality and AI empowered experiences. Prior to Atlantic, he worked in the agency space, creating immersive projects across the world for Nike, Google, Ford, Unicef and UEFA. Elliot started his career in factual production, working with The Royal Geographical Society, the United Nations and the BBC across a range of different initiatives.
Jean-Marc Jot, Magic Leap
Dr. Jean-Marc Jot joined Magic Leap to start up its audio algorithms team. Prior to this, Jot led DTS audio processing R&D and innovation. He had also led the development of SoundBlaster audio processing algorithms and architectures, including EAX and OpenAL technologies for game 3D audio authoring and rendering. Before relocating to California in the late 90s, he conducted research at IRCAM in Paris, where he designed the Spat software suite for spatial audio creation, performance and virtual reality.
Immersive Audio Podcast – Episode 22 Audio Design For Mixed Reality Panel at GDC feat. Jean-Marc Jot
Sofia Brazzola, Sennheiser
Sofia Brazzola is the User Experience Manager with the AMBEO team based at Sennheiser, where she leads user-centric research to validate and develop new solutions for a range of 3D audio applications. As part of the R&D team who developed the “AMBEO VR Mic”, she launched Sennheiser’s first early-adopters program by engaging with a community of beta-testers and content creators. She is currently leading Sennheiser’s Augmented Audio Developers Program, where early-adopters engagement, user-centric innovation and strategic marketing play another important role in AMBEO’s thought-leadership in AR audio.
Immersive Audio Podcast Episode 23 Sofia Brazzola
Kedar Shashidhar, Magic Leap
Kedar Shashidhar is an audio generalist focused on new realities. With a focus in 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 Magic Leap, Steam Audio, and Ossic. 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 AES, Game Sound Con, Indiecade, and more. Currently at Magic Leap, Kedar works 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. You can find his latest work in Magic Leaps Soundfield Audio toolset and a number of experiences on the Magic Leap platform.
Luis Marcelino, Evollu
Luis Marcelino is CTO at Evollu and an adjunct professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria. Evollu aims to help companies in the field of hearing rehabilitation increase their sales and expand their business. They use hearing tests and adaptive listening to support people in the process of improving their hearing. They have developed an augmented audio app that gives people “enhanced hearing.” This “enhanced hearing “ will allow users to selectively improve the quality of sound from different sources. This app was made for people with mild and moderate hearing loss, or for environments where it’s difficult to hear.
Per Beck Hansen, AWE
Per Beck Hansen is co-founder and CEO of AWE, a Danish startup working with audio development and design for interactive VR/AR. They have created projects from international VR installations to music driven health care solutions to augmented audio games for tourism. As part of the Ambeo development programme, AWE created the app 1807 for tourists in Copenhagen. Spatialized audio for visitors to Copenhagen – alternative to a tour guide. Users get to experience Copenhagen as it was 200 years ago, while under siege from the British. Expect guns and grenades.
Marc Green, University of York Audio Lab
Marc Green is a third-year PhD student at the University of York AudioLab. His research is focused on environmental soundscapes, with a view to utilising techniques from machine listening and spatial audio in their analysis. Using Sennheiser AMBEO technology, he has developed an AR app that could assist urban planners, researchers and architects in creating more positive acoustic environments for people to live and work in.
Damian Murphy, University of York
Damian Murphy is a Professor of Sound and Music Computing in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the University of York, where he has been a member of the academic staff since 2000. On top of that, he is the University Research Champion for Creativity. Damian was key in making links between the Sennheiser AMBEO programme and researchers at the University AudioLab to explore the potential for the creative use of augmented audio as part of our wider immersive audio research. One particular area of application is in the use of machine learning to understand and discern more information about our sound environment, and how augmenting this soundscape with additional audio content might change our perception of this soundscape. Damian’s PhD student Marc Green is currently leading on research in the area of spatial audio, machine learning and environmental soundscape and decided to look to how AMBEO technology might feature in his work.
Immersive Audio Podcast Episode 8 Damian Murphy
Eric Tarr, Belmont University
Dr. Eric Tarr is an associate professor of Audio Engineering Technology at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. He teaches classes on digital audio, computer programming, signal processing, and analysis. He received a Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Ohio State University. He received a B.A in Mathematics and a minor in Music from Capital University in Columbus, OH. He released an iOS app as a development partner with Sennheiser Electronic using the Smart AMBEO headset for VR/AR audio. The app simulates multiple types of hearing loss for use in hearing science research. It is called the Impaired Hearing Simulator (IHSIM) and is available for free from the iOS app store. He has developed software with several other audio companies including Apogee Electronics, Skywalker Sound, L.R. Baggs, and Harrison Consoles. His research has spanned across the topics of speech signal processing, musical robotics, sound spatialization, acoustic and electronic system modeling, hearing loss, perception and cognition.
This episode was produced by Felix Thompson and Oliver Kadel with the help of Abbigayle Bircham and Share O’Hare and included music by Knobs Bergamo, Isaac Joel and Yung Koolade.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by Helena McGill and Anna Wozniewicz of Noctvrnal via Skype from their office in LA.
Noctvrnal is an audio post-production studio based in Los Angeles. Co-founders Helena McGill and Anna Wozniewicz are visual storytellers with a background in sound design for narrative film. After noticing a lack of female entrepreneurs in audio and music production, the duo decided to launch Noctvrnal in January 2017 and have since expanded into the XR and immersive tech space. Noctvrnal is bringing an immersive sound design to the forefront of virtual and augmented reality by pushing the boundaries of current techniques to create a more visceral experience. The team is passionate about creating new worlds through sound, and their work has been featured at MIT, USC, and VRLA.
In this episode, they chat about the beginning of Noctvrnal, the advancement of the immersive technology, and talk about the importance of diversity in the creative industries.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel sits down with Tom Szirtes, the founder of Mbryonic.
Mbryonic is a London-based digital studio that create cutting edge virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and other digital content. They work with a wide variety of companies from Amazon to Essex Council to Gazelli Art House. Tom founded Mbryonic with a simple mission, to apply his creative and technical skillset to innovate business and artistic applications of technology.
Before Mbryonic, Tom has had years of experience as a lead developer and manager in the AAA gaming and telecommunications industry working for companies like Sega Europe, Square Enix and Orange.
Alongside this career, Szirtes is an established music producer, DJ and label owner. His music output spans over a decade, some fifty records and numerous international performances. This creativity is at the heart of Mbryonic as well. For Szirtes, the technology always serves creativity not the other way around.
On this episode, Oliver and Tom discuss the ways that virtual reality technology could enhance the experience of listening to music.
In this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by Sinan Bökesoy via Skype from Istanbul.
Sinan is a composer, developer and sound installation artist. He has an engineering degree from the Technical University of Istanbul and a PhD in computer music from the University of Paris. His Cosmosƒ stochastic synthesiser is one of the products of his research done during the PhD studies and is one of the rare examples that such research becomes available as an industry tool in the professional music scene.
Today, Sinan talks about composing with digital synthesisers, his work at SonicLab and the creation of Cosmosƒ.
In this episode of The Immersive Audio Podcast, host Oliver is joined by Darren Emerson who is producer, director and co-founder of VR City and East City Films.
Recorded in Christmas 2018, during the production of interactive documentary ‘Common Ground’, which recently had its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival 2019, Darren discusses the challenges of devising engaging and innovated work and what it takes to push the medium forward in a highly competitive industry. He talks to us about his journey into VR, his earlier VR documentaries “Indefinite” and “Witness 360:7/7”, and the challenges of running a business.
We also learn about how funding has developed for creatives and how the availability of financial support is helping to expand and grow the industry, enabling people to use new technology to be able to break rules and to push the boundaries, creating new and exciting ways of storytelling.
For this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined by Sofia Brazzola, the User Experience Manager with the AMBEO team based at Sennheiser.
Sofia holds a Master in Design with a focus on Research and Visual Communication, and in her professional experience at Sennheiser has honed music and technology innovation expertise. Sofia is the User Experience Manager at Sennheiser’s AMBEO team, where she leads user-centric research to validate and develop new solutions for a range of 3D audio applications.
As part of the R&D team who developed the “AMBEO VR Mic”, she launched Sennheiser’s first early-adopters program by engaging with a community of beta-testers and content creators. She is currently leading Sennheiser’s Augmented Audio Developers Program, where early-adopters engagement, user-centric innovation and strategic marketing play another important role in AMBEO’s thought-leadership in AR audio.
Today, Oliver and Sofia discuss the role of the AMBEO team, Sennheiser’s AMBEO line of products, and the Augmented Audio Developers Program.
In this episode, we bring you the highlights from the “Audio Design for Mixed Reality Applications” panel hosted by Sennheiser during the Game Developers Conference last week in San Francisco.
The panel featured Jean-Marc Jot, a Distinguished Fellow with Magic Leap, Gio Jacuzzi, a 3D Audio Software Engineer with the Sennheiser AMBEO Team, Jack Daniel Gerrard, the Head of Sound at 1RIC, and Orfeas Boteas, the Founder and CEO of Krotos. The panel was moderated by Oliver Kadel, Co-founder and Audio Lead of 1.618 Digital
The panel discussed the latest tools and the workflow for sound design for mixed reality as well as challenges and innovations that are shaping the future of the immersive audio industry.
Sennheiser
For the last 70 years, Sennheiser has been working to shape the future of the audio industry through the establishment and development of trends.
Today, Sennheiser produces the world’s finest headphones, microphones, wireless systems, and broadcast headsets for artists, disc jockeys, scientists, sound technicians, and demanding music-lovers.
The Sennheiser AMBEO Augmented Audio creates a truly immersive and compelling journey, by augmenting what you hear in addition to what you see. This work pushes the boundaries of spatial audio with the mission to create compelling audible AR experiences by blending virtual 3D sound with the real acoustic world.
AMBEO is Sennheiser’s program and trademark for truly immersive 3D audio, designed to create sound experiences with an incredibly high emotional impact. The program will cover products and technologies for the entire audio signal chain, from capture to mixing and processing to reproduction.
AMBEO operates with a height elevation that gives audio back its natural three-dimensional character, creating a totally new experience that is set to change music and sound forever. AMBEO products are consistently developed with an early involvement of users, producers, content providers and technology partners across the globe, creating tools that not only match their demands but also shape the future of audio.
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world’s largest professional game industry event, bringing together 28,000 attendees to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry with five days of education, inspiration, and networking. Attendees include programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games and immersive experiences.
Oliver Kadel – Moderator (Co-Founder /Audio Lead, 1.618 Digital)
Oliver Kadel is an award-winning audio engineer and sound designer based in London. In 2014, Oliver founded the immersive audio production collective 1.618 Digital. Oliver and his team of talented audio architects have produced over 100 immersive projects including branded content, films, music projects, games, immersive installations, experiences and charity work stretching across the globe, in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe. In 2018, Oliver launched the Immersive Audio Podcast which hosts industry experts and influential guests discussing all areas of immersive audio and the XR industry. The podcast has been highly commended as a valuable source of information for industry professionals and continues to grow its audience globally. More recently Oliver took on a new lecturing position, teaching Immersive Audio to Masters students at the University of West London.
Dr. Jean-Marc Jot joined Magic Leap to start up its audio algorithms team. Prior to this, Jot led DTS audio processing R&D and innovation. He had also led the development of SoundBlaster audio processing algorithms and architectures, including EAX and OpenAL technologies for game 3D audio authoring and rendering. Before relocating to California in the late 90s, he conducted research at IRCAM in Paris, where he designed the Spat software suite for spatial audio creation, performance and virtual reality.
Gio Jacuzzi is a 3D audio software engineer and experience designer for Sennheiser’s AMBEO innovation team, located in both San Francisco, California and Zurich, Switzerland. His research focuses on the integration of spatial audio technologies with XR applications, and he’s particularly interested in the potential for nonlinear and interactive music experiences in mixed reality. Gio currently leads the development of the AMBEO Lab application for Magic Leap and has contributed to the creation of Sennheiser’s spatial audio software suite and AMBEO AR One earphones.
Orfeas Boteas is the founder and CEO of Krotos. Krotos develops innovative audio software that fundamentally improves the way sound is made and performed. Their software is used by top studios in award-winning Films, TV, Games, Music, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications such as the Avengers, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, Jungle Book, Far Cry, Microsoft Hololens, and Life of Us VR. With years of experience in the entertainment industry, Orfeas holds a BSc in Music Technology and Acoustics including an MSc in Sound Design. Before starting Krotos, he also worked in audio post production and location recording for commercials, documentaries and TV Shows.
Jack Daniel Gerrard is an AR developer and the head of sound for 1RIC Studios. Jack focuses on narrative AR and believes spatial sound to be an even more crucial element to the medium than in traditional film. His work includes original score and sound design for Terminal 3, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2018, and A Jester’s Tale which was called “The best AR experience at Sundance” by The Verge.
This episode was produced by Oliver Kadel and Kaelyn Tindall with help from the Sennheiser team and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
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For this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, Oliver Kadel is joined via Skype by Dave Malham, ambisonics researcher, retired Experimental Officer at the University of York and half of the team behind the FuMa format.
Dave Malham’s professional interests are in digital audio and related computing systems, post-stereo multidimensional sound projection systems such as ambisonics, electroacoustic music and recording engineering. He worked in the Department of Music from 1973 to 2012 and was Experimental Officer in the Music Research Centre with special responsibility for the Music Technology Group, which he helped found in 1986.
During the 1980s he was responsible for the hardware and low level software that enabled the Composers Desktop Project computer music system to be realised on Atari ST computers. He developed this into the Audio Design SoundMaestro digital audio editing system.
Since then he has been responsible for the design of the Focusrite Blue245 20 bit, the Audio design PB4 18 bit and PB4+ 24bit stereo audio ADCs, as well as the microcontrollers, sensors and RF link technologies for the RIMM project and the hardware for Craig Vear’s “Singing, Ringing Buoy” project. He has written a number of VST plugins for ambisonic processing, the “MRC Stereometer” which implements Bob Katz’s K-system metering system as a VST plugin and, with Matt Paradis, the “ambilib” ambisonic processing library for PD as well as Max/MSP.
His research relates to digital audio, signal preservation, sound spatialisation and recording techniques. He has engineered 18 LPs and CDs and has edited several others. His research topics include advanced sound spatialisation technologies, the applications of spatialisation systems in musical composition and the development of sensing devices for musical performance applications. He has been an Audio Engineering Society member since 1975 and he has a patent, WO02085068, for the Ambisonic Sound Object Format.
Today, Oliver and Dave discuss the impact that Malham has had on the Immersive Audio industry we know today, audio production in the 70s and 80s, and the advancements of ambisonics into the digital era.
This episode was produced by Abbigayle Bircham, Gillian Duffy, Oliver Kadel, Felix Thompson and included music by Knobs Bergamo.
If you can, head to our page on iTunes and leave us a review and rating – it really helps us out in pushing our show further! The podcast is also available on Soundcloud and Stitcher.
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For this episode of the Immersive Audio Podcast, our team Oliver Kadel and Felix Thompson bring you the highlights from Immerse(d) event in London, bringing you interviews with some of the main speakers and other guests from the day.
Having already held events in Los Angeles and Montreal, Subpac’s event series headed to Ravensbourne University in South East London last weekend.
These meetings have brought together artists, scientists, practitioners and technologists, to explore how deep immersive sound and music are changing society.
There were several panels throughout the day, which looked at the deep cultural roots of bass in British Afro-Caribbean culture, and concepts such as how sound can be used to improve health and mindfulness.
There were several installations too. Guests were able to try out immersive experiences such as “Internal Garden”. By putting on a SUBPAC and headphones, users were able to hear and feel signals from plants.
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Shownotes
James Edward Marks
James E. Marks is an experimental new media provocateur. He is a creator of award-winning social video edutainment, and maker of immersive mixed and virtual reality experiences. With over 20 years of hands-on collaborations with alternative, pop culture branded and unbranded entertainment, James is Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer for DoubleMe, a Silicon Valley transformative tech start-up that’s pushing the boundaries of holographic mixed reality. He is also the founder of PsychFi Lab & Hackstock Festival. At PsychFi, he collaborates with the biggest social video & moving image artists, exploring immersive tech, psychology, psychedelia, sci-fi and pop culture.
Gary Pritchard is the Dean of the School of Media at Ravensbourne University. Ravensbourne is an innovative, industry-focused college based in Greenwich, that prepares students for careers in digital media and design.
Prior to his role at Ravensbourne University, he has significant experience at executive level in the both state and private education sectors and in commercial environments.
As Director of Talent at Forward 3D – a global digital marketing agency – Gary helped develop their leadership and development programme.
Steve Snooks is a sound designer and artist. Snooks runs an indie record label and dj sound system music and works at SubPac where he is involved with Partnership Development and Sales in Europe.
Magic beans is an immersive-audio startup that was founded by 3D audio pioneers Gareth Llewellyn and Jon Oliver. It maps high-definition spatial audio into the world around you – creating new kinds of mixed reality audio experience for brands, artists and visitor attractions.
Magic Beans work includes helping to create DotDotDot’s groundbreaking immersive theatre experience SOMNAI, while Gareth and Jon were the sound team behind The Philharmonia Orchestra’s acclaimed VR Sound Stage. Premiering in April at SXSW 2018 it went onto receive Royal approval from Prince William.
Earlier in their careers, Gareth and Jon were pioneers in 3D audio for cinema, mixing the world’s first immersive feature ‘Red Tails’ – in partnership with Skywalker Sound and LucasFilm.
Justin Wiggan is an artist who has worked in a variety of mediums, including sound, phonics, film and performance. His exhibitions have been displayed around the world, and at the Immerse(d) event was demonstrating his latest project – “Internal Garden: Life of Plants”. By using SUBPAC technology and headphones, Justin offers users an immersive experience that lets them feel and hear plant signals.
Lena has 17 years of hearing therapy experience. Drawing on her own background of hearing difficulties, she aims to help other adults with hearing loss to better understand and manage their conditions. She completed her training at Bristol University and the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital in 2004 and is a member of the Registration Council for Clinical Physiologists. Over the years Lena has held several clinical posts. These have included setting up the first Hearing Therapy service in Hertfordshire and working as an Advanced Hearing Therapist for 6 years at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital.
From his work as an International DJ to his current role as a sound architect, Tom Middleton has spent decades working in audio. Tom started his professional career as an Electronic Neo-Classical Composer and international touring DJ and Artist – sharing stages with the likes of Lady Gaga and Kanye West. Today, he designs psychoacoustic soundtracks and soundscapes for major brands and organisations. His audio sensory company SONUX aim to help global firms reduce stress, improve sleep, boost productivity, increase resilience and enhance performance.
Ari Peralta is the CEO and Founder of Arigami, a company that uses cutting edge neuroscience research into multi-sensory perception to help brands leave a lasting impression on consumers. Ari began his career at Nielsen Media Research, and has since become a Forbes recognized innovator and serial entrepreneur. Through his company Arigami, Ari now focuses on building the connection between multisensory cues, emotions and memory.
