Capturing the acoustic response of historical spaces for interactive music performance and recording

Abstract

Performers engaged in musical recording while they are located in relatively dry recording studios generally find their musical performance facilitated when they are provided with synthetic reverberation. This well established practice is extended in the project described here to include highly realistic virtual acoustic recreation of original rooms in which Haydn taught his students to play pianoforte. The project has two primary components, the first of which is to capture for posterity the acoustic response of such historical rooms that may no longer be available or functional for performance. The project’s second component is to reproduce as accurately as possible the virtual acoustic interactions between a performer and the re-created acoustic space, as performers, during their performance, move relative to their instrument and the boundaries of surrounding enclosure. In the first of two presentations on this ongoing project, the method for measurement of broadband impulse responses for these historical rooms is described. The test signal is radiated by a group of omnidirectional loudspeakers approximating the layout and the complex directional radiation pattern of the pianoforte, and the room response is sampled by a spaced microphone array. The companion presentation will describe the method employed for virtual acoustic reproduction for the performer.