Auralization Techniques Research Articles

Physics-based scintillations for outdoor sound auralization.

The sound propagating in a turbulent atmosphere fluctuates in amplitude and phase. This phenomenon, known as acoustic scintillation, is caused by random fluctuations in the acoustic refractive index of the air induced by atmospheric turbulence. Auralization techniques should consider this phenomenon to increase the realism of the synthetic sound. This paper proposes a physics-based formulation to model sequences of log-amplitude and phase fluctuations of a sound propagating in a turbulent atmosphere. This method applies to slanted and vertical propagation of the sound, which is useful for simulating elevated noise sources such as aircraft, drones, and wind turbines. The theoretical framework is based on the spatial correlation functions for the log-amplitude and phase fluctuations for spherical waves, the von Kármán spectrum, and similarity theories to model atmospheric turbulence. Two applications with audio files are presented to demonstrate the applicability of this method to tonal and broadband noise.

The African as Compared to European and American Film Adaptation: Some African Techniques of Film Adaptation from Novels

Adaptation study is a sub-branch of comparative literature that makes the bond between literature and cinema. Both literature and cinema are two different media and each has its own language to convey meaning. This article studies the African techniques of film adaptation from novels such as <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i> by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Biyi Bandele’s film in 2013 with the same title. With the advancement of technology, people are gradually shifting from the culture of reading novels to that of watching adapted films, which becomes a problem, as it tends to affect their knowledge of that particular text. Thus, how does the African filmmaker, as compared to other European and American filmmakers, leave from the novel to the film? The hypothesis to this question is that there is a number of pure African techniques that the filmmaker uses in the adaptation of the novel such as editing, sound, modified scenes, excluded scenes and invented scenes. The elements of this study are analysed using the Film Adaptation Theory based on Linda Hutcheon approach and the Film Analysis Method, which is a pure qualitative method. The findings of this study show that, the visual and aural techniques used by the filmmaker are all involved to create a film with a new vision having specific effects on the audience. There is therefore a difference between a novel and a film so; depending solely on the film adaptation to get the meaning embedded in the novel is erroneous.

Case study of a Brothertown Indian Nation cultural heritage site—Toward a framework for acoustics heritage research in simulation, analysis, and auralization

The Brothertown Indian Nation and their ancestors have a centuries old heritage of group singing beginning along the Northeast Atlantic coast of what is now the United States and following them along their migration to the Midwest. The 18th century Curricomp cabin still stands in Connecticut and was an important location in the singing history and political movement that built Brothertown (Eeyamquittoowauconnuck). In this paper, a collaboration with Brothertown Indian Nation and an ongoing public humanities project regarding the Tribe’s aural traditions, a case study will be presented that investigates (1) the results of acoustic modeling and simulation of the Curricomp cabin and (2) auralizations for both binaural listening and a spatial audio installation using those models. Significantly, this paper employs a novel theoretical framework for acoustic heritage research that allows for (3) an analysis of how the scientific process and technological practices mediate intangible heritage. The acoustic models and auralization techniques created in this case study provide acoustic access to a heritage location that would otherwise be inaccessible to the Brothertown Community. The auralizations used in the spatial audio installation serve as a public humanities tool to amplify the contemporary voice of the Brothertown Indian Nation.

Case study of a Brothertown Indian Nation cultural heritage siteToward a framework for acoustics heritage research in simulation, analysis, and auralization

The Brothertown Indian Nation and their ancestors have a centuries old heritage of group singing beginning along the Northeast Atlantic coast of what is now the United States and following them along their migration to the Midwest. The 18th century Curricomp cabin still stands in Connecticut and was an important location in the singing history and political movement that built Brothertown (Eeyamquittoowauconnuck). In this paper, a collaboration with Brothertown Indian Nation and an ongoing public humanities project regarding the Tribe’s aural traditions, a case study will be presented that investigates (1) the results of acoustic modeling and simulation of the Curricomp cabin and (2) auralizations for both binaural listening and a spatial audio installation using those models. Significantly, this paper employs a novel theoretical framework for acoustic heritage research that allows for (3) an analysis of how the scientific process and technological practices mediate intangible heritage. The acoustic models and auralization techniques created in this case study provide acoustic access to a heritage location that would otherwise be inaccessible to the Brothertown Community. The auralizations used in the spatial audio installation serve as a public humanities tool to amplify the contemporary voice of the Brothertown Indian Nation.

Auralization of Concert Halls for Touristic Purposes

Abstract This paper presents the progress implemented during the AURA project, funded by the Creative-Europe program with project partners from Germany, Italy, and Ukraine. The project aims to create auralized applications for three music venues in each of the project countries, namely the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Teatro del Maggio in Florence, and the Opera House Lviv. Each will be digitally recreated and auralized before they are then used to conduct case studies. This paper gives insights into current digitalization and auralization techniques. The results of a digital survey will be laid out and the conception and implementation of a first auralized prototype using a hand-modeled 3D object from the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus Berlin will be demonstrated. Furthermore, the usage of auralization for touristic purposes will be investigated using artificial intelligence for an audience preference analysis. A conclusion will be drawn and a short outlook into the ongoing course of the AURA project will be given.

Soundscapes, evocalization and poetics of the everyday in ‘An Epiphany Tale’ by George Mackay Brown

The article traces the orientation of ‘An Epiphany Tale’ (published in 1983) by George Mackay Brown on establishing and maintaining the contact with the reader through the development of multiple aesthetic and aural techniques that are rooted in the tradition of modernism, but expanding and transposing it to a considerable degree. Brown adopts a quasi-philosophical way of narrating a story that anticipates the contemporary existential, phenomenological and aesthetic theoretical insights. The aim of the discussion is to present the text’s semiotic patterns and relate them to the phonetic devices that contribute to what Garrett Stewart called the principle of evocalization. This helps to determine how Brown functionalizes the evoked soundscapes (as theorized by Schafer) and connects them with philosophical and anagogic orientation in reception so as to exploit the story’s thematic focus on a series of epiphanies that reveal the underlying semiotic and aesthetic aspects of ordinary existence. The short story reveals a variety of direct and indirect techniques that create an opposition between what is suggested of reality and what is demonstrated on the level of artistic, literary communication.

The Art of Theatrical Sound Design: A Practical Guide by Victoria Deiorio

Reviewed by: The Art of Theatrical Sound Design: A Practical Guide by Victoria Deiorio Jessica Greenberg The Art of Theatrical Sound Design: A Practical Guide. By Victoria Deiorio. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2018; pp. 240. Victoria Deiorio's The Art of Theatrical Sound Design: A Practical Guide is a useful and accessible introduction to the theory and craft of theatrical sound design that would be an excellent text in a foundational sound-design course. Educators and designers at the college level, and perhaps the high school level, would find this book appropriate for introductory courses or for mentoring young designers. The core goals are well-stated in the introduction: "You will come to understand how what one hears can play into our emotional state and how the physics of sound plays upon our physical bodies … and more importantly, how sound designers use that knowledge to artistically support the visual expression of theatre art" (1). Deiorio draws on her extensive experience as a designer, composer, and educator to provide a foundation in sound theory, real-world production examples, and classroom exercises in her three-part text. Part 1 focuses on the theoretical foundation of sound and lays the ground work for the creative and collaborative processes discussed later in parts 2 and 3. Deiorio begins with an explanation of how humans experience sound and vibrations in the world, influenced by our physiology and our psychology, and then focuses on how an emotional response is evoked through that experience. Learning this context assists in moving previously subconscious impacts of sound to a conscious level, as Deiorio teaches the reader how to analyze and describe sounds in the world with new specificity and awareness. She discusses the physics of sound waves in architectural space and sound technology tools within the context of the choices that designers must make. This section gives an introduction to the qualities and functions of sound that designers can intentionally manipulate to evoke a specific response in their audiences. Part 2 offers exercises for practical classroom activities to help students build creative design skills. Exercises in this section first strengthen aural techniques and vocabulary, including ways to use ambiance, repetition, droning, and punctuation for dramatic effect. As a case study that she returns to throughout part 2 of the book, Deiorio breaks down her sound design for a professional production of the play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and uses it to illustrate the sonic concepts presented both succinctly and effectively. Particularly effective is the section on "Theatrical Application of Themes," in which she discusses analyzing themes in a script and then mapping sonic qualities to those themes. The chapter includes a table of contrasting themes, or "Intellectual Dualities" matched to the "Sonic Dualities" one might choose to convey those themes in a sound design. For example, "good vs. evil" could be explored using "organic vs. inorganic" sounds, or "life vs. death" could be explored using "major key vs. minor key" music. After sharing her own process connecting themes to sonic qualities in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Deoirio leads the reader through the creation of a three-part mini soundscape using this process. With the step-by-step instructions and reflection questions provided, instructors could easily adapt this exercise into an in-class activity or assignment. After the artistic sound-design exercises, a section on sound dramaturgy follows. Deiorio argues that "[a]s artists, sound designers must have an understanding of the other artists' work they will be using or emulating, and the culture that evoked the art" (6), and this chapter offers a broad overview of historical trends in music from the 1600s to the present day. It is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather to offer a summary of form, structure, and sonic "special ingredients" featured in these music periods. Here, Deiorio draws connections between the aural techniques learned in the previous chapters and the qualities found in the musical [End Page 220] genres and historical periods. This section can be a helpful starting point for students before they conduct more specific research on their own. Part 3 explores the collaborative artistic process and also the practical responsibilities of being a theatrical sound designer. The...

The Sound Representation of an Opera House’s Orchestra Pit: The Stereo Dipole Technique

By using 2 or 4 loudspeakers, the stereo dipole technique is able to realize the virtual sound field of an auditorium in an anechoic listening room. Making use of binaural impulse responses (BIRs) measured in the auditorium and the auralization technique, the virtual BIR can be generated. The accuracy of the sound representation is investigated by comparing the real and virtual BIRs. For a well-diffused sound field like concert halls, this technique enables a highly accurate representation of the sound field. Yet, when the sound source is in the small regularly shaped enclosures like an orchestra pit of an opera house, a peculiar amplification contained in the low-frequency range of the measured BIR is still more emphasized in the virtual BIR disturbing the linear sound representation. This study aims for the solution to this problem.

Archives of German Anthropology and Colonialism in Philip Scheffner’sThe Halfmoon Files

This article examines German filmmaker Philip Scheffner’s 2007 film The Halfmoon Files: A Ghost Story about the Halfmoon Camp, a German WWI colonial prisoner-of-war camp. Extensive anthropological research was carried out upon its prisoners, and the camp was also the subject of popular colonial representations. Scholars and others made sound recordings, photographs, films, and drawings and recorded details of prisoners, this documentation now located in German archives. The film considers intertwined histories of German anthropology and colonialism at the camp by means of such documents and is also drawn to traces and mediated presences of individuals held there, evoked especially through sound recordings. Moreover, it looks searchingly at contemporary landscapes for traces and repression of this colonial history. Overall, the film is characterised by a sense of incompleteness of the archive, a layering of visual and aural techniques of display and absence, and metaphors of haunting, producing a ‘ghost story’.

Contrapuntal Aurality: Exceptional Sound in Hollywood Monster Horror Films during the Early Sound Era

ABSTRACT:At the dawn of the early sound-film era, Eisenstein worried about the prospect of sound merely duplicating images, and such concern was realized during the early years of the talkies. One exception, however, was the use of disembodied sound in Hollywood monster horror films. This aspect of early classical horror cinema has been curiously neglected or understated by critics, including Eisenstein himself. The aim of this article is to foster a renewed appreciation of this aural technique by showing that contrapuntal use of off-screen sound was present in key scenes of essentially all Hollywood monster horror films in the early 1930s.

Living as an Onna in Japanese Cinema

This essay situates the impossible volume of Japanese pink filmmaker Hamano Sachi's more than three hundred films as a reproductive labor, arguing that through its iterative enactments her filmmaking practice performs renewals that invigorate her life as an onna (woman) in cinema and make it possible in the first place. The argument advances that we might understand Hamano's pink cinema as a woman's cinema that rewrites sex in non-phallic terms, borrowing from the artist and social theorist Bini Adamczak's theory of circlusive sex. Reading the visual and aural techniques of Hamano's pink cinema alongside her autobiography, the conflicts and desires Hamano faces as a woman in film, which recruit her reproductive labor to nourish her very existence, are brought into conversation. Because the autobiography implicates structures of value located in legible, visible forms, the essay ultimately advocates for investing in the material articulations of Hamano's pink forms.

Simulation of acoustic environments—Part 1: Computer models

Simulation and auralization techniques are established in applications of room acoustics for quite a while. Research projects are currently focusing on a coordinated effort to improve the complete signal chain from the numerical modeling, the data acquisition within numerical or real sound fields, the coding and transmission to the electro-acoustic reproduction by binaural technology or by sound field synthesis. Approaches for the comparative evaluation of real and simulated environments will enable the evaluation of the plausibility and/or the authenticity of virtual acoustic environments. The state of the art is revisited and discussed along the series of the three past “round robins on room acoustic computer simulation.”

Auralizations with loudspeaker arrays from a phased combination of the image source method and acoustical radiosity

In order to create a simulation tool that is well-suited for small rooms with low diffusion and highly absorbing ceilings, a new room acoustic simulation tool has been developed that combines a phased version of the image source with acoustical radiosity and that considers the angle dependence of the surface properties. The new tool is denoted PARISM, and here PARISM is used to create loudspeaker array-based auralizations. Different auralization techniques are compared, such as Ambisonics, vector-based panning, and the method of nearest loudspeaker. The implementations of the auralization techniques with PARISM are described and compared to implementations of auralizations with another geometrical acoustic simulation tool, i.e., ODEON and the LoRA toolbox that applies Ambisonics to ODEON simulations. In opposition to the LoRA toolbox, higher order Ambisonics are also applied to the late part of the PARISM impulse response, because more directional information is available with acoustical radiosity. Small rooms with absorbing surfaces are tested, because this is the room type that PARISM is particularly useful for.

Sounds of Time and Place

ABSTRACT The author describes various aural techniques developed as part of the origination of the sonic content of compositions themed on palimpsests of time and place. Field-based recordings, authentic and synthetic impulse responses, convolution reverb and the use of third-party sounds retrieved via open programmatic interfaces are considered. The role of usability feedback is also discussed, specifically its beneficial impact on informing the development both of the compositions and the techniques they utilize. An initial mobile phone application is described, together with continuing work to develop additional mobile experiences.

Measurement-based auralization methodology for the assessment of noise mitigation measures

The effect of noise mitigation measures is generally expressed by noise levels only, neglecting the listener׳s perception. In this study, an auralization methodology is proposed that enables an auditive preview of noise abatement measures for road traffic noise, based on the direction dependent attenuation of a priori recordings made with a dedicated 32-channel spherical microphone array. This measurement-based auralization has the advantage that all non-road traffic sounds that create the listening context are present. The potential of this auralization methodology is evaluated through the assessment of the effect of an L-shaped mound. The angular insertion loss of the mound is estimated by using the ISO 9613-2 propagation model, the Pierce barrier diffraction model and the Harmonoise point-to-point model. The realism of the auralization technique is evaluated by listening tests, indicating that listeners had great difficulty in differentiating between a posteriori recordings and auralized samples, which shows the validity of the followed approaches.

The Developing Relationship Among Cognition, Amplification, and Aural Rehabilitation

The search for best practices in hearing aid fittings and aural rehabilitation has generally used the audiogram and function stemming from peripheral sensitivity. In recent years, however, we have learned that individuals respond differently to various hearing aid and aural rehabilitation techniques based on cognitive abilities. In this paper, we review basic concepts of working memory and the literature driving our knowledge in newer concepts of hearing aid fitting and aural rehabilitation.

Archaeoacoustics of intangible cultural heritage: The sound of the Maior Ecclesia of Cluny

Abstract Some major historical heritage which has disappeared over time can currently be recovered in part thanks to computer modeling tools and virtual reality technologies. Incorporating sensory experience using immaterial reconstruction constitutes a new form of knowledge and a major methodological change in the field of cultural heritage. Archaeoacoustics are used to introduce phenomenology as a new method for the analysis of historical heritage, allowing evaluation of the sound quality of a space based on subjective perception by using auralization techniques which allow cognitive and physical elements to be reproduced and combined. This study assess and recover the acoustics of a now extinct major religious space: the Maior Ecclesia in Cluny, recognised as European heritage. Its long reverberation times produced a grandiose acoustic experience of Gregorian chant, heightening spirituality. Its extensive choir served as a place of spatial reference, because of its location in the temple and its major role in the liturgy. It could be defined as an ecclesiola in ecclesia with an identity of its own. The sound of the Gregorian chant of the monks was perceived clearly and powerfully within this space. However, the high reverberance perceived in the rest of the spaces of the church transformed the chant into an unintelligible, inaudible signal.

“Submitting Love?” A Sensory Sociology of Southbourne

This article seeks to remember the Southbourne building of Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom, which housed students, academics, and administrative staff until August 2014. Data were collected from an ethnographic observation study of students handing in completed coursework. Findings are presented in the form of an audio “soundscape” and a literary narrative. It is argued that these hypermodal tools should form a growing part of qualitative inquiry as sensory social research. The historic application and practical impediments of such sensorial and aural techniques are discussed, alongside the challenge they provide to the received practices concerning how journal articles can be experienced.

Soundscape approach to evaluate outdoor acoustic spaces in nature

This study aims to evaluate the acoustical quality of outdoor acoustic spaces in nature based on soundscape approach. Acoustic taxonomy of sonic events, acoustic itineraries and acoustic calendars were studied at a national park. Long time noise level measurements were performed. In addition, acoustical quality of outdoor acoustic spaces was investigated by impulse response measurements and auralization techniques. A questionnaire was administered to qualitatively evaluate acoustical quality of the acoustic spaces. The results reveal the importance of acoustical evaluation of acoustic spaces in nature. The acoustical quality of sonic events is determined by that of the acoustical spaces that are characterized by natural elements. The sound reflections off the natural surfaces of the acoustic spaces are characterized by the impulse response technique. Subjects with critical listening experience have significantly different perception of sounds in terms of Loudness, Reverberance, Echoes, Naturalness and Musical Quality among different outdoor acoustical spaces.

Virtual Acoustics

Abstract Virtual Reality (VR) systems are used in engineering, architecture, design and in applications of biomedical research. The component of acoustics in such VR systems enables the creation of audio-visual stimuli for applications in room acoustics, building acoustics, automotive acoustics, environmental noise control, machinery noise control, and hearing research. The basis is an appropriate acoustic simulation and auralization technique together with signal processing tools. Auralization is based on time-domain modelling of the components of sound source characterization, sound propagation, and on spatial audio technology. Whether the virtual environment is considered sufficiently accurate or not, depends on many perceptual factors, and on the pre-conditioning and immersion of the user in the virtual environment. In this paper the processing steps for creation of Virtual Acoustic Environments and the achievable degree of realism are briefly reviewed. Applications are discussed in examples of room acoustics, archeological acoustics, aircraft noise, and audiology.