sonic surrounds

The article below is copied directly from the Spatial Audio Research blog of the Quality and Usability Lab at TU Berlin in order to help spread the word on this toolbox.  The toolbox comes from the AABBA Project (aural assessment by means of binaural algorithms) [pdf], which was introduced by Jens Blauert at the 2009 International Symposium on Auditory and Audiological Research (ISAAR).
I’ve been using their Auditory Modelling Toolbox for the Lindemann analysis below, and found it to be very well developed.

July 26, 2010 in MATLAB by Hagen Wierstorf | No comments

A new version of the growing Auditory Modelling Toolbox has been released. The main new feature is a binaural model after Lindemann (1986a) that uses a running cross-correlation with inhibition to predict the perceived lateralization of an auditory event. The output of the model depends on the auditory filters and on the time (see figure below).

To install it, you can download it from Sourceforge. You also have to install the Linear Time/frequency Toolbox. Then in Matlab or Octave just go to the directories of the toolboxes and run:

>> ltfatstart
>> amtstart

After this you are able to use the Lindemann model, see help lindemann for an introduction. To produce the figure below, you can run:

>> demo_lindemann;

Another very nice feature is the function exp_lindemann1986a that is able to reproduce the figures of the Lindemann paper. For example to reproduce figure 6 of the paper, just type exp_lindemann('fig6'). The model is under further development and will include in the next release a version of the method proposed byGaik (1993) to identify natural combinations of ITDs and ILDs. Further a version of theBreebaart model will also be included in one of the next releases.

I think this is an audaciously brilliant response to the present proliferation of sound artists working with field recordings (brought about largely by cheaper technology of a suitable quality)…

It’s probably not a particularly new idea, given the history of musique concrete, noise machines, the ideas of John Cage, etc (although i’m certainly not an expert on this history). Also, an idea like this is impressive just in the official support that would be required from the host city to approve and pull it off.  For instance, I don’t imagine seeing this in London without a really big name behind it.

I’m speaking of a live sound performance by Staalplaat Soundsystem and others, “playing” the trains, travellers, bicycles and other occupants of the Central Station in The Hague, Netherlands (see the description & video below).

Isn’t this exactly what many field recording artists are attempting to do in producing/performing sound montages?  - i.e. create some sort of musical composition comprised of the timbres, rhythms and frequencies of disparate sound elements in a way you would never hear them together in life? In this performance, a simple video documentary by one audience member records (a lower quality version) of the type of sound field recording composers attempt often - but in this performance, every member of the audience would have had a unique experience, mediated by their own existence and movements within the performance site…  it’s so much more than a composition playing back from a laptop, improvised or not.

Station to Station @ TodaysArt08 from mediateletipos on Vimeo.

TODAYS ART 2008
FRIDAY 26th Sep 2008, The Hague (NL)
[performance] @ CENTRAL STATION - 19:00

STAALPLAAT SOUNDSYSTEM, MIKE RIJNIERSE, ACHIM WOLLSCHEID, MARK BAIN AND ERIK HOBIJN : STATION TO STATION
Amsterdam / Berlin (NL / DE)

This opening performance is not just any performance. It uses instruments, but highly unusual ones; the Central Station-building itself, including all the people and other sources of sound, such as machines, are interpreted by the artists as instruments. This performance does not distinguish between ‘music’ and ’sound’. As a part of the act, in cooperation with NS (=the Dutch railroad company), a whole range of trains and trams will enter the station in a strict choreography called The Tsunami, with all the train and tram engineers working together. Sounds from travellers will also be amplified through microphones as part of the performance, and Achim Wollscheid will use computer-driven magnets that play the bicycles in front of the station like a toposonic typewriter. The performance is formed by a collaboration between Staalplaat Soundsystem, Mike Rijnierse, Achim Wollscheid, Mark Bain and Erik Hobijn.

[via ../mediateletipos)) blog]