Exposition Ideas 2

This cool proposal for a permanent sound exhibition looks to absorb unwanted sounds of over running water at Diglis Weir in Worcester:
http://www.liminal.org.uk/cochlea_unwound/

5.1 Surround Sound Definition

5.1 Surround Sound system was standardised and named for film in 1987, it is standard format for multichannel sound in the mass market today. The 5 stands for the 5 speakers/channels placed left, centre, right, left surround and right surround. The 0.1 speaker/channel is for Low-frequency Enhancement also known as a Subwoofer, this speaker is for low frequencies only with a greater headroom of 10dB than the other five speakers/channels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:5-1-surround-sound.svg

accessed 10/04/13

The LFE channel or subwoofer is often placed to the left or right of the centre channel; placement of the LFE/sub is not as important as the other 5 main channel because it is dedicated to only low-end frequencies which diffract more freely than higher frequencies.

References:

Holman Tomlinson, 2008,

Surround Sound Up and Running,

Second Edition

Personal Skills and Developement

Throughout this project project there are different skills and areas on which i would like to personally expand. I have previous experience working with 5.1 audio but not for purely music reproduction but audio that has accompanied visuals. I do have a fair amount in mixing and mastering music with a number of artists from different music genres, however this is for the stereo medium. Firstly i must set myself a few goals throughout this project to widen my knowledge and skills of 5.1 music production, not necessarily the recording side because i can source already published stereo material that i can remix in 5.1 surround sound but the mixing and mastering stages:

• Broaden knowledge of the mixing and mastering stages of 5.1 music production. 
• Learn how to exploit the 5.1 mediums attributes to their full potential in remixing source material.
• Develop investigative skills into cultural aspects relating to music reproduction. 

Exposition Ideas

One of the main problem that i will occur during putting together my exposition comes from the fact that i am presenting surround sound material. Now the surround sound system exploits the same cues that humans use to determine direction of sound sources. The 5.1 speaker system uses all three, while surround headphones only utilise one, which is head related transfer function. So there has to be a choice made wether to present my material using a 5.1 speaker arrangement or 5.1 headphones.

The basis of this exhibition is all around headphones and how the visitors can interact with the artwork with their own unique listening experience:

http://www.soundandmusic.org/projects/magnetic-consumer-christina-kubisch

Live Event Media Evaluation and Change in Project Concept

Since the last post there has been a change in the project concept. After Evaluating the recordings that were taking place in Dukes Corner and also the recordings of Rhuari Campbell, i found that the difference between the Upmixing and Microphone Array techniques was minimal. I believe the reasons for this are a follows:

1. The lack of a large audience made it difficult to create recordings that contained a good enough amount of audible crowd noise. This is one of the main aspects of live music recordings that create a sense of listener immersion; so that the listener feels like they are in the crowd of the original event.      
Lack of crowd = Lack of sound sources to create better sense of directionality and localisation.

2. Compromised microphone placement in the Dukes Corner event had undesired effect on the mix.
The microphone array was supposed to be placed as close to the crowd as possible (ideally in the middle), however this was not possible due to the lack of outputs on the venues mixing desk to record line outs from the DJ's mixing decks. In light of this i decided to place the array behind the DJ to create the mix from his perspective. However due to the lack of people at the event the array was no longer capturing enough crowd ambience but instead only captured room ambience and reverberation.

3. Time scale at this point i think became a huge factor, after all at this point i was half way through my project and i would have to now re-record events and these events would also have to a large crowd to gain mixes that would be suitable for testing.

4. I believe that the whole project concept wasn't that strong as most live event recordings are not completely audio based but most of the time include visuals for DVD and Television broadcast purposes. A large part of reproducing live events is obviously in the recording of the audio, however visuals also place a huge part in event reproduction.


New Concept:

It is for these reason that i decided at this point to change the project concept to a more stronger/solid idea. While carrying out research i came across many references to 5.1 Surround Sound and it's uses in the Film and Games Industry, however not much in the way of it's uses in the Music Industry:

"In modern times we see it (Surround sound) firmly established in applications accompanying a picture for movies and television, but in other areas such as purely for music reproduction broad success has been more elusive. However using history as a guide to the future there may well be a broader place for surround music in coming years" 

Holman Tomlinson, 2008, 

Surround Sound - Up and Running, Second Edition

It is for this reason that i am changing my project concept, to focus on how and why 5.1 surround sound has became almost a standard format for the Film Industry and is becoming more popular in the Games Industry, with different surround systems such as headphones dedicated for purely gaming purposes. But however stereo is still the standard format for the music industry and not much in the way of surround audio is available purely for music reproduction. I have produced a new aim and set of objectives which are as follows:

Aim:
An investigation into the listener preference between stereo and 5.1 surround sound music. This study is purely investigating the listener preference between the two playback formats' uses in music reproduction.

Objectives:

1. Define the main differences between stereo and 5.1 surround music production.


2. Produce 5.1 Surround Sound mixes of two pieces of music from contrasting genres.


3. Test the Listener Preference between the Surround Sound mix and the original Stereo mix of the two   contrasting pieces of music.


4. Produce a questionnaire to find out how people currently purchase, access and playback their music.