Ambisonic software for SFP

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 9:27 am

Hi everybody,
If anyone is interested in ambisonics, Dr. Thomas Chen has developed an interesting software for SFP. Have a look at: http://www.ambisonic.net/tchen.html. He hasn't set the price for it as yet. You can address him with any suggestions and possibly apply for beta testing of the software.

Gedas

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:21 am

Broken link?

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:32 am

He add a point after the link. This works.
http://www.ambisonic.net/tchen.html

next to nothing · Post by **next to nothing** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:48 am

oh, i missed that one

My only critisism here is that he should do some graphical work

snoopy4ever · Post by **snoopy4ever** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 10:55 am

I think it's very interesting..., would you guys think SFP would be a good candidate to become the next surround powerhouse DAW???

cheers.

Snoopy

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:06 am

and I'm not sure what the hell this is all about.. anyone care to fill me in on the details? Sounds like a surround scheme, but ambiosonic? B format? heh?

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2004-02-11 11:07 ]

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:21 am

he got BigMixer graphics!

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:22 am

It was completely new to me when I heard it first. Although the concept of ambisonics is somewhat 20 years old. Read through that site. In short it's taking the surround further, more suitable for music. According to T. Chen, stereo is like a collage, ambisonics bring it closer to a real picture.

Immanuel · Post by **Immanuel** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:26 am

Do I see a retro trend or something. Celmo is making BAM old style too.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:27 am

It looks most interesting, and easy to use as well... It is fantastic to be able to put sounds individualy in ANY of the four posicions... Impressive!

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 11:34 am

kensuguro wrote:

and I'm not sure what the hell this is all about.. anyone care to fill me in on the details? Sounds like a surround scheme, but ambiosonic? B format? heh?

I think it's to do with how the brain works out where a sound source is in the 3-D space around your head.

Sound arrives at the ears a) at slightly different times, b) with different phase variations.

These timing and phase variations are what the brain uses to work out where the sound is coming from.

Reversing this process, if subtle timing & phase variations are applied to sounds in a stereo mix, then the individual sounds can be made to sound as if they originate from different 3D positions.

A friend of mine did a computing masters based on this. People sat on a chair, blindfolded with headphones on. Processed sound (in accordance with the above) was fed to the headphones. They swiveled the chair until they were facing the 'direction' of the sound. Further to this, a solid-state compass with some funky software recorded the direction they pointed in. Analysis was made between where the sound 'should' have been perceived to be coming from and where the people actually heard the sound coming from.

(At least, that's what I think this is about!)

Royston

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 12:24 pm

doesn't look great (gui) but looking forward to hear it... Stupid question ; Is this only for surround 5.1 or for stereo too ?
I would love a "stereo-to-3d" tool that would impress me (none of them did , except very old systems i have been lucky to test but never came out commercially).

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2004-02-11 12:25 ]

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 12:45 pm

It can be used for stereo as well, you would sort of extract ambisonic channels from the stereo mix and add them. As far as I understand reproduction is still a bit of a problem. You can use DVD-Audio using MLP compression for encoding B+ format info. Then at the other end, when reproducing the music, it would play according to the capabilities of the system - from stereo to a full ambisonic mix. The media is already available (DVD-Audio or SACD), but additional decoders for ambisonics are yet to be developed. Until then I guess ambisonic mixes could be enjoyed by SFP community members as a privileged class

.

j9k · Post by **j9k** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 3:49 am

i hate to sound like a wet noodle but(not always

) .... are there any dates on that site? it looks like they are using dp 1.2

j9k

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 4:07 am

looks a bit like it should/could have a joystick. For effects like those in Echoes, performed by Pink Floyd (Allen Parsons), way back, when I was young... BTW: the joystick was placed on top of the organ to control the output of the speaker towers placed in each corner of the concert hall.

GonZoft · Post by **GonZoft** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 6:50 am

On 2004-02-11 11:34, Counterparts wrote:

People sat on a chair, blindfolded with headphones on. Processed sound (in accordance with the above) was fed to the headphones. They swiveled the chair until they were facing the 'direction' of the sound.

Let me guess how the test ended: After a while, the more intelligent ones realised that turning to the sound direction didn't work, since the headphones would turn too. They took the headphones off and lost interest. They were given some sugar and brought back to their cages. The more daft ones are still there, spinning around with the chairs, trying to catch their own tail.

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 7:01 am

-perhaps the sound stopped, listener turned, software reset?

i think it's

[ This Message was edited by: wayne on 2004-02-12 07:04 ]

Grok · Post by **Grok** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 5:16 am

Ambisonic is an aproach to do real 3D mixes, and recordings.

Search with the word "ambisonic", in Google or another.

The name of the genius who has conceived the ambisonic thing, and died relatively young some years ago is Michael Gerzon. You can search with this name, too; this guy is VERY respected for his tremendous work

Best,
Grok