UNews - digital audio arts

Sakamoto Award winners researching the 9.1 surround sound environment

trevor.kenney — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 23:11:41 +0000

Shae Brossard and Andrew Spencer, fourth-year bachelor of music students with majors in digital audio arts, have been awarded the 2014 Joyce and Ron Sakamoto Prize.

Andrew Spencer and Shae Brossard are exploring the potential of three-dimensional sound reproduction with respect to perception of sound.

“The Sakamotos generously created this prize to acknowledge and foster research excellence in digital audio arts here at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ,” says Dr. Deanna Oye, music department chairperson. “This is the largest music award in fine arts, with the recipients receiving $5,000 for research-related expenses.”

The students intend to explore the possibilities of the 9.1 surround sound environment. They credit their mentor and digital audio arts professor, Thilo Schaller, with helping them get organized.

“He's helped us narrow our focus, refine our ideas and develop a doable project,” says Spencer. “We are very pleased to have our project selected for this honour.”

With almost four months of research under their belt, Brossard and Spencer are about halfway through their ambitious undertaking.

“We are exploring perception and production aesthetics using a 9.1 speaker configuration with height channels,” says Brossard. “The 9.1 system is a fairly new format.”

He adds that sound systems by Auro3D, the company that proposes the 9.1 format, are used in only a couple of theatres in Canada, although three-dimensional audio is starting to become more prominent in the movie industry.

“We are exploring the potential of three-dimensional sound reproduction with respect to perception of sound," adds Spencer. "Our aim is to develop a thorough understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the 9.1 playback format with the addition of height information.”

The students want to creatively exploit the possibilities of the system to improve the listener’s experience, making it more immersive and engaging.

“We already know one strength of the 9.1 system is that the sound comes from multiple directions,” says Spencer. “This means the listener is enveloped in a more natural sound experience because it has the potential to recreate sound reflections from all directions."

Since conducting listening tests involves people, the students had to design their tests and then obtain approval from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ’s Human Subjects Committee.

“The whole process has been a learning experience for us,” says Brossard. “It’s been going quite well so far.”

The elaborate project has several facets.

“We are exploring perception, localization, aesthetic preferences and spatial mixes,” says Spencer. “Our ultimate goal is to create music using this environment to its best advantage.”

“We also want to determine whether there is a difference in perception between different types of listeners,” says Brossard. “We are separating the average consumer of music from avid listeners and expert or technical listeners.”

The researchers are using music faculty as expert listeners, while other digital audio arts majors provide intermediate listeners - people with some experience with careful listening. Non-music majors are being used as beginner or non-technical listeners.

Using a clip from a song the pair composed and recorded last spring, they tested 26 subjects using the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's Studio 1 as their lab. The students expect to spend most of the next semester analyzing the information they collected and developing their conclusions. In addition to doing a public presentation of their results in the spring, they plan to record three of their original songs using fellow student musicians and taking advantage of the information they gained from their research.

“It is exciting to think that we are adding to the general body of knowledge,” says Spencer. “Who knows, this could help us develop our career niche.”

Digital audio arts team takes second place in international recording competition

trevor.kenney — Tue, 13 May 2014 17:37:35 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge‘s expert team of digital audio arts majors has taken the Runner Up prize in the 10th annual Shure Fantastic 10 Scholastic Recording Competition - the first year that the American competition has been open to Canadian schools. The U of L Shure Recording Team, as the group called themselves, won more than $7,200 worth of Shure microphones and headphones for the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, and individual team members also received Shure microphones and headphones.

The U of L team consisted of (L to R) Jamison Humeny, Jake Hills, Sam Walker-Kierluk, Shae Brossard and Nicholas Goodman.

“We were thrilled to have been selected as one of only 10 schools in Canada and the United States to compete,” says Thilo Schaller, music faculty supervisor. “I am very proud of our team. They put their hearts and souls into this project and deserve the award.”

For the last 10 years, Shure Inc., an audio products corporation, has worked with audio education departments at universities across the United States, and this year Canada, to find tomorrow’s talented engineers. The schools were selected randomly from those who applied to compete. The U of L Shure Recording Team was also selected randomly from digital audio arts majors who expressed an interest in being involved. Team members were Jamison Humeny, Jake Hills, Sam Walker-Kierluk, Shae Brossard and Nicholas Goodman.

The other nine participating schools were: Berklee College of Music, Daytona State College, Ithaca College, Lamont School of Music (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Denver), MacEwan ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, The Hartt School (��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Hartford), ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Central Missouri, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Colorado Denver, and Tennessee State ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, which took the grand prize.

The challenge was to create a recording by tracking and mixing the performance of an original piece of music exclusively using Shure microphones, which Shure provided on a loan basis.

“This challenge opened up the opportunity to our entire music program as digital audio arts students needed to find an original composition to record,” says Schaller.

The composition the team recorded was created by music major Nicholas Zambon, who sang his original song Don’t Let Me Go as well as played acoustic guitar and bass. Other student musicians participating included Jacob Hills (electric guitar), Joe Porter (drum kit, pandeiro, concert bass drum, cymbals), Nicholas Goodman (bass), Michael Ayotte (piano, organ) and Riane McCallum (backup vocals).

The entire process, which ran from October 2013 through the end of April 2014, was tracked by the team using photos and videos. The complete documentation of the process was reported to Shure on milestone dates throughout the year. The final stereo mix was reviewed by a jury of independent engineers and producers selected by Shure. Watching one of the videos the U of L team posted on Shure’s competition blog, it is clear to see that their recording strategies ranged from capturing natural sounds to taking full advantage of the ubiquitous concrete structures on campus by creating interesting reverb tracks using stairwells, a drama studio and the tunnel. They also took full advantage of the top quality equipment in Studio 1.

“We are all pretty proud of what we accomplished. The song sounds great, we all did our best and it paid off,” says Jake Hills. “As for competing against everyone else, I didn't really think about it. We just wanted to make the best sounding recording we could.”

The competition provided an invaluable learning experience for the digital audio arts students.

“Being involved in this competition really helped develop our teamwork and communication skills, and having the chance to work with new, state-of-the-art equipment on the project can only benefit our careers in the world of audio production,” says Sam Walker-Kierluk.

Schaller adds, “To do so well in our first recording competition reflects well upon our digital audio arts major and the bachelor of music program at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. The art of recording is just one of many areas of study in our DAA program and taking the Runner Up prize clearly indicates our students’ skills in the recording studio are just as strong as those of students in programs that primarily focus on recording. It was great to see students apply their knowledge of acoustics, their creative audio engineering, and critical listening skills to this project.”

UNews - digital audio arts

Sakamoto Award winners researching the 9.1 surround sound environment

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