AES Show 2024 NY

Acoustics in Live Sound looks at roadhouses and touring engineers in order to determine how acoustics is applied and whether this is a conscious or subconscious choice. This is done through various sources with a strong emphasis of interviews with professionals in the field. A look at an engineers’ workflow, tools, a cost-benefit analysis of the tools, looking at different types of spaces, ways to improve the spaces, and delays and equalization are combined to give a comprehensive look as to what an engineer is doing and what can make their job easier and mix better. For the beginning engineer, this is a comprehensive guide as to what tools and skills are needed as it relates to acoustics. For the more seasoned professional, it is a different way to think about how problems are being approached within the field and how solutions could be more heavily based on the statistics gathered from acoustics.

Guitar effects pedals are designed to provide an alteration to a guitar signal through electronic means and are often controlled by a footswitch that routes the signal either through the effect or directly to the output through a 'clean' channel. Because players often switch the effects on and off during different portions of a song and different playing styles, our goal in this paper is to create a trainable guitar effect pedal that classifies the incoming guitar signal into two or more playing style classes and route the signal to the bypass channel or effect channel depending on the class. A training data set is collected that consists of recorded single notes and power chords. The neural network algorithm is able to distinguish between these two playing styles with 95\% accuracy in the test set. An electronic system is designed with a Raspberry Pi Pico, preamplifiers, multiplexers, and a distortion effect that runs a neural network trained using Edge Impulse software that runs the classification and signal routing in real-time.

This study examines whether trained listeners could identify and judge the “naturalness” of drum samples processed with Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) when paired with unprocessed samples. A two-part experiment was conducted utilizing a paired comparison of a 10-second reference drum loop with no processing and a set of drum loops with varying degrees of DRC. In Part 1, subjects were instructed to identify which sample of the two they believed to have DRC applied. They were then asked to identify which sample they believed sounded “more natural” in Part 2. Out of 18 comparisons for Part 1, only three demonstrated reliable identification of the target variable. Results from Part 2 showed that the subjects perceived DRC processed samples as natural and unprocessed. However, while inconclusive, results here may suggest that listeners perceived the processed drum sound to be equally as natural as the original.

There has been some debate about whether headphones or loudspeakers are the more effective monitoring system. However, there has been little discussion of the effectiveness of the two mediums in the context of mixing and music production tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine how the monitoring systems influenced users’ performance in production tasks using both mediums. An experiment was designed, in which the subject was asked to match the boost level of a given frequency band in a reference recording until the boost sounded identical to the reference. A group of six audio engineering graduate students completed the experiment using headphones and loudspeakers. Subjects’ adjustment levels across eight frequency bands were collected. Results suggest that both monitoring systems were equally effective in the context of adjusting equalizer settings. Future research is called for which will include more subjects with diverse levels of expertise in various production-oriented tasks to better understand the potential effect of each playback system.

There are plenty of resources, both scholarly and otherwise, concerning how to mix audio. Students can find information on the process of mixing and descriptions of the tools used by mixing engineers like level, panning, equalization, compression, reverb, and delay through an online search or more in-depth textbooks by authors like Izhaki [1], Senior [2], Owsinski [3], Case [4, 5], Stavrou [6], Moylan [7,] and Gibson [8]. However, any professional mixing engineer knows that simply reading and understanding such materials is not enough to develop the skills necessary to become an excellent mixer. Much like developing proficiency and expertise on an instrument, understanding the theory and technical knowledge of mixing is not enough to become a skilled mixer. In order to develop exceptional mixing skills, practice is essential. This begs the question; how should an aspiring mixer practice the art and craft of mixing?
The discussion of this topic is absent from a large portion of the literature on mixing except for Merchant’s 2011 and 2013 Audio Engineering Society convention papers in which Colvin’s concept of deliberate practice is applied to teaching students how to mix [9, 10, 11]. In order for students to carry out deliberate practice in the mixing classroom, quality multitrack recordings are necessary that help students focus on using specific mixing tools and techniques. This paper looks at the process of recording a series of mixing exercises with inherent audio engineering challenges for students to overcome.

Many listening experiments employ so-called "pink" and "white" noise, including those to find the threshold of detection (TOD). However, little research exists that compares the impacts of these two noises on a task. This study is an investigation of the TODs at whole and third octave bands using pink and white noise. A modified up-down method was utilized to determine the TOD in white and pink noise at eight frequency levels using a dB boosted bell filter convolved with the original signal. Six graduate students in audio engineering participated. Subjects were presented with an unfiltered reference signal followed by a filtered or unfiltered signal and then were instructed to respond “same” or “different”. Correct answers decreased the filter boost while incorrect answers resulted in reversals that would increase the filter boost until the subject answered correctly. A trial would conclude when a total of ten reversals occurred. The filter boost levels of the last five reversals were collected to obtain an average threshold value. Results show no significant differences between white and pink noise TOD levels at all frequency intervals. Additionally, the JND between the original and the boosted signal was observed to be ±3 dB, consistent with existing literature. Therefore, it can be suggested that white or pink noise can be equivalently employed in listening tests such as TOD measurements without impact on perceptual performance.

Technological developments within the modern age provide near limitless possibilities when it comes to the design of new musical instruments and systems. The aim of the current study is to investigate the design, development, and testing of a unique audio-visual musical instrument. Five participants tested an initial prototype and completed semi-structured interviews providing user feedback on the product. A qualitative analysis of the interviews indicate findings related to two primary areas: enjoyability and functionality. Aspects of the prototype commonly expressed by participants as being enjoyable related to the product’s novelty, simplicity, use of distance sensors, and available interactivity with hardware components. Participant feedback commonly expressed related to improving the prototype’s functionality included adding delay and volume modules, making the product surround sound compatible, and increasing lower register control for certain sensors. These results informed design decisions in a secondary prototype building stage. The current study’s results suggest that designers and developers of new musical instruments should value novel rather than traditional instrument components, hardware rather than software-based interfaces, and simple rather than complex design controls. Ultimately, this paper provides guiding principles, broad themes, and important considerations in the development of enjoyable, new musical instruments and systems.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models offer consumers a resource that will generate music in a variety of genres and with a range of emotions with only a text prompt. However, emotion is a complex human phenomenon which becomes even more complex when attempted to convey through music. There is limited research assessing AI’s capability to generate music with emotion. Utilizing specified target emotions this study examined the validity of those emotions as expressed in AI-generated musical samples. Seven audio engineering graduate students listened to 144 AI-generated musical examples with sixteen emotions in three genres and reported their impression of the most appropriate emotion for each stimulus. Using Cohen’s kappa minimal agreement was found between subjects and AI. Results suggest that generating music with a specific emotion is still challenging for AI. Additionally, the AI model here appeared to operate with a predetermined group of musical samples linked to similar emotions. Discussion includes how this rapidly changing technology might be better studied in the future.

The pipe organ is often underrepresented in classical music recordings, particularly in immersive audio formats. This study explores an innovative approach to recording and reproducing the organ for immersive formats using a modified Bowles Array. Key considerations for immersive recording and reproduction are examined, including the balance between aestheticism and realism, the role of the LFE channel, and the acoustic characteristics of the recording and reproduction environments, as well as the instrument itself. The findings aim to enhance the immersive audio experience of pipe organ music and provide valuable insights for developing standards in immersive recording and reproduction methods for pipe organ performances.

Holophonic recording techniques were created and observed to see which techniques would best transcribe the three-dimensional characteristics of the room, allowing a listener 6-degrees-of-freedom within a virtual environment. Two recordings were conducted, one consisting of a solo harp and the second consisting of an African gyil duet. Three microphone systems were prepared to capture the instruments: XYZ array, Hamasaki-Ambeo array, and XYZ with an additional XY side cluster. The recordings were spatialized in Unity using the Steam Audio Plug-in. A preliminary subjective evaluation was conducted with expert subjects ranking each of the systems based on certain attributes. Results showed some favor toward the XYZ array due to the better capture of reverberation, however, this does not exclude the Hamasaki-Ambeo from being a system that would be suitable for holophonic ambience reproduction in virtual environments. These results will be used as a foundation to a long-term research of building a methodology for holophonic recording.