AES Show 2024 NY

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.