Development of an intelligent software controlled system for the diffusion of electroacoustic music on large arrays of mixed loudspeakers.

伯明翰大学拥有一个国际公认的电声音乐呈现系统：伯明翰电声剧院(BEAST)。Beast最近利用GB 500,000 HEFCE SRIF-2 Grant的资金进行了改装(连同我们的电声录音室)，可以说是世界上同类系统中装备最好、范围最广的。该系统，连同能够实时空间化大量音频的免费可用计算机语言的潜力，为我们提供了探索相对新的活动领域的可能性，即在电声流派(可能使用多达100个离散的音频通道，甚至更多)的程度上是多声道的音频系统的合成。考虑到在过去十年左右的时间里，8个离散声道一直是常见的实用最大值，这代表了一个数量级的差异。本项目建议创建一个使用扬声器阵列来管理音频传播和空间化的系统。(用外行的话来说，这跟《环绕声》领域有关。)这将通过软件开发和经验测试过程来完成。该系统的核心将是在DSP和计算机音乐语言超对撞机中开发的软件，将由一系列应用程序和一个类库组成，允许用户轻松地开发他们自己的方法作为独立应用程序或作为实时片段的集成组件。该项目的主要目标将是开发用于上述类型的大规模多声道音频系统的新技术，以及使现有技术适应这种新出现的习语。对这一发展至关重要的是一个经验测试过程，在这个过程中，Beast系统将一次设置两天，在此期间将测试和评估各种技术实施、方法和布局。

The University of Birmingham is host to an internationally recognised system for the presentation of electroacoustic music: Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST). Recently refitted (along with our electroacoustic music studios) using funds from a £500,000 HEFCE SRIF-2 Grant, BEAST is arguably the best equipped and most extensive system of its kind in the world. This system, along with the potential of freely available computer languages capable of spatialising extensive amounts of audio in real-time, has presented us with the possibility of exploring a relatively new area of activity, composition for audio systems which are mutli-channel to an extent hitherto largely unexplored in the electro-acoustic genre (potentially using as many as 100 discrete channels of audio, or even more). Given that 8 discrete channels has been a common practical maximum over the past decade or so, this represents an order of magnitude in difference.The present project proposes to create a system for managing the diffusion and spatialisation of audio using arrays of loudspeakers. (In layman's terms, this is related to the field of 'surround sound'.) This will be done through a process of software development and empirical testing. The heart of this system will be software developed in the DSP and computer music language SuperCollider, and will consist both of a series of applications, and a class library allowing users to easily develop their own approaches both as standalone applications or as an integrated component of real-time pieces.A primary goal of the project will be the development of new techniques for use when composing for the type of large-scale multichannel audio systems described above, as well as the adaptation of existing techniques to this newly emerging idiom. Crucial to this development will be a process of empirical testing, in which the BEAST system will be set up for two days at a time, during which various technical implementations, approaches and layouts will be tested and assessed.