The Faculty of Science here, University of bath, seems to have had a
rush of blood to the head, and allocated money to our department for,
amongst other things, a sound cube of 8 speakers so we could do
surround-sound.  Naturally the sum of money is not large, and we need
to have it portable, or at least unriggable as we will be using an
otherwise public space.  We estimate a maximum of about 200 UKpounds
per speaker (including taxes), and that leaves some money for cables
and stands. 
  Any recommendations?  Eight speakers.....

There are other "toys" like virtual instrument controllers, but the
dream of a 3D ambisonic rig is so interesting....

==John ffitch


Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"

i don't have any particular recommendations for speakers, but your post
reminded me me of this paper presented at the ICMC this year: THE MOBILE
AMBISONICS EQUIPMENT OF THE ICST (that is the Institute for Computer Music
and Sound Technology in Zurich). the abstract says: "The experience of
having performed numerous concerts with the large technical setup required
for Ambisonics has led to the development of equipment that is much easier
to handle and that enables us to reduce drastically the amount of time and
work used for its installation. The Mobile Ambisonics Equipment is a
prototype that reflects expert knowledge in its design and is highly
flexible in order to do justice to any demands that might arise in the
realisation of a wide variety of musical projects."

http://www.icst.net/uploads/media/MAE_ICST2010_komp.pdf


Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"

We are installing something similar here at the moment, with 16
Genelec 8030A. They are quite "flat" and neutral sounding.
There might be smaller genelec models that would do the job well too.
best
Oeyvind

2010/10/5 john ffitch :
> The Faculty of Science here, University of bath, seems to have had a
> rush of blood to the head, and allocated money to our department for,
> amongst other things, a sound cube of 8 speakers so we could do
> surround-sound.  Naturally the sum of money is not large, and we need
> to have it portable, or at least unriggable as we will be using an
> otherwise public space.  We estimate a maximum of about 200 UKpounds
> per speaker (including taxes), and that leaves some money for cables
> and stands.
>  Any recommendations?  Eight speakers.....
>
> There are other "toys" like virtual instrument controllers, but the
> dream of a 3D ambisonic rig is so interesting....
>
> ==John ffitch
>
>
> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
>            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>
>


Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"

There are plenty of ambisonic practitioners on this list so I hesitate
to answer. From what I've heard ambisonic rigs allow far great and
precise localisation of sounds than in a regular multi-channel setup.
Hopefully my rather useless answer will prompt someone with more
experience to provide a better one! In the meantime you may want to
check out the following
http://www.sonicarchitecture.de/pdf/AmbiTutorial_en.pdf by Jan Jacob
Hofmann.

Rory.


On 7 October 2010 14:17, Anthony Palomba  wrote:
> Can someone please answer my question...
>
> Why do you need such a complicated setup?
> Does Ambisonics allow you to do something that
> a multi channel audio interface does not?
>
>
>
> -ap
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 1:19 AM, DavidW  wrote:
>>
>> Having designed, built, transported and used 8, 16 and 30 ch. portable
>> ambisonic rigs, I'd recommend a  truncated 1/2 octahedral spaceframe (a sq.
>> base pyramid  with the top chopped off) with a speaker @ each of the 4
>> corners of the truncated apex + one in each of the 4 sides of the base, all
>> of which can be raised to ear-height by supporting the structure on 4
>> plinths. This results in <= 60deg between speakers which provides a markedly
>> improved 3D spatial resolution over cubic arrangement.
>> - David
>> On 06/10/2010, at 12:36 AM, Anthony Palomba wrote:
>>
>> I am very interested in this as well. I would like to have a simple 8.1
>> channel
>> cube that would be easy to transport and setup at gigs.
>>
>> The simplest setup I can imagine is an audio interface with 8 channel
>> output.
>> The mixing is done on the computer and then sent to the right channel.
>>
>> Ideally it would be nice to have the speakers be wireless, so some
>> kind of receiver may need to be part of the chain.
>>
>> So the question is why do you need such a complicated setup?
>> Does Ambisonics allow you to do something that the above
>> setup does not?
>>
>> -ap
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 6:29 AM, luis jure  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> i don't have any particular recommendations for speakers, but your post
>>> reminded me me of this paper presented at the ICMC this year: THE MOBILE
>>> AMBISONICS EQUIPMENT OF THE ICST (that is the Institute for Computer
>>> Music
>>> and Sound Technology in Zurich). the abstract says: "The experience of
>>> having performed numerous concerts with the large technical setup
>>> required
>>> for Ambisonics has led to the development of equipment that is much
>>> easier
>>> to handle and that enables us to reduce drastically the amount of time
>>> and
>>> work used for its installation. The Mobile Ambisonics Equipment is a
>>> prototype that reflects expert knowledge in its design and is highly
>>> flexible in order to do justice to any demands that might arise in the
>>> realisation of a wide variety of musical projects."
>>>
>>> http://www.icst.net/uploads/media/MAE_ICST2010_komp.pdf
>>>
>>>
>>> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
>>>            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
>>> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
>>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
>>> csound"
>>>
>> _____________________________________________
>> Dr David Worrall
>> Adjunct Research Fellow, Australian National University
>> Board Member, International Community for Auditory Display
>> Regional Editor, Organised Sound (CUP)
>> Projects Officer, Music Council of Australia
>> worrall.avatar.com.au	sonification.com.au
>> mca.org.au			musicforum.org.au
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>


Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"

The two things are not comparable, The interface is just that - 
content-agnostic hardware, whereas Ambisonics is a matrix-encoding 
method based on the principle of the encoding and reproduction of a 
full 3D soundfield (in the ~proper~ meaning of 3D: including height). 
Crucially, the encoding method is independent of the number of speaker 
channels. Taking simple "first-order" encoding: this represents the 
soundfield as three directional components (X,Y,Z), plus one "omni" 
pressure signal (W). This "B-Format" signal can then be decoded to any 
moderaly regular speaker array (easiest when it is a truly regular 
layout). The minimum for horizontal decoding is four speakers in a 
square; but more is (as a rule of thumb, and up to a point) better, with 
hexagon and octagon layouts common. For with-height reproduction, you 
need, naturally, a combination of "low" and "high" speakers, with the 
cube as the minimum regular layout.

To the composer, the advantage is that rather than targetting some 
specific layout, they can simply design the locations and trajectories 
in a general idealised 3D coordinate space, leaving the final routing to 
be achieved independently by decoding to whatever speaker layout is 
available. Methods exist to decode to 5.1 et al., though that is very 
much less than optimal being so geometrically irregular.

Of course, at some point those decoded signals have to be sent from the 
computer to the speakers, and for that the multi-channel audio interface 
does come in useful!

The maths of encoding and decoding can get somewhat scary, but to the 
user the idea is IMO really rather simple, so that I would not call it a 
"complicated setup" at all - quite the opposite in fact.

And of course we have some good B-Format encoding and decoding opcodes 
in Csound (bformenc1, bformdec1), with which all this can be explored.

Also see http://www.ambisonic.net/

for lots of info and resources.

Richard Dobson



On 07/10/2010 14:17, Anthony Palomba wrote:
> Can someone please answer my question...
>
> Why do you need such a complicated setup?
> Does Ambisonics allow you to do something that
> a multi channel audio interface does not?
>
>
>
> -ap
>



Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
            https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"