From March 12 - 15, Fraunhofer IDMT will be presenting new tools for threedimensional audio production at Prolight + Sound, the international convention for live events and communication technology in Frankfurt am Main. Besides the new generation of the “SpatialSound Wave” system, the acoustics experts of Fraunhofer will also be presenting the “Microphone Manager“ for quick and intuitive control of audio scenes.

SpatialSound Wave is based on Fraunhofer’s expertise and many years of experience in spatial audio reproduction technology, such as Wave Field Synthesis. The system is scalable, can be used with any loudspeaker configuration, and can be adjusted to meet individual quality requirements and given conditions of the location. SpatialSound Wave has now been extended with “SpatialSound Control”, the new intuitive user interface, allowing easy and resource efficient production of audio content. SpatialSound Wave offers sound engineers a number of integrated apps for production, demonstration, and live events. The web based system offers a multi-client solution by which the software can be controlled by several users simultaneously using any kind of device (PC, tablet, or smartphone). As the system can be configured very quickly and easily, sound engineers have more time for calibrating channels accurately in order to achieve the best possible sound, especially during live performances. SpatialSound Control substantially facilitates the work of sound engineers. Using this new tool, creating spatial audio scenes is child’s play and can be done extremely fast. The user interface can be freely configured and adapted to individual user requirements«, says René Rodigast, head of Professional Audio at Fraunhofer IDMT.

At their booth at Prolight + Sound, the Fraunhofer experts will be presenting three-dimensional audio scenes, played back nearly invisibly over Fraunhofer’s self-developed flat-panel loudspeakers, and they will be demonstrating the broad functionality of SpatialSound Control.

For sound engineers to efficiently calibrate and control the individual audio channels, the new Microphone Manager will be useful in the future. This new software tool allows sound engineers to quickly and intuitively control multi-channel microphone recordings. Christoph Sladeczek, responsible for developing the tool, explains the working principle of the Microphone Manager: “On an absolutely easy to use user interface, sound engineers now can virtually replicate the microphones’ positions on the spot. Then a virtual listener can be positioned within the audio scene, who can listen to single or a number of microphone signals. The sound engineer is able to very quickly identify and locate disturbing background noise and clicking sounds in the microphone signals. To calculate the virtual listener signal, a number of algorithms are available, which the sound engineer can choose from depending on the specific requirements.”

Microphone scenes can be saved in order to make them available for later recordings or sound mixes. The Microphone Manager can easily be integrated into existing audio
signal processing software.

Feel free to stop by the Fraunhofer booth (booth C90, hall 8,) at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt am Main to join the experts of Fraunhofer IDMT as they present their latest innovations.