Project #3 -
Ambisonic Soundscapes
in Three Dimensions
Because an ambisonic microphone includes a vertical axis, I setup a second set of speakers in the ACTLab to demonstrate this component. The main speakers for the 5.1 system in the ACTLab studio are flown from a lighting grid at 11 feet; my set was placed on pedestals on the floor. The standing audience could hear sources below and above ear level. All of the field-recorded segments were made with my experimental tetrahedral microphone (Project 1) on a desk stand; the microphone head height at 17 inches.

During my presentation, the audience was free to move about to find different audio prespectives. I found it interesting that during the first segment, a recording beginning just before noon on the west mall of the University of Texas campus, and which included the hour strike from the bells in the Tower at noon, the audience moved about steadily. Yet when the next sequence began, a late night recording beginning with Austin's night-time "silence," their movement slowed. As a helicopter approached and passed overhead, they mostly stood still through the end of third environment, a church choir recorded in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Austin.

I thought later that I would have liked to have really just listened instead of being concerned about volume levels and all of the details of the presentation. Perhaps another day.
The helicopter segment was captured late one night from my front yard. My cat Bubba is providing security!
This project has been the culmination of a semester studying ambisonics, but not the end of those studies. I credit Professor Sandy Stone and TA Joey Lopez for the opportunities available in Soundscapes and the ACTLab program: to freely explore, to allow students to collaborate, and to encourage students to push our own limits in developing and presenting projects.