Liminal Spaces: Composing for a New Layered Immersive Spatial Audio System

Lyon E, Knapp RB, Upthegrove T, Hale B. Liminal Spaces: Composing for a New Layered Immersive Spatial Audio System. In: AES Conference: AES 2023 International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio. Audio Engineering Society; 2023.pp. 8:1-10. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22210

@inproceedings{Lyon2023_22210,
  author = {Lyon, Eric and Knapp, R. Benjamin and Upthegrove, Tanner and Hale, Brandon},
  title = {{Liminal Spaces: Composing for a New Layered Immersive Spatial Audio System}},
  booktitle = {AES Conference: AES 2023 International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio},
  pages = {8:1-10},
  year = {2023},
  month = aug,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22210}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Liminal Spaces: Composing for a New Layered Immersive Spatial Audio System
AU  - Lyon, Eric
AU  - Knapp, R. Benjamin
AU  - Upthegrove, Tanner
AU  - Hale, Brandon
T2  - AES Conference: AES 2023 International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio
SP  - 1
EP  - 10
M1  - Paper 8
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/08/06
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22210
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Liminal Spaces is the first musical composition to our knowledge to make use of a layered immersive spatial audio system integrating bone conduction headphones. This paper discusses the creation, technical challenges, aesthetic discoveries, and spatial audio implications of Liminal Spaces, an electroacoustic composition created for a layered immersive spatial audio system consisting of two high-density loudspeaker arrays (HDLAs): the Cube, a 140-loudspeaker array on the periphery of a black box theater, and the Tesseract, a 32-loudspeaker nearfield array centered in the Cube, augmented with the Starburst, an eight-loudspeaker group occupying space between the Cube and Tesseract, and a pair of wireless bone conduction headphones for each audience member. Audience feedback and our own observations indicate rich and unique spatial experiences, radically different from binaural sound or periphonic HDLA soundfields alone, resulting in a compelling new spatial infrastructure for composing immersive music.
ER  -