In Fall 2017, I built a soundscape in CSound for a 5.1 speaker configuration. The CSound language allowed me to programmatically synthesize and schedule sounds such as cave birds cooing, a waterfall crashing, and water droplets striking puddles. I used various tools to create a fully immersive sound scene.

In order to best present the soundscape on this website, it was recorded using a 3DIO binaural microphone placed in the center of a 5.1 speaker configuration. The 3DIO has small microphones placed inside of a pair of rubber ears, allowing the mic to preserve spatial cues caused by the filtering of sound through the pinnae.

 

 

The piece itself uses several random number generators to generate and place bird calls throughout the composition. The starting pitch, frequency drift, pan direction, and starting time were all determined using an RNG. Additionally, three water drips were synthesized using sine oscillators whose frequencies are rapidly modulated in a manner similar to that of a water droplet striking water. These drips were positioned at various azimuths, elevations, and distances in the sound scene. The final waterfall was created with pink noise, whose equal-energy spectrum gives a more realistic result than the equal-intensity spectrum of white noise.

The final scene is fully immersive, giving a sense of being transported to a new place. This effect is exactly how I intend to use immersive audio set-ups such as this one, as it allows listeners to visit unheard sonic spaces.