HTML5 Audio Tag and Surround Sound

I’m going to add quite a bit of content to this site soon, and have been looking into ways of embedding surround sound audio. The HTML5 Audio tag looks ideal for this and, it seems, some browsers will support 5.1 surround files….hooray. However, they all seem to support different format surround files……booo! Anyway, as a test, try the embedded players below.

Initial findings:

  • Chrome on PC – seems to successfully downmix to stereo and play multi-channel OGG, AAC and WAVE versions
  • Chrome on MAC – same as above EXCEPT, it doesn’t downmix to stereo, it only reproduces front channels (including Centre)
  • Firefox on PC – recognises ogg….refuses to play anything. Nothing else recognised (shame on you, firefox)
  • Firefox on Mac – plays ogg correctly in multi-channel, but over stereo reproduces front left out the left speaker and Centre front out of the right speaker! Doesn’t recognise any other formats.
  • Internet Explorer 9 on PC – correctly plays and downmixes AAC and WAVE versions (from what I can tell)
  • Internet Explorer 8 on PC – doesn’t recognise anything
  • Safari on Mac – Doesn’t play OGG, plays the rest. Downmixes to stereo including all channels, but downmixes AAC and WAVE by just routing surround Left and Right to the left and right front speakers, but seems to do a more complex downmix of AC3 to the front left and right (includes phase shifts by the sounds of it!)

This is a simple 5.1 test file with Microsoft Anna reporting speakers to you….

Ogg Vorbis :
AAC :
AC3 :
WAVE :

Kinect Theremin

Just thought I’d put up a quick video of what we’ve been upto in the last few weeks.  Below is a video of a Microsoft Kinect powered Theremin.  In this example, I’m using OSCeleton to generate the positional data, processing.org to display the blobs and format the data, and Plogue Bidule (which is capturing Open Sound Control messages from Bidule) to play the audio.  The gfx are pretty basic so it works on my very old laptop, but you’ll get the gist of what’s going on!

New Mac Versions of WigWare Available

I’ve uploaded a bug-fix release to the Mac WigWare decoders, panners and reverb.  The bug fix stops crashing in some hosts and/or the outputting of not very nice sound when the plug-ins are first loaded.  Please let me know if anyone has any problems….. the files can be found on the WigWare page, or below:

  • [Download not found]
  • [Download not found]
  • [Download not found]

Sounds in Space : Call for Papers and Contributions

The University of Derby is pleased to announce a joint symposium event organised by the Creative Technologies Research Group (CTRG) and Digital and Material Arts Research Centre (D:MARC).  Digital Hybridity + Sounds In Space will involve a full programme of research presentations and practical demonstrations relating to the sound and visual arts, the combination of these events providing a rich opportunity for exploration of academic, technical and creative practice research in the aesthetics, procedure, technology, perception, and pedagogy of technology-based sound, music, and intermedia art.

Sound In Space: Exploring visual and sound arts practice, the symposium will present a number of original spatial sound works including  a multichannel “collaborative sound canvas” comprising sound events developed, captured, processed,composed, and assembled by students and staff of the Faculty of Arts, Design & Technology. Introducing leading edge research in surround sound technology, education and application, the aesthetics and implications of a shifting paradigm in sound creativity through technology will be explored in an intensive, immersive and playful way.

The call for papers and contributions, and full details about the joint symposium event can be found in [Download not found]

Mac Bugs

I’ve discovered that the Mac version of my reverb plug-in can cause some nasty initial sounds when loaded in Reaper (and possibly other hosts as well)…..I’ve tracked the bug down, and will be releasing an update soon. If anyone has any reports of bugs, please do let me know, as I was unaware of this one!  As the PC/Mac code is identical, then these bugs are present in the PC versions too, but they just never seem to occur…..

WigWare for Mac

WigwareDecoderMy Ambisonic VST plugins have been available for the PC for a few years now and I’m pleased to announce that they’re finally also available for the Mac. 

I’ve tested them on Reaper, Audiomulch and Plogue Bidule and they seem to work and tutorials on how to use them can be found on my Ambisonic Music Creation Site.  The plugins can be downloaded on my WigWare page.

Feedback, bug reports and donations always welcome 🙂

Tweet Counters

As part of this blog (which is based on the absolutely fantastic WordPress platform) I’ve been playing with some of the various tweet counters to track how many (if any!) retweets my posts get.  This seemed to be working fine.  However, on my last post, Backtype missed the fact that I tweeted (using the backtype tweet count button on the post) this post.  So, I tried again….still nothing.  I looked at two other tweet counters (Tweetmeme and Topsy) and compared the results….. (click continue reading to….continue reading!)

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Ambisonic Music Creation Grou.ps Site

This year I created a Ning networking site to support a 2nd year assignment in the module Computer Music Systems on our Music & Media Technology courses.  The idea was to create a persistent site that was accessible by more than just one course/module at the University of Derby, and one that was able to take in contributions from the students.  This meant that it couldn’t be hosted on our Virtual Learning environment (Blackboard), as too many barriers with regards to access are created depending upon which modules you’ve registered for.

The Ning website I developed worked well, but as of July 20th, the free version will be stopped.  So, I’ve moved the content over to the grou.ps system.  In many ways, the systems seems a little more powerful than its Ning counterpart, and importing the entire Ning website to the new system was straightforward as there is an app for that in the admin pages.

So, if you’re interested in actually creating some music/audio using Ambisonics Surround Sound, feel free to join, contribute and share the site with others.

Click the badge above to find the site…..comments and suggestions always welcome!

WigWare @ Glastonbury

It’s good to see that, even though The Glade festival wasn’t on this year, The Glade area of Glastonbury 2010 was being run by Funktion One using my WigWare Ambisonic Plug-ins to create a large scale Ambisonic surround sound experience!

IMG_3354We tested large scale Ambisonics at The Glade festival a few years ago now (2006, the pictures shown are from this event), with the stage being voted the best sounding of the festival (outdoor, Origin Stage).  One interesting finding that came out of those tests was that, although the Origin Stage was one of the loudest stages on-site, it was the quietest off-site.  Due to this, and the sound quality of the stage, The Glade Festival had all the stages setup this way the next year (although heavy flooding caused major issues that year!)

Click ‘Continue reading’ to read more……..

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