Awesome - A Tool for Simulating Sound Environments

Abstract

Sounds are (almost) always heard and perceived as parts of greater contexts. How we hear a sound depends on things like other sounds present, acoustic properties of the place where the sound is heard, the distance and direction to the sound source etc. Moreover, if the sound bear any meaning to us or not and what the meaning is, if any, depends largely on the listener’s interpretation of the sound, based on memories, previous experiences etc. When working with the design of sounds for all sorts of applications, it is crucial to not only evaluate the sound isolated in the design environment, but to also test the sound in possible greater contexts where it will be used and heard. One way to do this is to sonically simulate one or more environments and use these simulations as contexts to test designed sounds against. In this paper we report on a project in which we have developed a system for simulating the sounding dimension of physical environments. The system consists of a software application, a 5.1 surround sound system and a set of guidelines and methods for use. We also report on a first test of the system and the results from this test.