Special Spatial: Is it finally time for spatial audio?

An exploration into Spatial audio, the potential for truly mycelial music, Dolby Atmos, Ambisonics, Sony Ark 360º, L-Acoustics, 4D Sound, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Alan Blumlein, Maryanne Amarcher...

Spatial audio is not a new concept. Every new musical generation or so, it comes around in a slightly different form, always promising to be the next big thing in audio. So far, there have been many false dawns, which consequently relegate attempts to present something revolutionary to site-specific installations and one-off performances. The jury is out on whether this current iteration will be any different.

However, when corporations like Apple, Tidal, Dolby, Sony and L-Acoustics are pumping money into it, you sense spatial could be finally getting its moment. Apple’s recent move to compensate artists more if they deliver spatial mixes is a sign of how serious they are - and marks an extremely rare occurrence in the day and age of creative exploitation by dominant platforms.

“Human hearing is not only able to perceive the time or frequency-related attributes of sound (such as loudness, pitch and timbre), but also able to perceive the spatial related attributes of sound (such as the spatial position of sound source and the acoustic characteristics of surrounding environment).”

Bosun Xie 2020

The concept itself is simple - can technology be used to create a more realistic listening experience, more akin to acoustic listening or a natural soundscape, where one can be immersed in a three dimensional sound world and gain a richer musical experience as a result (for more on the complex science and theory - check here). As I mentioned, this isn’t new: we can chart a path from the ground zero of the earliest days of recorded music, where everything was presented in mono before in 1931 Alan Blumlein developed the first stereophonic experiences to accommodate both ears, followed by cinema surround sound (1940s), quadraphonic (60s),  ambisonics (1970s) (see image below), Dolby Atmos (2010s), 4D (2010s) etc.

The quest to present sounds more realistically goes way back, but with the exception of the leap from mono to stereo, its evolution has largely remained static despite these consistent flirtations. For more on the history of spatial - dating back to the palaeolithic times via spatial set ups pre-recorded music including moves by catholic church to position their choir in different sections around the building for maximum spatial effect, check this excellent article at RBMA.

Why the slow progress? There are many reasons for this, the most salient is the obvious practical one of having to accommodate billions of music fans around the world who would not have access to more than a left and right on their personal headphones, and the millions of venues that have invested in stereo and would have to incur huge costs to fit a new system. 

The enduring potential of spatial

So why, in that case, are the big players all focussing on spatial? Most of the hype is due to the ability for the software to be able to deliver a surround sound experience on headphones (i.e. Apple AirPods) or on a now affordable home set up (i.e. Dolby Sound Bar). This is a notion that took me a while to get my head around - how could a stereo set of headphones present anything other than stereo?

I’d already been almost duped by the hype around ‘8D’ sound (for anyone that hasn’t heard it, check this Billie Eilish song in ‘8D’, it’s fairly impressive. All the imitations and other 8D knock offs on youtube, less so), so I was skeptical whether headphones could do more. However, having subsequently experienced Dolby Atmos and Sony Ark 360º on stereo headphones I can report that there is something there.

The late, great Stockhausen sums it up:

“Changing clockwise or counter-clockwise, or being at the left side in the rear or in the front, or alternating in a dialogue between rear left and front right, these are all configurations in space that are as meaningful as intervals in melody and harmony” Karlheinz Stockhausen

What needs to come now is musicians to fully recognise the potential for a different kind of meaning in their compositions away from the traditional focus on melody and harmony. And, for audiences to be ready to listen on more affordable set ups. 

“Rather than listening to a melody or different instruments, what I was really interested in is the kind of subtle energy that happens in between,” Paul Oomen, 4D Sound

For this to work effectively, I’d say musicians need to approach their compositions purely from a spatial perspective. The technology demands a new body of work, with music built specifically for this, rather than what is commonly happening where bands do the quick spatial mix to tick the Apple box and deliver a more panned version of their original stereo mix. 

My own forays into Spatial

I first dabbled with spatial during my Sound Design MSc in 2005. We were encouraged to research ambisonics and sound diffusion, and my experiments led to a live performance on a multi speaker rig, with a live mixing element where sounds as ‘objects’ could be moved around the speaker array using the mixing desk.  

Around that time, I also experienced the late great Maryanne Amarcher’s extreme experimentations with psychoacoustics across an octophonic set up at Instal in Glasgow 2006, and Stockhausen performing Kontakte on a quadraphonic system in Edinburgh in 2005. A few years later, an overnight sleepover where beds were placed in(!) the 4D system in an abandoned power station in 2015 performed by John Connell and Florence To was particularly memorable. 

Last year, I worked as an ambassador for Sony’s Ark 360º software, working with artists across the UK to experiment with spatial culminating in the release of a compilation album London Immersive Calling. I ended up making a piece called BlackHole on Shruti box, effects and tabla (played by Sarathy Korwar) and through that process started to understand the potential of this technology.

It allowed me to do more with less - where one can get more listening pleasure out of simple sounds that can be moved around their sonic field, allowing their brain to tune in to specific sounds and the overarching piece at the same time. 

Listen here to Auntie Flo & Sarathy Korwar - BlackHole:

This was creatively freeing for me and led to a number of other projects - an immersive sound installation called The Soniferous Forest, where we took people into the depths of their consciousness using sound of the forest.

By moving sounds as objects around in a type of synchronous ecology, it was possible to create a sense of awe and wonder at specific sounds as they came and went. The immersion was a close to realistic depiction of how one would experience being in an actual forest, where sounds are happening all the time, an indication of life and community. (This led onto the formation of my Swell Studio business, investigating the effective use of sound for health and well-being). 

Listen here to The Soniferous Forest (mixed in Dolby Atmos):

Mycelium Music

Which brings me to my latest spatial audio adventure: Mushroom Music. On the 19th of April, we’re presenting the first release on A State Of Flo, Mycorrhizal Fungi, at the incredible EartH theatre in east London. I specifically chose the venue as it has installed L-Acoustics spatial audio set up and offers performers a chance to prepare their sets for spatial and then provides engineers who can live spatial mix on the night. The opportunity to realise this mycelial music on this set up was too exciting to turn down and we’ve been busy preparing the sets to ensure the spatial capacity of the system is full maximised on the night.

I’m preparing a brand new modular synthesizer that can deliver multiple outputs via biosonification of a variety of fungi. The fungi will produce electricity that will be converted to musical notes and sent through a variety of modules and out to the multiple speakers in the venue, moving around and connecting like a living, breathing ecosystem. Here is a sneak peak:

19th April, 7pm - EartH Theatre, Kingsland Road, London.

Get your tickets now via Dice!!

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