On Wave Field Synthesis and Electro-acoustic Music

Spatial sound has long been a topic of interest in electro-acoustic music. With continual technical advancements of methods to achieve spatialisation of sound, an increase in the realisation of spatial sound ideas can be achieved, while concurrently giving birth to new concepts in this area. Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) provides a compelling method, as it excels in creating a clear localisation of a virtual sound source for a large listening area. This book gives an overview of spatial techniques in electro-acoustic music and how WFS fits into this tradition. It describes a framework of software for WFS and gives a description of perspectives on WFS from an electro-acoustic composer's viewpoint. In the second half of the book a method is proposed for the reproduction of arbitrarily shaped objects emitting sound, using WFS. The mathematics and the implementation aspects are described, after which the method is validated with computed examples and listening tests. The book's target audience consists of artists wanting to learn about sound spatialisation using WFS, as well as students and scientific researchers in computational acoustics.