Creating acoustic space

Perception of the acoustic environment places all sound events in a three-dimensional soundfield, surrounding us wherever we are and changing as we move through acoustic space. Creating music for electronic reproduction requires a detailed understanding of sound in space, how it evolves over time, how it interacts with the physical space and how acoustic space itself may become a compositional tool. This paper will review human spatial perception and the physical parameters that must be understood and controlled to create clarity, depth, spatial impression and envelopment in an electro-acoustic recording, with particular reference to multi-channel surround reproduction environments. Methods for creating natural, or even unnatural, acoustic spaces in a recording will be presented. It will consider why some listening environments significantly influence the creation or perception of acoustic space while others may be relatively benign.