"World Wide Soundspaces provides composers and audio researchers the opportunity to obtain and contribute audio impulse files recorded in various acoustic spaces," says Fredrics, winner of nine American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards.

"World Wide Soundspaces provides composers and audio researchers the opportunity to obtain and contribute audio impulse files recorded in various acoustic spaces," says Fredrics, winner of nine American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards. 

An "impulse file," Fredrics explains, is a short burst of sonic energy, recorded at a physical location, that has the ability to excite the natural resonance of that location's acoustic environment; an example being the popping of a balloon in a concrete shower stall or in a 15th century cathedral in Lau, Gottland, Sweden. 

Impulse files are recorded at different locations within each environment, using commercially available as well as freeware software, he says. Users can place their own sounds in several different areas of the environment as well as blend different perspectives, creating an effect of their sounds "moving" throughout a given environment, Fredrics notes. 

In addition to making their own sounds traverse the spaces of Domkyrkan, a cathedral in Uppsala, Sweden, or an underpass between the Slussen subway station in Stockholm, users can blend the acoustics of two distinct environments and create a unique stage for their own works, he explains. 

The web site, located at http://orpheus.tamu.edu/fredrics/isrc.html, utilizes convolution filtering - a technique allowing users to model acoustical environments using impulse files collected from actual
environments. 

Fredrics notes that convolution filtering is a method that has garnered some attention throughout the last five years, and he believes it will become the next trend in the music industry. 

"Just as sampling changed the way we looked at our attempts to simulate the sounds of acoustic instruments, the sampling of reverberation will have similar effects," Fredrics says. 

He says audio engineers are discovering impulse recordings produce more convincing, pleasing and accurate listening experiences than previously used methods, which used algorithms to approximate echoes occurring in a given space. 

"In addition to being economically feasible for users," Fredrics states, "this method increases the level of reality far beyond what has been realized through artificial means." 

"Just as important, this serves as a way of creating audio documentation of historically significant acoustical spaces," he says. 
 
 

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