Perceptual compensation of Eigenmike recordings to reproduce the spatial sound-field in a reverberant room
* Presenting author
Abstract:
Ambisonics is a well-known approach for recording and rendering of a sound-field and in theory it creates an ideal reproduction of an original sound in a free-field playback. However, the acoustics of playback room may cause a noticeable reduction of sound quality. By preserving certain perceptual aspects of the recorded sound-field, the effect of the playback room on the sound quality can be compensated. In this study, energies of direct and reverb sounds and also interaural coherence (IC) of the original recorded sound are preserved by a perceptually-based optimization. The room-impulse-response (RIR) in the presence of a sound source is recorded by an Eigenmike microphone array. After obtaining Eigenbeams and beamformed-RIR, direct and reverb parts of RIR are separated. Based on the recorded direct and reverb RIRs and knowing the BRIRs of the reproduction and playback room, an analysis and synthesis framework based on filtering of the auditory transfer function (ATF) is implemented to compensate the direct and reverb sounds separately and optimizing the spatial diffuseness. Quality assessments show that by using this compensation approach, the timbre and spatial properties of the original recorded sound are improved considerably compared to using no perceptual compensation.