Creating Generic Soundscapes in Multichannel Loudspeaker Systems Using Vector Base Amplitude Panning in Csound Synthesis Software

Pulkki, Ville

1998

Organised Sound 3(2): 129-134.

Language: English

Vector base amplitude panning (VBAP) is a method for soundscape creation. It generalises the pair-wise panning paradigm to the triplet-wise panning paradigm, which can be used in three-dimensional loudspeaker setups. Similar soundscapes can be created with differing numbers of loudspeakers in different positions. The VBAP implementation in Csound synthesis software presented in this article is a powerful tool for producing generic soundscapes. Virtual sources are positioned by defining the virtual source directions as (azimuth, elevation) pairs; the loudspeaker setup is defined in the initial settings. Virtual sources can be moved in three different ways: they can be moved along a polyline between specified directions, angular velocities can be applied to them, or their directions can be controlled arbitrarily.