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Temporal Change of Psychological Impressions Regarding Microphone Arrays for Multichannel Recording

Microphone technique for surround sound recording of an orchestra is discussed. Seven types of surround microphone sets recorded in a concert hall were compared in subjective listening test on the attributes such as powerfulness and spaciousness using a method inspired by MUSHRA (MUltiple Stimuli with Hidden Reference and Anchor). To minimize temporal change in music, Phase Randomized Signal (PRS) was proposed. From the average score of the listening test, the impression difference between original source and PRS was found in some microphone arrays consisted of directional microphones at some pieces. It means that the impression of these arrays depend on temporal changes in music. The data from the listening test between original source and PRS showed that impression of powerfulness had slightly higher correlation. The relations of the physical factors of each array were also compared, such as SC (Spectral Centroid), LFC (Lateral Fraction Coefficient), and S/M (Side/Mid Ratio) of each array. The correlation of these physical factors and the attribute scores show that the contribution of these physical factors depends on music and its temporal change. ‘Powerfulness’ is related to timbral character and ‘spaciousness’ is related to temporal change.

Author: Kamekawa, Toru
Affiliation: Tokyo University of the Arts
AES Convention:124 (May 2008) Paper Number:7455 Import into BibTeX
Subject:Multichannel Sound

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