The development of a 'Virtual Studio' for monitoring Ambisonic based multichannel loudspeaker arrays through headphones

After presenting some technological background related to the main subject, contemporary Binaural and Ambisonic tools are discussed. In spite of all the possible applications of both systems, user friendly tools for compositional applications are the main foci of the research.
The first chapter presents the historical and theoretical background behind Ambisonics, binaural systems and head tracking technologies, as well as some recent developments. The main objective of this chapter is to present an overview of previous researches and define how the main subject of the present research has been treated so far. The chapter that follows describe in detail some of the currently available tools for working with three dimensional sounds, their principles and possibilities as described by their developers. The third chapter discuss some experiments realized during the past year and how the tools presented in the second chapter can be put together to build a ‘Virtual Studio’, the difficulties faced during this process, what kind of compromises were required and what assumptions were made in order to make it work intuitively.
Since MAX/MSP is probably the most commonly used software within the academic electronic music composers community, most of the work described was based in this environment in order to allow composers to work in a more intuitive way and to focus on the music itself. MAX/MSP tools are described and analysed as well as recent VST plugins for working in the most popular environment in the music production community outside the academy - digital audio workstations (DAWs). Beyond this, analyses of some of the author`s experiences are reported and some reflections are discussed. Through these discussions, focused on the usage of the previously mentioned tools in practical applications, such as music productions and two case studies related to composition processes, a conclusion points to some future work on binaural reproduction of multichannel systems over headphones.