Stereo Representation of Environments for Live In-Ear Monitoring Systems

In the area of on-stage monitoring for live sound, the use of in-ear monitoring may have the effect of isolating a listener from the acoustic environment due to the reduction of ambient sound and the representation of sources lacking influence from the surroundings. This thesis demonstrates how there may be ways of using stereo microphone techniques to assist in the representation of the surrounding and shows how, with the use of convolution, there are actually several appropriate configurations that could be applied. The intention of the study is not to suggest the use of convolution as a sole method of monitoring a performance, but is instead used to gain insight into the appropriateness of stereo configurations for monitoring with respect to one another and their ability to immerse a performer more fully into an environment. By capturing the acoustic response of a performance area with a variety of different microphone configurations and allowing a performer to monitor a convolution of the musical source signals, it has been possible to demonstrate that other near co-incidental pair setups can potentially give a comparable result to a binaural dummy head, and suggestions are made regarding a study that may add more quantitative data in the future.