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Papers by Andrea Genovese

In the presented work, a live-rendered percussionist is transformed into a virtual game character... more In the presented work, a live-rendered percussionist is transformed into a virtual game character and performs a piece along digital avatars created from recordings (audio and motion-capture) of other members of an ensemble, while audience members can observe the collaborative performance through VR headsets. To create a cohesive and compelling result, the auditory expectations of the listeners need to be considered in terms of acoustic integrity between real and virtual sources and spatial impression of each avatar performer. This paper presents an overview of the workflow and motivations behind this pilot experiment of a novel musical experience, laying down the foundations for future subjective studies into collaborative music performances using virtual and augmented reality headsets. Particular focus is given to the technical challenges concerning the audio material, the perspectives of each participant role, and the qualitative impressions of musicians and audience.

Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Auditory Display - ICAD 2018, 2018

Many different musical applications, including remote sonification, sound installation, augmented... more Many different musical applications, including remote sonification, sound installation, augmented reality, and distributed/telematic music performance, make use of high speed Internet connections between different performance spaces. Most of the technical literature on this subject focuses on system latency, but there are also significant contributions from the acoustics of all rooms connected: specifically, smaller auxiliary rooms will tend to introduce spectral coloration, and the “main” larger volume will send more reverberation to the off-site performers. Measurements taken in two linked networked sites used in telematic performance show that both of these issues are present. Some improvements are suggested, including physical room alterations and equalization methods using signal processing.

Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2018

Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce dynamic spatial audio over headphones and deliver imm... more Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce dynamic spatial audio over headphones and deliver immersive audio content. Six commercially available binaural renderers with different rendering methodologies were evaluated in a multi-phase subjective study. This paper presents and discusses the testing methodology, evaluation criteria, and main findings of the externalization, front/back discrimination and up/down discrimination tasks which are part of the first phase. A statistical analysis over a large number of subjects revealed that the choice of renderer has a significant effect on all three dependent measures. Further, ratings of perceived externalization for the renderers were found to be content-specific, while renderer reversal rates were much more robust to different stimuli.

Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2018

Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce spatial audio over headphones. A number of different ... more Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce spatial audio over headphones. A number of different renderers have recently become commercially available for use in creating immersive audio content. High-quality spatial audio can be used to significantly enhance experiences in a number of different media applications, such as virtual, mixed and augmented reality, computer games, and music and movie. A large multi-phase experiment evaluating six commercial binaural renderers was performed. This paper presents the methodology, evaluation criteria, and main findings of the horizontal-plane source localization experiment carried out with these renderers. Significant differences between renderers’ regional localization accuracy were found. Consistent with previous research, subjects tended to localize better in the front and back of the head than at the sides. Differences between renderer performance at the side regions heavily contributed to their overall regional localization accuracy.

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Auditory Display - ICAD 2016, Jul 1, 2016

The Interaural Time Difference is one of the primary localization cues for 3D sound. However, due... more The Interaural Time Difference is one of the primary localization cues for 3D sound. However, due to differences in head and ear anthropometry across the population, ITDs related to a sound source at a given location around the head will differ from subject to subject. Furthermore, most individuals do not possess symmetrical traits between the left and right pinnae. This fact may cause an angle-dependent ITD asymmetry between locations mirrored across the left and right hemispheres. This paper describes an exploratory analysis performed on publicly available databases of individually measured HRIRs. The analysis was first performed separately for each dataset in order to explore the impact of different formats and measurement techniques, and then on pooled sets of repositories, in order to obtain statistical information closer to the population values. Asymmetry in ITDs was found to be consistently more prominent in the rear-lateral angles (approximately between 90°and 130°azimuth) across all databases investigated, suggesting the presence of a sensitive region. A significant difference between the peak asymmetry values and the average asymmetry across all angles was found on three out of four examined datasets. These results were further explored by pooling the datasets together, which revealed an asymmetry peak at 110°t hat also showed significance. Moreover, it was found that within the region of sensitivity the difference between specular ITDs exceeds the just noticeable difference values for perceptual discrimination at all frequency bands. These findings validate the statistical presence of ITD asymmetry in public datasets of individual HRIRs and identify a significant, perceptually-relevant, region of increased asymmetry. Details of these results are of interest for HRIR modeling and personalization techniques, which should consider implementing compensation for asymmetric ITDs when aiming for perceptually accurate binaural displays. This work is part of a larger study aimed at binaural-audio personalization and user-characterization through non-invasive techniques.

Materials that obstruct the path of acoustic waveforms in free-field to the human ear, may introd... more Materials that obstruct the path of acoustic waveforms in free-field to the human ear, may introduce distortions that can modify the natural Head-Related Transfer Functions. In this paper, the effect of wearing commercially available Head-Mounted Displays for Mixed and Augmented Reality has been measured via a dummy head mannequin. Such spectral distortions may be relevant for mixed reality environments where real and virtual sounds mix together in the same auditory scene. The analysis revealed that the measured HMDs affected the fine structure of the HRTF (> 3-6 kHz) and also introduced non-negligible distortions in the interaural level difference range mostly at the contralateral ear. Distortion patterns in HRTFs and cue modifications are reported and discussed across incidence angles and frequency bands.

This paper provides a comparison between the operational results obtained reproducing a three-dim... more This paper provides a comparison between the operational results obtained reproducing a three-dimensional sound field by means of traditional 1st order Ambisonics, and employing for the first time the virtual microphone technique 3DVMS. Audio and video were recorded at the same time, employing 32-capsules spherical microphone arrays and a panoramic video capture system of our design. In both cases, a matrix of FIR filters was employed, for deriving the standard 4 B-format components (Ambisonics), or 32 highlydirective virtual microphones pointing at the same directions of the 32 loudspeakers (3DVMS). A pool of test subjects was employed for comparative listening tests, evaluating some standard psychoacoustical parameters. Furthermore, the same tests were repeated with and without the accompanying panoramic video.

Recent developments in immersive audio technology have motivated a proliferation of binaural rend... more Recent developments in immersive audio technology have motivated a proliferation of binaural renderers used for creating spatial audio content. Binaural renderers leverage psychoacoustic features of human hearing to reproduce a 3D sound image over headphones. In this paper, a methodology for the comparative evaluation of different binaural renderers is presented. The methodological approach is threefold: a subjective evaluation of 1) quantitative characteristics (such as front/back and up/down discrimination and localization); 2) qualitative characteristics (such as naturalness and spaciousness); and 3) overall preference. The main objective of the methodology is to help to elucidate the most meaningful factors for the performance of binaural renderers and to provide insight on possible improvements in the rendering process.

In the presented work, a live-rendered percussionist is transformed into a virtual game character... more In the presented work, a live-rendered percussionist is transformed into a virtual game character and performs a piece along digital avatars created from recordings (audio and motion-capture) of other members of an ensemble, while audience members can observe the collaborative performance through VR headsets. To create a cohesive and compelling result, the auditory expectations of the listeners need to be considered in terms of acoustic integrity between real and virtual sources and spatial impression of each avatar performer. This paper presents an overview of the workflow and motivations behind this pilot experiment of a novel musical experience, laying down the foundations for future subjective studies into collaborative music performances using virtual and augmented reality headsets. Particular focus is given to the technical challenges concerning the audio material, the perspectives of each participant role, and the qualitative impressions of musicians and audience.

Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Auditory Display - ICAD 2018, 2018

Many different musical applications, including remote sonification, sound installation, augmented... more Many different musical applications, including remote sonification, sound installation, augmented reality, and distributed/telematic music performance, make use of high speed Internet connections between different performance spaces. Most of the technical literature on this subject focuses on system latency, but there are also significant contributions from the acoustics of all rooms connected: specifically, smaller auxiliary rooms will tend to introduce spectral coloration, and the “main” larger volume will send more reverberation to the off-site performers. Measurements taken in two linked networked sites used in telematic performance show that both of these issues are present. Some improvements are suggested, including physical room alterations and equalization methods using signal processing.

Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2018

Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce dynamic spatial audio over headphones and deliver imm... more Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce dynamic spatial audio over headphones and deliver immersive audio content. Six commercially available binaural renderers with different rendering methodologies were evaluated in a multi-phase subjective study. This paper presents and discusses the testing methodology, evaluation criteria, and main findings of the externalization, front/back discrimination and up/down discrimination tasks which are part of the first phase. A statistical analysis over a large number of subjects revealed that the choice of renderer has a significant effect on all three dependent measures. Further, ratings of perceived externalization for the renderers were found to be content-specific, while renderer reversal rates were much more robust to different stimuli.

Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2018

Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce spatial audio over headphones. A number of different ... more Binaural renderers can be used to reproduce spatial audio over headphones. A number of different renderers have recently become commercially available for use in creating immersive audio content. High-quality spatial audio can be used to significantly enhance experiences in a number of different media applications, such as virtual, mixed and augmented reality, computer games, and music and movie. A large multi-phase experiment evaluating six commercial binaural renderers was performed. This paper presents the methodology, evaluation criteria, and main findings of the horizontal-plane source localization experiment carried out with these renderers. Significant differences between renderers’ regional localization accuracy were found. Consistent with previous research, subjects tended to localize better in the front and back of the head than at the sides. Differences between renderer performance at the side regions heavily contributed to their overall regional localization accuracy.

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Auditory Display - ICAD 2016, Jul 1, 2016

The Interaural Time Difference is one of the primary localization cues for 3D sound. However, due... more The Interaural Time Difference is one of the primary localization cues for 3D sound. However, due to differences in head and ear anthropometry across the population, ITDs related to a sound source at a given location around the head will differ from subject to subject. Furthermore, most individuals do not possess symmetrical traits between the left and right pinnae. This fact may cause an angle-dependent ITD asymmetry between locations mirrored across the left and right hemispheres. This paper describes an exploratory analysis performed on publicly available databases of individually measured HRIRs. The analysis was first performed separately for each dataset in order to explore the impact of different formats and measurement techniques, and then on pooled sets of repositories, in order to obtain statistical information closer to the population values. Asymmetry in ITDs was found to be consistently more prominent in the rear-lateral angles (approximately between 90°and 130°azimuth) across all databases investigated, suggesting the presence of a sensitive region. A significant difference between the peak asymmetry values and the average asymmetry across all angles was found on three out of four examined datasets. These results were further explored by pooling the datasets together, which revealed an asymmetry peak at 110°t hat also showed significance. Moreover, it was found that within the region of sensitivity the difference between specular ITDs exceeds the just noticeable difference values for perceptual discrimination at all frequency bands. These findings validate the statistical presence of ITD asymmetry in public datasets of individual HRIRs and identify a significant, perceptually-relevant, region of increased asymmetry. Details of these results are of interest for HRIR modeling and personalization techniques, which should consider implementing compensation for asymmetric ITDs when aiming for perceptually accurate binaural displays. This work is part of a larger study aimed at binaural-audio personalization and user-characterization through non-invasive techniques.

Materials that obstruct the path of acoustic waveforms in free-field to the human ear, may introd... more Materials that obstruct the path of acoustic waveforms in free-field to the human ear, may introduce distortions that can modify the natural Head-Related Transfer Functions. In this paper, the effect of wearing commercially available Head-Mounted Displays for Mixed and Augmented Reality has been measured via a dummy head mannequin. Such spectral distortions may be relevant for mixed reality environments where real and virtual sounds mix together in the same auditory scene. The analysis revealed that the measured HMDs affected the fine structure of the HRTF (> 3-6 kHz) and also introduced non-negligible distortions in the interaural level difference range mostly at the contralateral ear. Distortion patterns in HRTFs and cue modifications are reported and discussed across incidence angles and frequency bands.

This paper provides a comparison between the operational results obtained reproducing a three-dim... more This paper provides a comparison between the operational results obtained reproducing a three-dimensional sound field by means of traditional 1st order Ambisonics, and employing for the first time the virtual microphone technique 3DVMS. Audio and video were recorded at the same time, employing 32-capsules spherical microphone arrays and a panoramic video capture system of our design. In both cases, a matrix of FIR filters was employed, for deriving the standard 4 B-format components (Ambisonics), or 32 highlydirective virtual microphones pointing at the same directions of the 32 loudspeakers (3DVMS). A pool of test subjects was employed for comparative listening tests, evaluating some standard psychoacoustical parameters. Furthermore, the same tests were repeated with and without the accompanying panoramic video.

Recent developments in immersive audio technology have motivated a proliferation of binaural rend... more Recent developments in immersive audio technology have motivated a proliferation of binaural renderers used for creating spatial audio content. Binaural renderers leverage psychoacoustic features of human hearing to reproduce a 3D sound image over headphones. In this paper, a methodology for the comparative evaluation of different binaural renderers is presented. The methodological approach is threefold: a subjective evaluation of 1) quantitative characteristics (such as front/back and up/down discrimination and localization); 2) qualitative characteristics (such as naturalness and spaciousness); and 3) overall preference. The main objective of the methodology is to help to elucidate the most meaningful factors for the performance of binaural renderers and to provide insight on possible improvements in the rendering process.