Visually Representing and Interpreting Multivariate Data for Audio Mixing (original) (raw)
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2016
Given the shortcomings of current audio mixing interfaces (AMIs) this study focuses on the development of alternative AMIs based on data visualisation first principles. The elementary perceptual tasks defined by Cleveland informed the design process. Two design ideas were considered for pan: using the elementary perceptual tasks ‘scale’ to display pan on either a single or multiple horizontal lines. Four design ideas were considered for level: using ‘length’, ‘area’, ‘saturation’ or ‘scalable icon’ for visualisation. Each level idea was prototyped with each pan idea, totalling eight novel interfaces. Seven subjects undertook a usability evaluation, replicating a 16 channel reference mix with each interface. Results showed that ‘scalable icons’, especially on multiple horizontal lines appear to show potential.
Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2017
The two-dimensional stage paradigm (2DSP) has been suggested as an alternative audio mixing interface (AMI). This study seeks to refine the 2DSP by formally evaluating graphical track visualisation styles. Track visualisations considered were text only, circles containing text, individually coloured circles containing text, circles colour coded by instrument type with text, icons with text superimposed, circles with RMS related dynamic opacity and a traditional AMI. The usability evaluation focused on track selection efficiency and included user visualisation preference for this micro-task. Test subjects were instructed to click five randomly selected tracks for a six, sixteen and thirty-two track mix for each visualisation. The results indicate text only visualisation is best for efficiency however test subjects preferred icons and traditional AMI.
Mixploration: Rethinking the Audio Mixer Interface
A typical audio mixer interface consists of faders and knobs that control the amplitude level as well as processing (e.g. equalization, compression and reverberation) parameters of individual tracks. This interface, while widely used and effective for optimizing a mix, may not be the best interface to facilitate exploration of different mixing options. In this work, we rethink the mixer interface, describing an alternative interface for exploring the space of possible mixes of four audio tracks. In a user study with 24 participants, we compared the effectiveness of this interface to the traditional paradigm for exploring alternative mixes. In the study, users responded that the proposed alternative interface facilitated exploration and that they considered the process of rating mixes to be beneficial.
The effect of differing user interface presentation styles on audio mixing
When mixing audio on computers, users need to be able to attend to both visual and auditory information and share their attention between the two modalities. This study aims to investigate to what extent User Interface (UI) design has an effect on mixing workflow by analysing whether different presentation styles result in more efficient coordination between critical listening and interface manipulation tasks. The results show that while differing UI designs do not significantly affect critical listening reaction times, they do provide more efficient task sharing between visual and auditory tasks.
Towards a more flexible and creative music mixing interface
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems on - CHI EA '13, 2013
This paper presents the ongoing work towards creating a novel interface for mixing music. It identifies 5 key design factors crucial for the development and evaluation of such an interface. It then shortly presents an initial prototype, which implements a stage metaphor control structure. Finally two initial evaluation activities are briefly presented and discussed, one of which compares multi touch to two different tangible user interface interaction schemes. Preliminary results suggest that tangible controls outperform and are preferred over multi touch.
Audio Mixing Displays: The Influence of Overviews on Information Search and Critical Listening
Due to the compartmentalisation of the mix into separate channel strips, Digital Audio Workstation displays often result in global attributes and relationships between channels becoming hard to discern. This is despite the fact that overviews of mix information may help support direct visual comparison and make the visual data more coherent, thereby reducing the cognitive load involved in navigation and freeing up resources for critical listening (the focused listening to details of an audio mix, including dynamics, tone, blend and stereo placement). In this study participants were asked to locate visual information from a 24-channel mixer using interface designs with and without overviews. At the same time as locating the visual information, participants were required to identify changes in the panning (stereo positioning) of specified tracks in an audio mix. Results suggest that overviews not only allow more efficient search for visual mix information, but also significantly improve concurrent critical listening tasks.
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Audio Engineering Society 41st Conference: Audio for Games (2011).
Developments in abstract representations of sound from the field of computer music have potential applications for designers of musical computer games. Research in cognition has identified correlations in the perceptions of visual objects and audio events; -experiments show that test subjects associate certain qualities of graphical shapes with those of vocal sounds. Such 'sound symbolism' has been extended to non-vocal sounds and this paper describes attempts to exploit this and other phenomenon in the visualization of audio. The ideas are expanded upon to propose control for sound synthesis through the manipulation of virtual shapes. Mappings between parameters in the auditory and visual feedback modes are discussed. An exploratory user test examines the technique using a prototype system.
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Graphical interpolation systems provide a simple mechanism for the control of sound synthesis by providing a level of abstraction above the engine parameters, allowing users to explore different sounds without awareness of the underlying details. Typically, a graphical interpolator presents the user with a two-dimensional pane where a number of synthesizer presets, each representing a collection of synthesis parameter values, can be located. Moving an interpolation cursor within the pane results in the calculation of new parameter values, based on its position, the relative locations of the presets, and the mathematical interpolation function, thus generating new sounds. These systems supply users with two sensory modalities in the form of sonic output and visual feedback from the interface. A number of graphical interpolator systems have been developed over the years, with a variety of user-interface designs, but few have been subject to formal user evaluation. Our testing studied ...
The Sound Challenge to Visualization Design Research
Proceedings of EmoVis 2016, ACM IUI 2016 Workshop on Emotion and Visualization, Sonoma, CA, USA, March 10, 2016, 2016
This paper is an introduction to the emotional qualities of sound and music, and we suggest that the visual and the aural modalities should be combined in the design of visualizations involving emotional expressions. We therefore propose that visualization design should incorporate sonic interaction design drawing on musicology, cognitive neuroscience of music, and psychology of music, and identify what we see as key research challenges for such an approach.