A Journey into Spatial Sound

The Circuits 2020 programme organised by Electronic Music Malta (EMM), which starts on the 17th of October 2020 and goes on throughout November, is shaped around this year’s theme of ‘Away from the Comfort Zone’. Workshops cover topics such as building the ‘Storbju’ DIY synthesiser device, health awareness on exposure to excessive sound levels, the history of music production in Malta from the seventies to today, and representation of the Maltese entertainment and arts industry, copyright and music law.

Part of the innovative aspect of these performance is the fact that it explores the three-dimensional element of sound by means of spatial audio technology.

Spatial Audio is any audio which gives you a 3D stereo sound sensation, allowing the user to pinpoint where a sound is coming from, whether this is above, below or a full 360 degrees around you. The technique is called binaural; a special recording technique is designed to give the listener the same spatial experience that the human ears hear and give the feeling of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments.

To be able to achieve the element of 3D in the music / sound aspect of these performances, EMM has obtained permission to use software from the German Software firm ‘New Audio Technology’. Besides using this software, EMM has invited the company founder, Tom Ammermann from Hamburg, Germany to deliver a talk via live stream during the conference.

Tom is a Grammy-award nominee in 2017 for the album by the German band Kraftwerk 3-D The Catalogue and has also contributed to the sound effects in several Hollywood movies such as Stargate, Million Dollar Baby, Terminator 2, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Traffic, Gangs of New York, I, Frankenstein, and Expendables I-II.

Mr Ammermann will be providing the lecture on the opening day of The Circuits Festival 2020 – Saturday, 17th October at 12.45p.m. The lecture will be available for free online to the public.

You can join via Zoom:  click here  or via YouTube: click here.

For more information on The Circuits Festival – click here.
For more information on the project Away from the Comfort Zone – A Journey into Spatial Sound – click here.

The German participation in this project is sponsored by the German-Maltese Circle and the Goethe Institute.