Controlling spatial sound with table-top interface

Abstract

Interactive table-top interfaces are multimedia devices which allow sharing information visually and aurally among several users. Table-top interfaces for spatial sound environments are frequently investigated in the field of the human interfaces. Table-top interfaces are utilized as groupware and it is suitable for collaborative work, and it is convenient for a group working on theme related to sound systems. A representative of table-top musical instrument is the reacTable. In this paper, we present a way to control the position of multiple sounds in a spatial sound environment via a table-top interface. Sound localization is required to discriminate and recognize clearly sounds. We have been investigating musical table-top instruments which are capable of controlling multiple sound in spatial sound environments. One of the main features of this new developed system is that multiple users can control the spatialization of independently sounds in real-time. We verified changes of user recognition to multi-sound with a spatial sound environment.