Dimensions
Laura Wu (2023)Dimensions is an album of original music, composed of spatial audio pieces specifically for any stereo listening experience, such as headphones.
Spatial audio is 3D audio, a field increasingly applicable to media such as games, movies, and music which aim to create an immersive experience in an original environment unlike the real environment. My project, also my first official music album, features 3 music songs specifically created for spatial audio. A major goal of this project was to produce spatial music that wouldn’t exist in any other context, not just a spatial audio version of a regular song with a stereo mix. Using Dolby Atmos Renderer, I constructed specific audio environments with different spatialized sound objects in each piece, allowing the listener to experience unique environments. In each of the 3 songs, I explored different genres ranging from lo-fi to hyperpop, and I experimented with specific features like automating percussion movement patterns around the head and creating hazy, ambiguous sound auras by slowly changing locations. The spatiality is expressed in the medium of binaural audio, which allows listeners to use traditional stereo audio devices, a choice made for accessibility to a larger audience. Since I chose to work with binaural audio, the listening experience with headphones causes increased proximity to the ears which contributes to the effectiveness of in-head spatialization and the sensations of close spatialization. This project allowed me to experiment with the technical limits of current spatial audio technology and explore my own creative artistic possibilities in spatial music.
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This project was made possible with support from FRFF Grant #2024-034.