Icmc Panoramix 2016
Icmc Panoramix 2016
Icmc Panoramix 2016
Thibaut Carpentier
Thibaut Carpentier
UMR 9912 STMS IRCAM – CNRS – UPMC
1, place Igor Stravinsky, 75004 Paris
[email protected]
3. PANORAMIX
Like a traditional mixing desk, the panoramix interface is
designed as vertical strips depicted in Figure 3. Strips can
be of different types, serving different purposes with the
following common set of features:
• multichannel vu-meter for monitoring the input level(s),
• input trim, Figure 2. Compressor/expander module. ➀ Dynamic compression curve.
• multichannel equalization module (where the EQ is ap- ➁ Ratios and thresholds. ➂ Temporal characteristics.
plied uniformly on each channel). The equalizer comes
as a 8-stage parametric filter (see ➅ in Figure 3) with
one high-pass, one low-pass (Butterworth design with of four temporal sections: direct sound, early reflections,
adjustable slope), two shelving filters, and four second- late/diffuse reflections and reverberation tail. By default the
order sections (with adjustable gain, Q and cutoff fre- Spat perceptual model is applied, using the source distance
quency), to calculate the gain, delay, and filter coefficients for each
• multichannel dynamic compressor/expander (Figure 2) of the four temporal sections. Alternatively, the perceptual
with standard parameters (ratio, activation threshold, and model can be disabled (see slave buttons ➂ in Figure 4)
attack/release settings), and the levels manually adjusted. Each temporal section
• mute/solo buttons, may also be muted independently. In the signal process-
• multichannel vu-meter for output monitoring, with a gain ing chain, the extended direct sound (i.e. direct sound plus
fader. early reflections) is generated inside the mono track (Fig-
In addition, a toolbar below the strip header (Figure 3), ure 7), while the late/diffuse sections are synthesized in
allows for the configuration of various options such as lock- a reverb bus (described in 3.2.2) which is shared among
ing/unlocking the strip, adding textual annotations, and several tracks in order to minimize the CPU cost. Finally,
configuring the vu-meters (pre/post fader, peakhold), etc. a drop-down menu (“bus send”) allows one to select the
Strips are organized in two main categories: input tracks destination bus (see 3.2.1) of the track.
and busses. The following sections describe the properties Moreover all mono tracks are visualized (and can be ma-
of each kind of strip. nipulated) in a 2D geometrical interface (➆ in Figure 3).
Input tracks correspond to the audio streams used in the A Multi Track is essentially a coordinated collection of
mixing session (which could be real-time or prerecorded). mono tracks, where all processing settings (filters, rever-
Each input track contains a delay parameter in order to beration, etc.) are applied similarly on each monophonic
re-synchronize audio recorded with different microphone channel. The positions of each of the mono elements are
systems. For example, spot microphones are recorded close fixed (i.e. they are set once –via the “Channels...” menu–
to the instruments and so their signals arrive faster than for the lifetime of the session). Such Multi Track is typi-
microphones placed at greater distances. Miking a sound cally used to process a multichannel stream of speaker feeds
source with multiple microphones is also prone to tone signals (see paragraph 2.3).
coloration; adjusting the delay parameter helps reducing this Similar results could be obtained by grouping (see 3.5)
coloration and can also be used to vary the sense of spatial multiple “Mono” tracks, however “Multi” tracks make the
envelopment. In practice, it can be effective to set the spot configuration and management of the session much more
microphones to arrive slightly early, to take advantage of the simple, rapid and intuitive.
precedence effect which stabilizes the perceived location of
3.1.3 EigenMike Track
the combined sound.
As its name suggests, an “EigenMike” Track is employed to
3.1.1 Mono Track
process recordings made with spherical microphone arrays
A Mono Track is used to process and spatialize a mono- such as the EigenMike. Correspondingly, the track has 32
phonic signal, typically from a spot microphone or an elec- input channels and it encodes spherical microphone signals
tronic track. The strip provides controls over the localiza- in the HOA format. Encoding can be performed up to
tion attributes (azimuth, elevation, distance), spatial effects 4th order, and several normalization flavors (N3D, SN3D,
(Doppler, air absorption filtering) and reverberation. The ar- FuMa, etc.) are available.
tificial reverberation module is derived from the Spat archi- Modal-domain operators can later be applied to spatially
tecture [9] wherein the generated room effect is composed transform the encoded sound-field, for example rotating the
whole sound scene, or weighting the spherical harmonics case of binaural reproduction, the “hrtf...” button provides
components (see ➃ in Figure 4). means to select the desired HRTF set. Finally, HOA panning
Signals emanating from an EigenMike recording are al- busses decode the Ambisonic streams, and several decoding
ready spatialized and they convey the reverberation of the parameters can be adjusted (see “HOA Bus 1” in Figure 3).
concert hall, however a reverb send parameter is provided The selection of rendering techniques (VBAP, HOA, bin-
in the track, which can be useful for adding subtle artificial aural) was motivated by their ability to spatialize sounds
reverberation, coherent with the other tracks, to homoge- in full 3D, and their perceptual complementarity. Other
nize the mix. The reverb send is derived from the omni panning algorithms may also be added in future versions of
component (W-channel) of the HOA stream. panoramix.
Output signals from the panning busses are sent to the
3.1.4 Tree Track Master strip. Each panning bus provides a routing matrix
A “Tree” track is used to accommodate the signals of a so as to assign the signals to the desired destination channel
microphone tree such as the 6-channel tree installed for (➁ in Figure 5).
the recording of Encantadas (section 2.2). The “Mics...”
3.2.2 Reverberation bus
button (cf. Track “Tree 1” in Figure 3) pops up a window
for setting the positions of the microphones in the tree. It is Reverberation busses function to synthesize the late/diffuse
further possible to align the delay and level of each cell of sections of the artificial reverberation processing chain. A
the microphone array. reverb bus is uniquely and permanently attached to one
As microphone trees entirely capture the sound scene, the or more panning buses, where the reverberation effect is
“Tree” track does not apply any specific treatment to the applied to each track routed to this bus.
signals. Panoramix builds on the reverberation engine of Spat
which consists of a feedback delay network with an variable
3.2 Busses decay profile, adjustable in three frequency bands. The
main parameters of the algorithm are exposed in the reverb
Three types of bus are provided: panning busses, reverb
strip (see ➄ in Figure 4).
busses, and one LFE (“low frequency enhancement”) bus.
3.2.3 LFE Bus
3.2.1 Panning/Decoding bus
Each track has a LFE knob to tune the amount of signals
The role of panning busses is threefold: 1) they act as sent to the LFE bus which handles the low-frequency signals
summing busses for the track output streams; 2) they control sent to the subwoofer(s) of the reproduction setup. The bus
the spatialization technique in use (three algorithms are applies a low-pass filter with adjustable cutoff frequency.
currently supported: VBAP, HOA and binaural); 3) panning
busses are used to control various parameters related to
3.3 Master
the encoding/decoding of the signals. For speaker-based
rendering (VBAP or HOA), the “Speakers...” button allows The “Master” strip collects the output signals of all the
for the configuration of the speakers layout (Figure 6); in busses and forwards them to the panoramix physical outputs.