Author: can.kuytak

Hôtel de la Marine

IRCAM was beautiful and of course it was interesting to see, but if I am honest, it was not my favourite sound-related experience in Paris. I actually liked the Hôtel de la Marine audio guide more than many of the things I saw at IRCAM. That surprised me a little, but it was simply a stronger experience for me.

The best part was not that the system was technically revolutionary. It was more about the taste and the artistic decisions. The way it told the history of the building, the atmosphere it created, and the attention in the sound design felt like a very well-made audio drama.

Walking through those old corridors while listening to the history of the place was genuinely impressive. You feel the building as something that has changed over centuries, not just as a museum room with objects inside. Hearing the stories while standing in those spaces made me feel closer to the history of Paris and to the people who had passed through that building. That part was honestly beautiful.

What I liked most was the artistic side of the audio guide. The voices, timing, background sounds and atmosphere worked together very well. It showed the history of Paris, the history of the hotel, and the way time changed the city in a way that felt natural and cinematic. For me, this was much more memorable than a lot of more “high-tech” things that try too hard but do not really create an emotional experience.

Of course, the system was not perfect. There were some headphone bugs and trigger problems. Sometimes xa sound started between rooms, and sometimes something did not trigger at all. But honestly, with such a large programmed system, I can understand that this happens. It was annoying in the moment, but it did not destroy the experience for me.

One detail I really liked was the headphone design. They did not fully close my ears. They stayed a few centimetres away from them, and I think this was a very smart choice. It made the sound feel less isolated and more connected to the actual room. The recorded sound and the real acoustic space could exist together, which made the atmosphere more believable.

There were also some interactive installations inside, but they did not interest me that much. They were fine, but compared to the audio guide they felt a bit bland. For me, the real strength of the visit was not the interactive technology. It was the combination of place, history, narration and sound design. That is what stayed with me.

Ars Electronica

Overall, I liked the Ars Electronica visit. The building itself is nice, the facilities are well designed, and Linz is already a beautiful city. I can imagine that during the Ars Electronica Festival it becomes a much more exciting place with more people, exhibitions, and events.

The project that caught my attention the most was Solar Synthesizer 0.4. I liked the idea of making electronic music with solar energy and controlling it just by changing the light with your hand. It is a simple concept, but I think it works well because it combines music, interaction, and sustainability. Even though I found the technology behind it a bit outdated compared to what is possible today, I still think the idea is interesting and creative.

My only criticism of the exhibition in general is that some of the technology and especially the AI-related installations felt a bit outdated. AI is developing so fast that I expected to see newer and more advanced examples. I think there are now other places in the world where more experimental and up-to-date technologies can be experienced.

Still, as a student studying sound and interaction design, I think it was definitely worth visiting. It is a good place to get inspiration and see different approaches to interactive media, even if not every installation feels cutting-edge anymore.

Paris and IRCAM Excursion

Paris was beautiful. Since it was my first time seeing the city, I do not really have any complaints about the city itself. The museums we visited and the areas we explored were useful, carefully maintained and special places. It was also good to experience the atmosphere of Paris outside of only reading or hearing about it.

Naturally, the trip was very expensive. My criticism is more about the support around the excursion. I think the school did not provide enough support, and some of the support that was promised did not arrive in a timely way. For example, the IRCAM conference ticket was not a surprising or unexpected cost. It was a expected fee from the beginning, so I think the school could have at least covered that part. They did not, and that was frustrating. Still, in the end, I had the opportunity to see Paris, and I am happy about that.

Apart from the financial side, I liked visiting IRCAM. It is clearly a very established institution, and it has pioneered many things in the field of sound, music technology and computer music. It is also valuable that they hold this conference every year and bring people together around these topics.

At the same time, I also felt a little disappointed. As many of my friends noticed as well, IRCAM felt a bit outdated and overly commercialised in some parts. Maybe this is normal for a large institution with a long history, but I expected some of the work to feel more experimental and more forward-looking.

Some of the people I met were helpful, and some were not, but that is not the most important point for me. What bothered me more was that some presentations felt too outdated for an institution that sees itself as a frontrunner in audio technologies. For example, there was a presentation about audio in gambling. In short, the presenter sonified gambling data in Pure Data. Of course, the patch itself was fine, and I do not want to disrespect the work. But as a topic, it felt very simple and outdated for a place like IRCAM.

This is only my personal opinion, but I expected a stronger level of experimentation and technological relevance. Still, the excursion was useful overall. Seeing Paris, visiting IRCAM and observing both the strong and weak sides of such an important institution helped me understand the field more realistically.

10. Current State and Personal Reflection

At this point, the project has reached a working prototype stage. It is not finished as a full thesis yet, but it is no longer only an idea or a sketch. There is now a real system that can be opened, configured and listened to. The listener can move through a virtual source layout, the system calculates direct-sound behaviour, and REAPER applies the values through the audio chain.

Looking back, the most important progress was not only technical. Of course, I learned a lot about Python, OSC, REAPER routing, mcfx, IEM plug-ins and binaural rendering. But maybe the bigger development was learning how to reduce the project to something I can actually defend. At the beginning, I wanted to work with physical sound superposition in a room. That idea is still important to me, but during the semester I understood that I first needed a controlled reference system.

The current prototype is therefore not trying to be everything. It does not model the full room. It does not include reflections, reverberation, diffraction, occlusion or source directivity. Instead, it focuses on the direct path between each source and the listener. This limitation is not only a weakness; it is also what makes the system understandable. I can explain what is calculated, what is sent to REAPER, and what is heard over headphones.

One useful lesson was that wording matters. If I call the system a room simulation, I create expectations that the prototype cannot fulfil. If I call it a direct-sound auralisation or a controlled reference model, the project becomes more honest. This was something I had to learn through feedback. Some parts of the system were already working, but my explanation was sometimes too broad or too confident. The feedback helped me clean that up.

The project also changed how I think about tools. I started with Pure Data and Max/MSP, but the final direction needed a custom interface and a more flexible calculation layer. PyGame and Python gave me that. REAPER then became the audio engine where the calculated values could be tested in a real plug-in chain. This combination is not always elegant, and sometimes it creates annoying technical problems, but it also gave me a system I understand from the inside.

The next step is to compare this controlled prototype with the physical room. That is where the original idea returns. The CUBE can show what the real room adds: reflections, room response, loudspeaker behaviour, interference and perception. I think this comparison is now the most interesting direction for the thesis. The prototype gives me the clean version; the physical room gives me the complicated version.

For me, the value of this semester is that the project became concrete. I now have a technical baseline, a clearer research direction and a better understanding of the limits. The system is not perfect, but it works, and more importantly, I can explain why it works the way it does. That feels like a good point to continue from next semester.

9. Next Semester: Bringing the Prototype to the Physical Room

The next step is to bring the project back to the physical room. The current prototype gives an idealised direct-sound condition. The CUBE will add the things that are deliberately missing: reflections, reverberation, room response, loudspeaker behaviour, source directivity, modal effects and real listener perception.

The goal is not to prove that the auralisation is “better” or that the real room is “worse”. That would be the wrong question. The more interesting question is: what changes when the same source layout moves from a controlled headphone-based auralisation into a physical multi-loudspeaker environment?

To make this comparison meaningful, the next semester needs a clearer method. One possible approach is to create selected source layouts in the GUI, then recreate equivalent layouts in the CUBE. The same or similar sine-tone frequency sets can be used, such as 440 Hz, 444 Hz, 448 Hz and related intervals. This keeps the connection to the original superposition idea.

For measurement, I do not want to claim a complete protocol yet. But the basic plan would be to use fixed source and listener positions. Level could be measured with a measurement microphone at selected listener positions and compared with the calculated direct-sound attenuation. Delay or time of flight could be checked using short impulse-like test signals and looking at the first arrival. The later reflections would then show what the room adds beyond the direct path.

Perception will also matter. The system can predict level and delay, but the listener may experience the physical room differently because of reflections, beating, instability or localisation changes. This is where a listening-test method could become important. It should focus on movement, localisation, beating and perceived spatial stability.

The game/interface side project may or may not connect to the thesis later. During the semester, I became interested in the PyGame controller and even made a Doom-like game, later moving it to Godot. That is not the main thesis right now, but it influenced how I think about movement and interaction. Maybe there will be a connection later; maybe not. For now, the safest thesis direction is the comparison between controlled direct-sound auralisation and real-room behaviour.

The project has reached a working baseline. The next step is to test what this baseline can reveal when it meets the physical space again.