SoundWorks Collection Interview Series - Christopher Willitis
April 09, 2015 - 04:02 PM
This week we spoke with Christopher Willitis, who is a bay are based electronic musician, teacher, composer, producer, photographer, filmmaker and guitar pioneer. His most recent album,Opening, was released on Ghostly International in September 2014.
Chris and a group of artists, coders, designers, musicians, thinkers, engineers, geeks, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs are opening a new intimate performance space housed within The Midway creative complex in San Francisco called Envelop., ENVELOP is a unique audio visual instrument for electronic artists, and a world-class venue for audiences to experience sound and light.
Support the project: www.kickstarter.com/projects/envelop/envelop-3d-sound
<img border=”0” alt=”podcast subscribe” src=”http://192.254.225.186/clients/soundworks/feed/itunes_podcast.png”></a> <iframe width=”640” height=”480” src=”https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/envelop/envelop-3d-sound/widget/video.html” frameborder=”0” scrolling=”no”> </iframe> For over 50 years we have been listening to music in stereo (two speakers), but we hear in 3 dimensions. Our natural mechanism for listening is designed to perceive sounds coming from all around us: however, our ability to experience music has been limited by the geometry of stereo for decades. We believe the time is ripe for that to change. ENVELOP is a 3D sound platform that introduces an open source software toolkit and educational initiatives to help any artist align their creativity with new technologies for creating music in three dimensions. We are creating a next-generation 28.4 speaker audiovisual system that features innovative technology to move sound in space around the audience from any direction. ENVELOP is new environment for artists to create and perform music in 3D surround sound. We have already received generous donations to pay for the ENVELOP system equipment, and have secured a 3 year lease in a prime location. We have a small gap in the funding needed to make this project come to life and need the community’s support to fund the final build out. Together we can influence the future of music and make it an accessible 3D experience. ### OPEN SOURCE TECHNOLOGY: The foundation of ENVELOP’s technology is Ambisonics, a proven open source sound mapping technology that has flourished in academic settings (such as Stanford’s CCRMA). Envelop will bring this technology out of academia and to the general public as a permanent installation for the first time in the Bay Area. With Ambisonics, artists determine a virtual location in space where they want to place a sound source, and the source is then rendered within a spherical array of speakers. Ambisonics is a coordinate based mapping system; rather than positioning sounds to different locations around the room based on speaker locations (as with conventional surround sound techniques), sounds are digitally mapped to different locations using x,y,z coordinates. All the speakers then work simultaneously to position and move sound around the listener from any direction - above, below, and even between speakers. ### THE SPACE: The ENVELOP system will be built in a dedicated space within The Midway, a new massive and diverse arts and entertainment complex opening this summer in the rapidly up-and-coming Dogpatch district of San Francisco. The Midway is planned to include a large-scale night club, cafe/lounge, artist studios, art galleries, a teaching kitchen, and offices for local non-profits. Our physical home within the Midway creative complex connects ENVELOP with a diverse audience and to creators in many different domains. ### A NEW EXPERIENCE OF MUSIC: So what actually does “immersive audio” or “3D sound” actually mean? It’s a new concept for a lot of people. Think of it this way; what if music was composed to move around you from all directions, not just from in front of you? For over 50 years the music industry has been firmly rooted in stereo sound. Naturally occurring sound on the other hand comes at us from all angles, not just the direction we are facing. Yet the music we all listen to is still created using a technology that does not allow sound to move around us from every angle. It is no mystery that sound and music has the power to influence our emotions, psychological state and physical sensations. 3D-immersive audio literally puts you inside the music. It can can foster a more intimate connection with sound, and deepen the way we listen. We believe that new ways of listening will encourage new ways of creating and thinking about music production, and with shifts in listening come shifts in consciousness.