How does Architecture Sound for Different Musical Instrument Performances?

This paper discusses how consideration of sound _in particular a specific musical instrument_ impacts the design of a room. Properly designed architectural acoustics is fundamental to improve the listening experience of an instrument in rooms in a conservatory. Six discrete instruments (violin, clarinet, trumpet, xylophone, piano, and guitar) and a choir performance are designated for assessment.

The range of reverberation time is defined as a starting acoustical consideration and the range of the floor area is defined as a starting architectural consideration. Different absorption materials and different ceiling heights are applied within the defined range of the floor area. The rooms are simulated with the architectural variables (floor area, ceiling height and absorption).

The anechoic recordings of the instruments and choir are used to prepare auralizations of each instrument and the choir performance for each separate room design. Thus, the listening experience is simulated in all different rooms. Subjective assessment is done by listening tests prepared from the auralizations.

The subjects are asked for their preference of the room for each type of the instrument and the choir. A rank order of different designs for rooms is obtained for each instrument and the choir performance. The appropriate reverberation time and the most preferable rooms are demonstrated. The information derived is useful to know how many different rooms are necessary in a conservatory.

This might lead to a grouping among different instruments and the choir experience that could fit into same category of room. For all calculations and the auralizations, a computational model is used: ODEON 7.0.