Derek is currently in his final year of the master’s course in Music and Media Technology at Trinity College Dublin. Derek holds a higher national diploma with distinction in Music Production from Ballyfermot College, and has a vast amount of experience as an audio engineer in both live and studio environments. This experience has led him to work with Irish artists such as Damien Dempsey, Declan O’Rourke, Paddy Casey, Ham Sandwich, and Relish. Derek’s experience as an audio engineer gives him a unique perspective as a musician and composer. His most recent project was to compose and produced the title track for the Bollywood production “Unforgettable” which was put on general release in 2012. For his final year project Derek is focusing on an investigation of flanking microphone parameters which influence the measured IACC in reconstructed sound fields.

                                                                                                                      
Thesis

It has been well established that spaciousness is a significant parameter contributing to listener preference for the acoustic impression of performance spaces. These studies have used Inter-Aural Cross-Correlation (IACC) as a listener spaciousness metric. It is suggested that spaciousness would also be important for listener impressions of the reconstruction of recorded material. Flanking microphones are often used with stereo microphone pairs to better capture the room sound, and create a greater sense of spaciousness for recorded material reconstruction. This project focusses on an investigation of flanking microphone parameters which influence the measured IACC at the stereo listener position. It is informally recognized that the use of flanking microphones in combination with standard stereo microphone techniques creates a more spacious listener impression. This project will examine the flanking microphone parameters which contribute to changes in stereo reconstructed IACC. To the author’s knowledge, no studies have been carried out to measure the effect on the reconstructed sound field IACC through the use of flanking microphones with stereo pairs. It is hoped that the results from this study will identify how flanking microphones can be used with standard stereo microphone techniques to optimize auditory spaciousness.