Ronan Corrigan is a Musician and Engineer from Co. Meath. Having graduated from a degree in Electronic Engineering with Communications at NUI Maynooth in 2011, Ronan saw the M. Phil in Music and Media Technologies as a way to consolidate his lifelong interest in music with the technical knowledge accrued through his undergraduate education. Throughout his time in Trinity Ronan was afforded the opportunity to study with accomplished composers such as Donnacha Dennehy, Linda Buckley and Enda Bates. This lead to the uncovering of a rich vein of interest in the fields of sound design, particularly in terms of the processing and exploration of found sounds and also in the area of the technological and compositional opportunities afforded through the use of multi-channel audio systems. Ronan hopes to exploit these interests to amass a vast personal fortune in the near future.

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Ronan’s project is an investigation into the dynamic adjustment of signals being presented over a multi-channel array, in order to extend the 'sweet-spot' of that system. To do this a Microsoft Kinect camera will be used - this is a camera which provides data regarding the users position on the X, Y and Z planes. This information will be used to adjust two properties of the signal being replayed by each speaker - the gain - to account for the level changes as the user moves closer to or further away from a speaker. The second quality being altered is a time delay, the time delay is applied to account for the differing path lengths, and thus differing time of arrival of signals that occur when the listener is not equidistant from all speakers (i.e. - in the sweet spot). It is hoped that the combination of these two factors will result in the creation of a more stable image - so that the perceived location of the sound sources doesn't change as the user moves about the array. It is thought that a system such as this would have widespread possible applications, particularly in the emerging field of motion controlled gaming - where the user is required to move around in order to control a game rather than using a traditional controller.