Analysis and Synthesis of Auditory Scenes

Audition is the most important human sensory modality in interindividual communication. Consequently, acoustics has always dealt with communication. Yet recently, due to the high amount of computing power available, communication-acoustical systems become increasingly complex and sophisticated. In particular, they become more intelligent and knowledgeable. This trend will be discussed in this chapter by taking two complementary research streams as examples which have been pursued at the Institute of Communication Acoustics at Bochum during the past three decades, namely, (a) analysis of auditory scenes with the goal of arriving at parametric representations and, complementary, (b) synthesis of auditory scenes from parametric representations. The discussion is based on two software systems which have been developed for research purposes, namely, a binaural-analysis system and an auditory-virtual-environment generator — both of which will be roughly explained. It is, however, not the aim of the chapter to introduce scientific or technological details, but rather to bring a trend to the fore which may well coin the profile of communication acoustics in the years to come.