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The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

npr.org

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Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#71

Post by wahern »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #49
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #48

> Now imagine - it's the early 13th century. You're sitting inside the Hagia Sophia. Marble pillars rise up around you. Dusty light filters into the windows in the massive dome above. The Hagia Sophia was also a great tool for the Byzantine Emperors to convert other leaders to Orthodox Christianity. There are stories of various leaders being so overcome by the experience of a mass in the Hagia Sophia that they embrac…

That basically works like the concept of "culture" in the Civilization video games. If you have more "culture" you gain all sorts of upper hands over the other players. (I know the comparison is rather silly)

Seems like a very apt comparison. The spread of Christianity and Islam, including denominational conversions, works much the same today. In fact, in some places it's far more crass--fancy cars and huge televisions replace grandiose public buildings and fine art as symbols and enticements of a more civilized and prosperous life awaiting converts.

I don't mean to demean religion, it's just the reality of how mass conversions often work. You get pulled in by the fancy cars, but you stay for the social networks and economic opportunities.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#72

Post by red-indian »

James_Henry wrote: post #68
red-indian wrote: post #51

"Only possible in the last 10 years" is not correct. Computer musicians have used the IRCAM ISPW board as far back as 1989 to implement live real time convolution. Single purpose realtime convolution reverb hardware has been commercially available since Sony's 1999 DRE S777. Non-real time convolution has been done for decades as well, including by myself in 1991 and likely hundreds of others during that time period.…

I think Abel was talking about his and his colleagues work in this paper when he said the 10 years comment: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bissera_Pentcheva/publi... He's not just talking about being able to do convolution.

To be perfectly clear, some have been sampling reverb spaces for use in convolution reverbs using a starter pistol since the 1980s, and the procedure became widespread in the 1990s.

It is not 10 years old at all in any imaginable interpretation.

This person's "innovation" of popping balloons instead of using a starter pistol is completely and totally irrelevant and inconsequential.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#73

Post by repiret »

red-indian wrote: post #51

"Only possible in the last 10 years" is not correct. Computer musicians have used the IRCAM ISPW board as far back as 1989 to implement live real time convolution. Single purpose realtime convolution reverb hardware has been commercially available since Sony's 1999 DRE S777. Non-real time convolution has been done for decades as well, including by myself in 1991 and likely hundreds of others during that time period.…

Right. I'm curious what the recent advance is. "Pop a balloon to get the impulse response and use that to build a linear filter" was well known when I was doing signal processing work in the very early 2000's.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#74

Post by tdumitrescu »

I sang on this CD. The NPR piece linked here appears to be based on a segment we did a few years later for Pop-Up Magazine in Oakland. An interesting technological tidbit that they didn't mention is the use of contact mics for recreating the Hagia Sophia acoustic in live performances (and the CD recording). The Stanford crew would tape these tiny mics to the middle of our foreheads (with wires running down to portable wireless transmitters on the belt) to get a good mixable channel for each singer, which would go through their signal processing gear to produce an acoustic backing mixed with the live singing. This is totally unusual for performances of this repertory; you normally do concerts entirely "acoustic" with no mics or monitors, and good recordings typically involve either a single pair of crossed mics in front of the whole ensemble or a few strategically placed mics in the space, but no per-singer channels and pop-style mixing tech.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#75

Post by gmueckl »

beloch wrote: post #19

The next step (that will probably never happen) would be to refurnish the Hagia Sophia, as it would have been before it was plundered in the fourth crusade, and seat an audience in it, as if for a mass. Then pop another balloon. All those extra furnishings and bodies would have had a significant impact on how the space sounded. The plastered over mosaics might also create a noticeable effect that would need to be com…

You don't have to measure it, strictly speaking. When you know the acoustic material properties of the surfaces well enough, you can compute an impulse response with high enough accuracy (getting to one jnd and below). The tricky part is knowing the material properties. These are often just guesses as measuring them in situ is very difficult/impossible.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#76

Post by isjustaguy »

A few years ago I went to Aya Sofya with a Turkish violinist friend who studiest at a conservatory here. Unexpectedly, up on the top floor, he pulled out his violin and started playing an Armenian/Azeri song called "Laz".

He made it through 3 glorious minutes before security escorted him out. The sound was unreal.

I would love to hear the same test done in the Basilica Cistern.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#77

Post by isjustaguy »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #36

I find chants very relaxing. And, it has nothing to do with a specific religion. P.S. Its weird, but the Orthodox, generally speaking, "hate" Catholics more than they hate Muslims. In fact, a Muslim was /is the referee to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre https://www.reuters.com/article/us-religion-jerusalem-church... Might have to do with the split and a tiny thing like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Constanti…

As witnessed with the Ukraine/Russian split, the Orthodoxy doesn't even like each other. The Orthodox Churches have historically been Catholocism's strongest political/military opponent.

Re: The sound of the Hagia Sophia, more than 500 years ago

#79

Post by gmueckl »

topspin wrote: post #69
wl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they made an audio filter using techniques and understanding of sound in space that only became available in last 10 years. This is an old technique. The idea of convolving the impulse response of a system with an input to yield the output is the basis of LTI systems theory. And while convolution isn't the most computationally light operation in the world, computers have been up to the task of practically performin…

I wonder why one would need an impulse response recording. The dimensions and materials of the chamber are known. Seems like the effect could be synthesized from that.

As I metioned earlier, the tricky part is measuring the materials. The rest can be done with pretty high accuracy. There are commercial packages for that like Odeon or CATT acoustics.

These days, some of the simulation algorithms are slowly trickling into game engines, too, with the push for realistic VR. Unfortunately, these still require some larger quality/performance tradeoffs because they have to share the processor with all the other work the engine has to perform. But it is still quite convincing. So with this tech, you actually get to walk around in a space and hear the reverb adjusting in real time, even when the geometry of the space changes.

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