Intel Spatial Audio for Java* Package Tutorial

Lesson 1: Basic Concepts

Goal: This lesson explains what spatial audio is, and describes the basic players in the Intel Spatial Audio for Java* package.

What does "spatial audio" really mean?

In real life, we are familiar with how sound behaves. Without even thinking about it, we know that a sound approaching us gets louder, then fades as it moves away. We know whether a sound is coming from our right or our left, in front of or behind us. We know that when a sound moves quickly past us, its pitch rises and falls.

Spatialized audio brings these natural sound properties to virtual environments on your computer.

So, what does it take to make sound?

To get sound out of the Intel Spatial Audio for Java package, you need three objects: an Environment, a Listener, and a SoundSource.

Sound in Intel Spatial Audio for Java is controlled by an audio Environment. The Environment is used to control global properties shared by all audio objects in an environment, such as reverberation properties, the default processor budget for rendering sound, and the speed of sound in the environment. It is also used to create sound sources and listeners.

A Listener is an audio consumer. You hear what the Listener hears; if you don't have a Listener, you won't hear anything! Intel Spatial Audio for Java supports two types of listeners. The DirectListener sends the audio directly to the audio output device on your computer, and is appropriate for most basic uses of the package. The StreamingListener provides the processed audio data to the application in buffers. The buffers could then be saved to a file to produce a file of spatialized audio data, processed by another application, broadcast out over the network, etc.

A SoundSource is an audio producer — it makes sound. Again, the package provides two types of sound sources. The CachedSoundSource uses a fixed data reservoir, usually a file. All you have to do is tell the sound source where the data is and when to play it. The StreamingSoundSource is more flexible, but also more complicated. It accepts buffers of data rather than a fixed data source. The data could be, for example, dynamically generated or received from a live feed over the network.

The impression of spatialized audio is created when one or more sound sources are audible by a listener. If the sound is closer to the listener, it sounds louder. If it's to the right of the listener, it sounds that way. If there are several sounds, they are mixed. All spatialization and mixing is done in real time. In this way, Intel Spatial Audio for Java brings realistic, dynamic, interactive audio to your PC.

This page was last updated on Feb 11th, 1997.

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