Distributed Audio Mixing

• US 20180167755A1
• Filed: 12/08/2017
• Published: 06/14/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/14/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nokia Technologies Oy (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: LEHTINIEMI, Arto, ERONEN, Antti, LEPPNEN, Jussi, ARRASVUORI, Juha
• Granted Patent: US 10,448,186 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 19/008 Multichannel audio signal coding or decoding using interchannel correlation to reduce redundancy, e.g. joint-stereo, intensity-coding or matrixing
• CPC Class Codes: H04H 60/04 Studio equipment; Interconnection of studios
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/11 Positioning of individual sound objects, e.g. moving airplane, within a sound field H04S2420/13 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/13 Aspects of volume control, not necessarily automatic, in stereophonic sound systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 2400/15 Aspects of sound capture and related signal processing for recording or reproduction
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 3/008 in which the audio signals are in digital form, i.e. employing more than two discrete digital channels data reduction aspects thereof based on psychoacoustics G10L19/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/30 Control circuits for electronic adaptation of the sound field
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/304 For headphones
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/305 Electronic adaptation of stereophonic audio signals to reverberation of the listening space H04S7/301 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04S 7/40 Visual indication of stereophonic sound image

Abstract

Systems and methods for distributed audio mixing are disclosed, comprising providing one or more predefined constellations, each constellation defining a spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern and receiving positional data indicative of the spatial positions of a plurality of audio sources in a capture space. A correspondence may be identified between a subset of the audio sources and a constellation based on the relative spatial positions of audio sources in the subset. Responsive to said correspondence, at least one action may be applied, for example an audio, video and/or controlling action to audio sources of the subset.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

providing one or more predefined constellations, each constellation defining a spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern;

receiving positional data indicative of spatial positions of a plurality of audio sources in a capture space;

identifying a correspondence between a subset of the audio sources and a constellation based on relative spatial positions of audio sources in the subset; and

responsive to said correspondence, applying at least one action.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one action is applied to selected ones of the audio sources.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the action applied is one or more of an audio action, a visual action and a controlling action.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the audio action is applied to audio signals of selected audio sources, comprising one or more of:

reducing or muting the audio volume, increasing the audio volume, distortion and reverberation.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the controlling action is applied to control at least one of:

the spatial position(s) of selected audio source(s); and

movement of one or more capture devices in the capture space.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein each constellation defines one or more of a line, arc, circle, cross or polygon.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the positional data is derived from positioning tags, carried by the audio sources in the capture space.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the correspondence is identified if the relative spatial positions of the audio sources in the subset comprise substantially the same shape or pattern of the constellation, or deviate therefrom by no more than a predetermined distance.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein each constellation is defined by receiving, through a user interface, a user-defined spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern.

10. An apparatus having at least one processor and at least one memory having computer-readable code stored thereon which when executed controls the apparatus to:

provide one or more predefined constellations, each constellation defining a spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern;

receive positional data indicative of spatial positions of a plurality of audio sources in a capture space;

identify a correspondence between a subset of the audio sources and a constellation based on relative spatial positions of audio sources in the subset; and

responsive to said correspondence, apply at least one action.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the at least one action is applied to selected ones of the audio sources.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the action applied is one or more of an audio action, a visual action and a controlling action.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the audio action is applied to audio signals of selected audio sources, comprising one or more of:

reducing or muting the audio volume, increasing the audio volume, distortion and reverberation.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the controlling action is applied to control the spatial position(s) of selected audio source(s).

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the controlling action is applied to control movement of one or more capture devices in the capture space.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein each constellation defines one or more of a line, arc, circle, cross or polygon.

17. The apparatus of claim 12 wherein the positional data is derived from positioning tags, carried by the audio sources in the capture space.

18. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the correspondence is identified if the relative spatial positions of the audio sources in the subset have substantially the same shape or pattern of the constellation, or deviate therefrom by no more than a predetermined distance.

19. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein each constellation is defined by means of receiving, through a user interface, a user-defined spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon computer-readable code, which, when executed by at least one processor, causes the at least one processor to perform:

providing one or more predefined constellations, each constellation defining a spatial arrangement of points forming a shape or pattern;

receiving positional data indicative of spatial positions of a plurality of audio sources in a capture space;

identifying a correspondence between a subset of the audio sources and a constellation based on relative spatial positions of audio sources in the subset; and

responsive to said correspondence, applying at least one action.