On 31/03/2012 11:30, Eero Aro wrote:
Hi
..
- The developers didn't have a marketing background. The NRDC tried to
market the consept on a license basis, but as far as I know, didn't
spend too
much energy on the thing. The business was moved over to BTG after that,
which didn't get much more sone than the NRDC had done. Both authorities
are large and Ambisonics was a tiny factor within agriculture, industy etc.
This article discusses the NRDC aspects in some detail:
http://www.ambisonic.net/ambi_AM91.html
My own assumption when first discovering Ambsonics (public concert by
electric Phoenix, and later via CDP, from the late 80s) was that it was
purposed towards use in public diffusion - live concerts, e/a
performance etc, and above all, for enabling composers to work in
surround (including the seemingly all-important height dimension)
without having to commit to a specific speaker layout. I don't think it
ever occurred to me at the time that people in any numbers would listen
to surround at home, or that such a thing as an "ambisonic CD" would
ever exist. It was quite strange knowing that the BBC regularly
broadcast in UHJ (especially drama, apparently), but never announced the
fact; it all contributed to the sense of it being some secret
other-worldy process strictly for the "cognoscenti".
I suspect that sense, far from diminishing, is if anything even more
palpable today. It is more than ever something for the large
presentation space, and something that the public at large will neither
know nor care about having at home. The remaining problem being that
dedicated composition tools supporting it are still not really there;
and probably never will be while it remains a technological moveable
feast reminiscent of the old problem of nailing jelly to a tree.
Richard Dobson
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