Jeversi Software Presents
AirTraffic Control
A VST Effects Plug-in (*) for Windows
AirTraffic Control lets you work with your sounds on a map.
AirTraffic Control is a VST audio plugin which displays a map of a virtual audio space. This could be a map of the room you are in with your speakers. This picture shows four sound sources (inputs) across the US and two ears (outputs) as far apart as Texas is wide. Each output acts like an ear: as inputs come closer, the ear can hear them better. The circles around each ear adjust its hearing. The inner circle is how close an input must be to hear it at full volume, and the outer circle is how far away an input must be to become inaudible. You adjust how you hear by dragging the circles. You adjust what you hear by dragging the inputs and outputs around.
You can experience AirTraffic yourself if you use VST plug-ins. To try it out, download the trial version and install it. Then run your host (DAW) software and use the effect called AirTraffic Control. Further details are in the User's Guide which is part of this website.
You may download AirTraffic Control. This trial version has a 30 day time limit. During the trial period you have free unlimited use of a 60 input, 16 output "proximity mixer". If you use AirTraffic Control we ask that you visit the AirTraffic Control User Forum, or contact us via email: AirTraffic Control Support .
Requires: Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista.
How to Install: After you download the file you have to unzip it.
The installation does not set up a program that you can run, because a VST plugin is to be used within a host program. See the topic below, "What IS a VST Plug-in?".
Version 1.0 of AirTraffic Control is available for purchase here: Buy AirTraffic Control
Run a Demo
An easy way to get a demo running on your machine is to download the energyXT2 trial from here and install it to the default folder. Then download this demo project. Unzip it into a folder of your choice, then run the ATCDemo.bat file there. One way to run it is to double-click on it in Windows Explorer. The demo shows a theatre with presidential primary candidates. You press the play button and they all start talking. Then drag the yellow block around to move both ears at once. Then try moving any of the heads or ears to hear/see what happens. Try changing the size of the circles.
Release Notes
The ATC.ini file is used to configure AirTrafficControl:
Image settings can be different for each of up to 16 programs.
The ears are initially linked so that they may be moved together, for a more natural listening-while-walking-around experience.
Visuallly panning the map now requires Alt-drag rather than just drag.
Some Uses for AirTraffic Control
Applications in the sound realm involve multiple movable "ears" listening to multiple movable audio sources.
What is Moving?
One set of applications has the ears (outputs) at fixed locations with performers (inputs) moving around. Examples include live theatre, multimedia presentations of various kinds including classroom, and DJ-style entertainments.
A second set of applications has the performers at fixed locations with ears moving around. Examples include surveillance involving many microphones at different locations; and musical entertainments involving self-driven movement of your listening perspective through modeled/recorded sound spaces.
A third set of applications has everything in motion, or at least potentially in motion. One example is like participating in a marching band performance. Another example is an online world in which avatars listen, vocalize, and move around amongst each other.
Re-Listening to a Multitrack Corpus
Many potential applications involve re-listening to a multi-track recording. AirTraffic provides a convenient means to listen and re-listen to a recorded corpus while taking alternate "trajectories" through the material. Examples of suitable source materials include
Playing with the orchestra . Imagine rehearsing with a recording of a good symphony orchestra as if you are seated among the 1st chair violins - or anywhere else you choose. When this is set up you will see a map of the orchestra onscreen. You simply place your ears on the map in any section you care to be part of, and you will hear the correct mix.
Big Data Problem. Visualize a space with many sensors positioned in it, each generating a stream of data. A big problem, live or during playback, is how does one make sense of them? You simply have an over-abundance of data. Considering audio sensors as an example, here's what you can do: position the microphones as inputs on a map in AirTraffic Control. Then you move your virtual ears around on the map to listen to them.
Eco-tourism Recordings - Suppose you record an array of microphones spaced around in a jungle. You want to listen and re-listen to the material. With AirTraffic Control you can move your ears around the virtual jungle, hearing something like what you would hear if your ears were moving through the actual jungle as the recording was made.
In the Presence
Another set of applications involves putting people in the presence of one another. This will work fine with "just audio", with each person listening to stereo (or better) sound. Of course the microphones have to be decent and the network latency has to be low enough; which will be status quo before too long. But how would you want to control the experience? Think of a conventional telephone conference call and how it could be better. It would be great to experience the call as if everyone was sitting with you in a room that you arrange - people could seem to be sitting where you put them. In some ways this kind of virtual meeting could actually be better than "being there". You would attenuate an incessantly loud person by placing her farther away and listen closely to a quiet one by bringing her closer.
Here's what it comes down to: your listening can be less passive than it is now. If the audio tracks from a conference call are saved in a database then people can re-listen to the meeting with different emphasis each time, by driving through the material with different trajectories. With this kind of gear the ground rules for talking during a meeting can change. It would be fine for people to speak freely, simultaneously; or to have side conversations during a presentation. It will be ok to have a "free-for-all" discussion and sort out who said what later. Traditional conference calls teach us to speak one at a time because nothing else works with that technology. A brainstorming session by a design team is more like a family dinner with many people talking at once. There's no fundamental reason that our audio gear can't let us work with simultaneous interesting streams involving parallel stories. But some of the audio gear we need for this is not at hand. AirTraffic Control provides a piece of the puzzle, a way to interactively drive your listening. However it doesn't do anything about getting useful audio streams to arrive on your pc/phone. Anyone?
(*) Background: What IS a VST Plug-in?
It is an audio processing component compatible with the VST standard from Steinberg. VST is the most widely used kind of audio component, and as such it is compatible with most professional audio software. Most of the programs known as DAWs (digital audio workstations) perform as VST Hosts, and can utilize many VST plugins at once. Like any VST plugin, AirTraffic Control runs inside of a host program.
You will not have a new program that you can run after installing AirTraffic Control. You will have a new plugin to select from within other audio programs.
Documentation
AirTraffic Control User's Guide
Ready to configure a system to utilize AirTraffic Control?
You can read about configuring Reaper to use AirTraffic Control.
Configure Reaper to use AirTraffic Control
