As an artist and researcher working almost exclusively with spatial audio and various multichannel formats, wave field synthesis was a technique I never had the possibility to explore as part of my work.
Therefore, I decided to build my own array.
After many, many funding applications, I finally managed to finance the build of a 168-channel array. A 120-channel version of the array was premiered as part of the exhibition Transpositional Structures #1 at Kunstpunkt Lista in 2021, installation view in the image below.
Technical overview
Schematic overview of the array below. Each individual box has 24 channels, distributed by 1 MOTU 24Ao to 4 Sure Electronics AA-AB34181 6x100W TDA7498 Class-D Amplifier Board. Boxes are connected by MOTU AVB switches, distributed by 2 MOTU 16A soundcards running as aggregate device providing 256 channels of audio over IP.
I primarily use WFSCollider by The Game of Life. IRCAM’s Spat-package for MaxMSP also has WFS-objects for real-time rendering of sound.