Octophonic sound is a form of audio reproduction that presents eight discrete

audio channel An audio signal is a representation of sound, typically using either a changing level of electrical voltage for analog signals, or a series of binary numbers for digital signals. Audio signals have frequencies in the audio frequency range of ro ...

s using eight

speakers Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

. For playback, the speakers may be positioned in a circle around the listeners or in any other configuration. Typical speaker configurations are eight spaced on a circle by 45° (oriented with first speaker 0° or at 22.5°), or the vertices of a cube to create a double quadraphonic set-up with elevation. In reference to his own work,

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

made a distinction between these two forms, reserving the term "octophonic" for a cube configuration, as found in his '' Oktophonie'' and the electronic music for scene 2 and the Farewell of ''

Mittwoch aus Licht (English: Wednesday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, four scenes, and a farewell. It was the sixth of seven to be composed for the opera cycle (Light: The Seven Days of the Week), and the last to be staged. It was w ...

'', and using the expression "eight-channel sound" for the circular arrangement, as used in ''

Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CM ...

'', '' Unsichtbare Chöre'', or Hours 13 to 21 of the '' Klang'' cycle. While

quadraphonic sound Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for th ...

uses four speakers positioned in a square at the four corners of the listening space (either on the ground or raised above the listeners), this cubical kind of octophonic spatialization offers both horizontal and vertical sound spatialization, meaning listeners get a sense of height. In order for such movement in space to be heard, it is necessary that

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular rec ...

s be slow, and pitches change mainly in small steps or in

glissando In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the c ...

s. Some notable composers who have worked with octophonic spatialisation include Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jonathan Harvey,

Gérard Pape Gérard Pape (born April 22, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York) is a composer of electronic music, author, and Lacanian psychologist. He is a former student of David Winkler, George Cacioppo, William Albright, and George Balch Wilson. He became the ...

, and

Larry Austin Larry Don Austin (September 12, 1930 – December 30, 2018) was an American composer noted for his electronic and computer music works. He was a co-founder and editor of the avant-garde music periodical '' Source: Music of the Avant Garde''. Austi ...

. The first known octophonic (that is, eight-channel) electronic music was

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fig ...

's ''

Williams Mix ''Williams Mix'' (1951–1953) is a 4'15" musique concrete composition by John Cage for eight simultaneously played independent quarter-inch magnetic tapes. The first octophonic music, the piece was created by Cage with the assistance of Earle B ...

'' (1951–53) for eight separate simultaneously played back quarter-inch magnetic tapes. Austin later made a surround-sound octophonic mix of ''Williams Mix'', ''Williams (re)Mix d' (1997–2000), using the score and different sound sources. This version is intended to be played back on eight speakers surrounding the audience in a 360° circle, using (unlike Cage's original version) stereo source recordings heard in adjacent speaker pairs. Octophonic sound (in the general sense of eight-channel playback) was stimulated primarily by "the equal coverage it provides to all listening angles" and also by the precedence of eight-channel (initially tape) sound and subsequent ease of playback.

References

Cited sources

* * * * * {{Music technology Sound production technology Spatial music

See also

References

Cited sources