Profile

Biography

PhD (Trinity College Dublin)

MSc (Trinity College Dublin)

BEng (Dublin Institute of Technology)

I graduated from Dublin Institute of Technology in 2002 with an honors degree in Electronic Engineering and have since obtained both MSc and PhD degrees in Audio Signal Processing from Trinity College Dublin.  During this time I also worked (and continue to) in the audio industry as sound engineer and producer.  After my PhD, I spent time as a postdoctoral research fellow on the Science Foundation Ireland ‘Metropolis’ project, whilst lecturing on the Interactive Digital Systems and Music and Media Technology courses at Trinity College.

I was appointed Lecturer in Sound Design at the Department of Theatre Film and Television at the University of York in January 2011. I teach ’Spatial Audio and Surround Sound’ and ‘Audio Effects Design’ on the MA/MSc in Post Production as well as courses on ‘Image and Sound Technologies’ and ‘Introduction to Film and Television Production Methods’ on the BSc in Film and Television Production.

Research

Overview

Over the last 30 years, technology intent on creating realistic auditory scenes has permeated all avenues of the entertainment industry, ranging from theatrical and cinematic productions through to gaming consoles. The primary objective is the synthesis of an auditory scene, which attempts to present as faithfully as possible, soundfields perceptually equivalent to those experienced naturally. Thus, for any spatial audio reproduction system to give the feeling of “you are there", it must have a strong psychoacoustical foundation. My research focuses on the development of audio signal processing strategies that utilize this psychoacoustic knowledge to the advantage of film, music and theatre production.

A major component of my research work in sound scene synthesis has focused on the quality of the reproduction method, which is dependent on the listening scenario (single or multiple listeners). The demands for spatial audio in domestic television reproduction are significantly different to that of the cinema or theatre. Thus, a major challenge is to gauge how a chosen spatial audio rendering technique will provide the level of localization quality demanded by the application. Furthermore, developments in audio codec technologies have led to new entertainment delivery methods for mobile media devices such as smart phones and laptops. I am significantly interested in the role that spatial audio plays in this, in particular where 3-D soundfields can be rendered over headphones using binaural filtering.

I also conduct research into the development of new production and post-production methodologies, in particular for 3-D cinema as well as interactive applications. My PhD addressed production strategies for recording real-world acoustic events such that end-listeners can choose their own acoustic sweet spot or virtually move about a recording of a theatrical or musical performance with the same acoustic perception as if they were at the real-world event. Such scenes are created in ‘Virtual Auditory Environments’ and this work concentrates on the development of novel production strategies based on acoustic measurements taken in the performance space, as well as best-practice methodologies for recording the artists.

External activities

Invited talks and conferences

‘Soundfield Decoding for small sized concert halls’, Gavin Kearney, Second Irish Workshop on Music and Audio Signal Processing, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, 13th January, 2010

‘Silk Chroma’, An Interactive Visual Music installation demonstrating novel research in Creative Digital Technologies at Trinity College Dublin, Maura McDonnell, Linda Buckley, Gavin Kearney and Dermot Furlong, Printing House, Trinity College Dublin, Part of the Innovation Dublin Week 11-12th November, 2010

‘A Seminar and Exhibition on the Acoustics of Christ Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedrals, Dublin’, Invited Talk as part of National Heritage Week, Mansion House, Dublin, 27th August 2010

‘Virtual Acoustic Recording’, Gavin Kearney, First Irish Workshop on Music and Audio Signal Processing, NUI Maynooth, Ireland, 28th January, 2010

‘Seminar on Architecture and Music in Context’, Public demonstration of research techniques, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, 29th April 2009

Publications

Full publications list

2013

‘Viking Ghost Hunt: Creating engaging sound design for location-aware applications’, Natasa Paterson, Gavin Kearney, Katsiaryna Naliuka, Tara Carrigy, Mads Haahr, Fionnuala Conway, International Journal of Arts and Technology (IJART), Special issue on ‘Fun and Games’, Interscience, Vol 6, No. 1, pp. pp. 61-82, 2013

2012

‘Depth Perception in First and Higher Order Ambisonic Soundfields’, Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel, Frank Boland, Henry Rice, in Acta Acustica United with Acustica, Special Issue on Ambisonics and Spherical Acoustics, Volume 98, Number 1, , pp. 61-71, January/February 2012

‘HRIR Order Reduction using Approximate Factorisation’, Claire Masterson, Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel and Frank Boland, Audio, Speech, and Language Processing, IEEE Transactions on, vol.20, no.6, August 2012.

‘On Loudspeaker Rendering of Auditory Distance in Higher Order Ambisonics’, Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel and Frank Boland, in Proceedings of Acoustics 2012, Nantes, France, April, 2012

‘Distance Perception in Real and Virtual Environments’, Marcin Gorzel, David Corrigan, Gavin Kearney, John Squires and Frank Boland in Audio Engineering Society 25th UK Conference, March 2012.

‘Real and Virtual Acoustic Recording for Interactive Walkthrough Auralization’, Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel and Frank Boland, Virtualisation and Heritage Synposium, University of York, February 2012.

2011

‘Virtual acoustics and performance spaces in Medieval English Drama’, Mariana  López, Sandra Pauletto and Gavin Kearney, in The Acoustics of Ancient Theatres, Patras, Greece, September, 2011

'Virtual acoustics and the study of music in the York Cycle', Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology, Glasgow, Scotland, August, 2011.

‘Web-based Tutorial for Ambisonics Theory’, Marcin Gorzel, Gavin Kearney, Frank Boland, Irish Sound Science and Technology Association Convocation, Limerick,  August, 2011

'Acoustical Heritage Preservation: Application to the acoustics of Stonegate, York', The International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Working Group V/2 Conference, York, United Kingdom, August, 2011.

'Real-time walkthrough auralization of the acoustics of Christ Church Cathedral Dublin', 8th International Conference on Auditorium Acoustics, Dublin, Ireland, May 2011.

'Application of HRIR Factorisation to Game Audio', Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel, Henry Rice and Frank Boland, in Audio Engineering Society 41st Conference on Game Audio, London, February, 2011.

'On the Perception of Dynamic Sound Sources in Ambisonic Binaural Renderings', Marcin Gorzel, Gavin Kearney, Henry Rice and Frank Boland, in Audio Engineering Society 41st Conference on Game Audio, London, February, 2011

2010

‘A Video Database for the Development of Stereo-3D Post-Production Algorithms', D. Corrigan , F. Pitié , V. Morris , A. Rankin , M. Linnane , G. Kearney , M. Gorzel , M. O'Dea , C. Lee and A. Kokaram, In European Conference on Visual Media Production (CVMP '10). London, UK, November, 2010

‘Improved ITD Estimation in Reverberant Environments', Gavin Kearney, Damian Kelly and Frank Boland, in Audio Engineering Society 40th Conference on Spatial Audio, Tokyo, Japan, October, 2010

‘Virtual Acoustic Recording: An Interactive Approach’, Marcin Gorzel, Gavin Kearney, Frank Boland and Henry Rice, in 13th International Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFX), Graz, Austria, September, 2010

‘HRIR Factorisation: A Regularised Approach', Claire Masterson, Gavin Kearney and Frank Boland, in Proc. of the European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), Aalborg, Denmark, August, 2010

‘Optimised Virtual Loudspeaker Reproduction', Claire Masterson, Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel, Henry Rice and Frank Boland, in Proc. of the 21st Irish Signals and Systems Conference, Cork, Ireland, June, 2010

‘Depth Perception in Interactive Virtual Acoustic Environments using Higher Order Ambisonic Soundfields', Gavin Kearney, Marcin Gorzel, Frank Boland, Henry Rice, in Proc. of the 2nd International Symposium on Ambisonics and Spherical Acoustics, Paris, May, 2010

2009

‘Dynamic Time Warping for Acoustic Response Interpolation: Possibilities and Limitations', Gavin Kearney, Claire Masterson, Stephen Adams, Frank Boland, in Proc. of the 17th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), Glasgow, Scotland, August 2009

‘A Method for Head Related Impulse Response Simplification', Claire Masterson, Stephen Adams, Gavin Kearney, Frank Boland, in Proc. of the 17th European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO), Glasgow, Scotland, August 2009

‘'Towards Efficient Binaural Room Impulse Response Synthesis', Gavin Kearney, Claire Masterson, Stephen Adams, Frank Boland, in Proc. of the EAA Symposium on Auralization, Espoo, Finland, June 2009

'Approximation of Binaural Room Impulse Responses', Gavin Kearney, Claire Masterson, Stephen Adams, Frank Boland, in Proc. of the Irish Signals and Systems Conference, Dublin, Ireland, June 2009 (Best Paper Award)

'Localisation Quality in Source Separation Based Up-mixing Algorithms', Dan Barry and Gavin Kearney, in Audio Engineering Society 35th Conference, London England, February 2009.

'Acoustic Impulse Response Interpolation for Multichannel Systems using Dynamic Time Warping', Claire Masterson, Gavin Kearney and Frank Boland, in Audio Engineering Society 35th Conference, London, England, February 2009.

2008

'Actual Vs. Virtual Multichannel Recording', Gavin Kearney and Jeff Levison, in Audio Engineering Society 134th Convention, Amsterdam, May 2008.

'Audio-Visual Processing Tools for Auditory Scene Synthesis', Gavin Kearney, Rozenn Dahyot and Frank Boland, in Audio Engineering Society 134th Convention, Amsteredam, May 2008.

2007

'Source Localisation Mapping using Weighted Interaural Cross-Correlation', Gavin Kearney, Damien Kelly, Enda Bates, Frank Boland and Dermot Furlong, in Proc. of the Irish Signals and Systems Conference, Derry, Northern Ireland, September 2007.

'Monophonic Source Localization for a Distributed Audience in a Small Concert Hall', Enda Bates, Gavin Kearney, Frank Boland and Dermot Furlong, in Proc. of the 10th Int. Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFx-07), Bordeaux, France, September 2007.

'A Comparative Study of the Performance of Spatialisation Techniques for a Distributed Audience in a Concert Hall Environment', Gavin Kearney, Enda Bates, Dermot Furlong and Frank Boland, in 31st International Conference of the Audio Engineering Society, London, England, June 2007.

'Visual enhancement using multiple audio streams in live music performance', Rozenn Dahyot, Conor Kelly and Gavin Kearney, in 31st International Conference of the Audio Engineering Society, London, England,June 2007.

'Localisation Accuracy of Advanced Spatialisation Techniques in Medium-Sized Concert Halls', Enda Bates, Gavin Kearney, Dermot Furlong and Frank Boland, in 153rd meeting of the Acoustical Society Of America, Utah, USA, June 2007.

2006

'Sound Enhancement For Classroom Based E-Learning', Gavin Kearney and Dermot Furlong, In Proceedings of the Irish Signals and Systems Conference, pages 527-532, Dublin, Ireland,June 2006. (Best Paper Award)

'Auditory Scene Synthesis for Distributed Audiences in E-Learning Applications', Gavin Kearney and Dermot Furlong, Presented at the 120th Convention of the Audio Engineering Society, Paris, France, May 2006.

Theses:

‘Auditory Scene Synthesis using Virtual Acoustic Recording and Reproduction', Gavin Kearney, PhD Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, January, 2010

'Auditory Scene Synthesis for Distributed Audiences in E-Learning Applications', Gavin Kearney, Masters Thesis, University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2006.