AES Europe 2026

Historically, music has developed primarily as a frontal
phenomenon, thus limiting the expressive; perceptual
potential related to sound space. The recent development of
immersive audio systems opens new creative possibilities by
expanding the artistic action space from a narrow frontal
area to a complete sphere around the listener. The
Ambisonic system (Scene-Based Audio), together with
Object-Based formats; hybrid solutions, represents
fertile ground for creative experimentation; the
redefinition of workflows in the field of spatialized sound.
In this new context, what is the role of the sound
engineer, as an electroacoustic interpreter, in immersive
musical artistic creation?
The research is based on a multidisciplinary analysis that
combines an in-depth study of current immersive audio
technologies; their performance, with observations of
existing compositional; production approaches.
Additionally, a comparative study is conducted on the
design choices of the sound engineer as an interpreter,
investigating workflows, emerging musical semantics,
available tools,; the recovery of the historical
repertoire.
Particular attention is paid to the experiment aimed at
investigating a correlation between the position of a sound
; an emotional trigger in the listener.
New directions emerge in the creative role of the sound
engineer, who goes beyond the mere technical aspect to
become an integral part of the compositional;
interpretative process, harmonizing the relationship
between technique; art.

Mashup is a distinctive form of music composition which
integrates elements from existing songs to create a
cohesive audio experience. The digital music landscape,
with various audio processing tools; sharing platforms,
has facilitated the creation; propagation of mashups by
musicians, remixers, audio engineers,; automated
systems. While most prior research; studies focus on
mashups created by combining elements from individual audio
tracks, typically using pop songs, there exists other types
of mashups; for example, by incorporating phrases from base
melodies into a new arrangement. In this study, we examined
listener enjoyment ratings for this type of mashup,
utilizing well-known Western classical melodies. A
listening test was conducted to assess whether variations
in pitch, tempo,; familiarity with the source material
correlate with enhanced enjoyment. This paper presents our
preliminary findings, with plans for future studies;
additional survey responses to strengthen the results;
uncover insights for crafting more engaging classical
mashups.

Dialogue intelligibility is a fundamental aspect of audio
post-production. Ensuring speech clarity in complex sound
mixes remains challenging across different playback
systems. Selective auditory attention plays a central role
in how listeners track dialogue in busy mixes, so small
changes in spectral or spatial structure can influence
perceived clarity in unexpected ways. This study
investigates the effectiveness of psychoacoustically
informed techniques, equalisation; spatialisation, in
reducing auditory masking; improving the clarity of
dialogue. The listening test was completed on participants’
own playback systems, which reflects typical domestic
viewing conditions; aligns the study with real-world
listening environments. The techniques were tested
individually; in combination to assess their impact.
Results show that equalisation was more effective than
spatialisation in reducing masking, while their combination
produced a significant improvement in intelligibility,
clarity,; reduced interference. The effectiveness of
these methods varied between the two groups of clips,
suggesting that their application should be adapted to the
specific acoustic context of each scene.

Sound plays a critical role in virtual reality (VR),
shaping attention, narrative comprehension, emotional
engagement,; experiential plausibility under conditions
of embodiment; user agency. Although a growing body of
research addresses VR audio techniques, perceptual effects,
; sound taxonomies, existing approaches remain fragmented
; largely descriptive. In particular, they do not provide
a unifying, VR-specific account of how sound meaning;
emotional intent are operationally linked to user agency
; non-linear narrative progression. This paper presents a
narrative review of selected literature spanning game audio
frameworks, immersive sound design, narrative theory,;
plausibility-related research in games; VR. Through
synthesis of these perspectives, the review identifies a
conceptual gap in current research, namely the absence of a
VR-specific, agency-coupled sound design framework for
structuring sound meaning; emotional intent in support
of experiential plausibility as users actively shape events
in interactive VR environments.