The Photoshop of Sound
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
[1]: http://www.meyersound.com/product/sim/sim3/
EDIT: if anyone has any interest in the topic of sound system optimization, I can elaborate a bit. These days, system tuning can be an incredibly cool and very scientific process.
I have personally contributed to a commercial analysis system (link on my web site) as well.
For noise modification, I'm not aware of anything widely available, but you could start by experimenting with simulating different spaces by adding reverb tuned to remove the frequencies naturally reflected by the room (wild guess).
The industry standard textbook, were something like that to exist, would be Bob McCarthy's "Sound Systems: Design and Optimization: Modern Techniques and Tools for Sound System Design and Alignment." [1] It's dense, but a great read, and should be accessible for people with a decent knowledge of the concepts behind FFT and basic signal analysis.
If you're just looking to play around a bit, you could try downloading a demo of SMAART 7 [2] from Rational Acoustics. It's basically a soft dual-channel FFT analyzer. We use it to compare a generated signal (usually in the form of pink noise [3]) with a returned signal (a copy of that signal sent to a speaker and returned to the analyzer through a reference microphone.) By comparing these two signals, we learn basically all we need to about how sound is acting in a given space: we know it's latency; it's frequency response due to signal processing, the physical nature of the speaker cabinet, and air loss; and it's phase response due to the same. The difficult part of the process is interpreting that data and using it to make informed decisions about how and where to modify signals and speaker positions.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Systems-Optimization-Techniques-...
(By the way, the full product name is Photoshop Lightroom. Just sayin'.)
The true "Photoshop of sound" would be something like Logic. Something comparable to what this guy creates, for video, would be more like a real time signal processor, whatever programs are popular for that. But I suppose it wouldn't make a good headline as few would understand a reference to a popular program for real-time video processing.
How about "The Photoshop of acoustic spaces"?
However, in rethinking this, one could make an valid analogy of a 'photoshop filter' applied to the acoustic design of a restaurant. Given that the restaurant's layout is static, it's more like a filter on a 2-d single frame image than a filter applied to dynamic sound or video.
Even then it doesn't really work, since Photoshop operates on a single static file, while the sound system described operates on a dynamic stream of live sound. The analogy is hurting the article more than helping it.
To say nothing of avoiding the practice of many restaurants and "social spaces" of piping _additional_ noise into the space.
Acoustical tile (or wall hangings) represent a far lesser surveillance threat.
Nothing will match a naturally good sounding room but could you use this to benefit an awful sounding room? Maybe. Digital reverb has a bit of an uncanny valley that you have to make it across.
A tremendous number of public places are presently virtually nothing _but_ reflective surfaces: concrete or tile floors, steel and glass fittings and windows, hard walls. Often lacking in even carpets or table linens.
A mix of reflection and absorption can create an ambient background without the roar so often encountered.
There's no reflective/absorptive setup that will make a room with a 10ft ceiling sound like it has a 20ft ceiling. With enough microphones, speakers and computing power you could do exactly that - you could effectively change the sonic shape of the room. If it works...
Some reflection of the sound you do want to amplify, along with damping that you don't, and accounting for different reflections, comes into play.
We used to do the whisper trick at a mexican restaurant I worked in. You could eavesdrop on conversations if you mapped it out properly. Sadly a customer could also hear you talking inappropriately as well.
With no other changes, the drop in reflected sound was stunning.
The owners removed them a year or two later, and the place became a constant din.
http://www.uisoftware.com/MetaSynth/index.php
I saw/heard a demo of a Yamaha active concert hall system back in the late 80s, so the Meyer system isn't unique - although I'm not sure if Yamaha ever worked out how to commercialise it outside Japan, or inside restaurants instead of concert halls.
“Each table is in its own sonic zone,” John explained. “But it’s not isolated.” He mentioned a colleague’s earlier attempt to address restaurant noise, which succeeded in suppressing chatter but led to a muffled, sterile environment: “Everyone hated it—the room ended up being completely dead.” Instead, Constellation undertakes a process akin to the Photoshopping of an image, with undesirable elements removed. John explained that there are two components to a sound as it resonates: the early reflections, which contain most of the intelligible information; and the later reverberation, which is blurrier. “Right now, with those loud people right behind me, we’re hearing only their reverb energy—it’s not enough for intelligibility. Early reflections have been cut out: you can hear voices but not what they’re saying.” The effect is conviviality without chaos.