Finlay Braithwaite, OCAD University, 2020 Sound, Master of Design (MDes), Digital Futures, 2019

2020 Sound is a positional-tracking microphone and DSP time-of-arrival alignment system. In production, an ultrasonic beacon emits a temporal positional reference that is captured by standard audio recording devices. This reference gives purchase to align multiple microphone perspectives of a source, correcting for their initial offset as well their movement throughout the recording. In capturing a sound source with multiple microphones, misaligned and drifting time-of-arrival of the source at each microphone greatly impacts the cohesion, focus, and impact of their summation in the mixing process. The common boom and lavaliere microphone scenario implemented in film and television production suffers from this misalignment and, as a result, time-intensive and inaccurate manual editorial processes are employed to align microphones before their summation. This system could remedy a fundamental issue encountered in audio production with the ultimate aim of improving the clarity and quality of productions that make use of 2020 Sound.