WRapping it Up
"Technology has become a huge asset."

-Chuck Wild,
    -writer/producer/recording artist
    -score composer, Max Headroom, Falcon Crest,
        Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
        (Diamond, 1999)

Over the past ten years digital technology has revolutionized how sound is captured, edited, and distributed. Frequently the latest gadgets and gizmos are put into practice before anyone really has a chance to evaluate their effectiveness. One necessary skill involves the intense evaluation required before proceeding to work on a project. It is far too easy to assemble the latest bells and whistles without first giving some thought to the effect this concoction might have on the recipients. This evaluation phase of a mediation is critical to its effectiveness and is one component of the design process.

With the increasing popularity of the Internet, and the growing ease of creating CD-ROMs, the importance of good design can become a major stumbling block to those who rush to embrace technology without first thinking of the consequences (Trunfio, 1997). In the worst case scenarios the results are InterInactive Mediations. Examples of these are games which don't generate much interest, Computer Based Training which imparts little knowledge, and web sites with few hit rates. In contrast, the results of utilizing effective design skills creates environments of interactivity where the games bring enjoyment, the CBTs bring knowledge, and the web sites bring visitors.

Interactivity and Presence
No matter how sophisticated the latest technologies become, they are still mediated (operating through a medium). And being mediated is a bad thing. When you're watching television you don't want to consciously think about the electrons passing through wires being bounced off a magnetic coil only to go "splat" against the inside of your picture tube. No. You want to "get into" your favorite show. You want to forget that you are merely watching a 19" piece of glass in a plastic case full of electronic components. The device itself becomes invisible as you focus on the content of the show which unfolds before your eyes and ears.

Interactive mediations are in a similar situation. A part of the goal of media programmers is to render their mediation invisible. The most recent advances and emerging developments can't change the physics that they're still mediated. They can however increase the amount of presence by trying to become more "real", "natural", or "direct" (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). The greater the amount of presence, the more likely the participants will be involved with the interaction. As well, the more "real" (or less mediated) that it seems, the greater the presence (and the more invisible the medium).

Another way to increase the amount of presence is through immersion. Increasing the level to which a participant is immersed in the mediation can increase the amount of presence. This is known as interactivity. The more the interaction, the greater the immersion, the higher the presence. Diane Gayeski (1997) points out several key elements of interactivity. Among these are getting the viewer's attention, and increasing their identification with the program. Both these factors help to immerse the participant. The use of sound is clearly helpful in this regard. The more "realism" which a sound component adds, the greater the likelihood that the participant will be immersed in the interaction.

Sound Advice
Two important characteristics of sound are quality and dimensionality (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). The quality of sound is denoted by the frequency range, the dynamic range (or loudness), and the level of distortion present. Dimensionality involves spatial characteristics which tell us where the sound is coming from. These two factors can add to or detract from the sense of presence and interaction. Poor sound reproduction in mono at a lower volume level with a lot of noise will be less effective than a clear, louder sound in stereo. Another important element is the speed of response. Live events command a greater sense of presence. But this factor is a characteristic of the medium and technologies being used, not an element of the sound itself.

How does all this relate to this web site? Well, each component refers to technological developments which are (hopefully) helping to advance the cause of immersion, presence, and interaction. In Sounding Off I discussed many of the characteristics of digital audio and the tradeoffs necessary with today's tools in creating mediations. These tradeoffs affect presence by reducing the sound quality or creating a sound event which is anything but live. Because of the smaller file size with the use of MIDI, we improve the response time element (almost live), but this has its drawbacks as well. Utilizing MPeg Layer 3 makes a more dramatic stab at improving the response time element, while not sacrificing audio fidelity, but still requires some down time to load. Improving the operating system with BeOS is probably one of the most powerful ways to increase immersive capabilities. If this operating system catches on it will open up a whole new world of programming and  interaction. But the mediations we create today can't wait until the vaporware of tomorrow materializes, and the present lack of software is its biggest drawback. Finally, Headspace's RMF seems to be a development which ties in all the other areas. It is possibly our best hope in improving sound quality, dimensionality, and response time, across the board. And it is one of the few technologies that directly addresses true interactivity. Jason Alexander (1997) refers to true interactivity as the ability to physically alter the program's behavior to get a response where the results could only have been accomplished by you. Some of the web sites utilizing Beatnik achieve this successfully.

In Closing
Mediated sound exists in a many technologically rich fields. This presents avenues of continued fascination as new developments continually occur. This also presents new elements of frustration as the half life for much of the information encountered expires before we're even able to grasp its ramifications. The best that this web site can hope to provide, then, is a snapshot of the current state of technologies, and possibly a glimpse into the direction we're headed in the future.

Why stop here?
Brave new trails. Continue looking into the visible side of audio/video technologies at these sites:
CCRMA - Stanford University computer research in music and acoustics.
JCMC - University of Southern California's Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.
MTSP - A college project exploring new ways to use multimedia in the classroom.
SONIFY - Paul Trunfio's guide to sonifying your web site.
WIMR - Indiana University's WWW music journal listing.

REFERENCES
Giving credit where credit is due. Find the sources of my inspiration, many of which allow you to cyber-leap to where the muses actually live.