If you’re interested in learning about the present state of audio recording, or what the future is likely to hold, you might consider chatting with Richard King for a few minutes.
After all, King has won nine Grammy Awards, including two for Best Engineered Classical Album.
After spending 15 plus years working out of New York City (the now defunct Sony Music Studios, in particular), King is now based in his native Canada, and is an Associate Professor at the prestigious Schulich School of Music of McGill-his alma mater.
Schulich has been working with 22.2 surround audio. King says that Japanese Television has already selected Ultra High Definition Television as its broadcast format, but that implementation is years away.
Look for single point audio to enter the home market at some point as well. The idea is add speakers until a “holographic sound” image forms, without a single source (mono), two sources (stereo), or even multiple sources (surround) being apparent to the listener. According to King, experiments are being under way to implant tiny speakers in gobs of clear, jelly-like material.
If things go as planned, the home studio aficionado would be encouraged to throw this material around the room to create a sound field.
Sounds like fun!