Europe's Fourth Student 3D Audio Production Competition in Ambisonics 2020

Already for the fourth time, Europe's 3D Audio Competition brought the best of 3D audio quality to your ears with sophisticated and intricate productions made by students. This year, the award ceremony of the international contest was embedded in VDT's virtual Live Event. During the award ceremony, the nominated submission has been live-streamed over the internet as binaural stereo streams with video, including a brief introduction to every submission by its authors, and including comments and critique read out by members of the international jury. The final ranking of the top-3 submissions in every category has been revealed at the end of every category block. In some places around the world there were public viewing spots where smaller audiences could gather to be part of the show with high quality local 3D audio technique.

The 3D categories:

  • Contemporary / Computer music
  • Audio drama / Documentary / Soundscapes
  • Music recording / Studio production

Scroll down and click on the picture of the respective nomination to open the Cat3DA Player with head tracking. Use a desktop computer with Camera and Firefox, Chrome or Opera browser.

The winner productions

Douglas McCausland, Category 1

Douglas McCausland

Gold Winner in Category 1: Contemporary Music, Computer Music. Stanford University, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), with “Conduit”
Open CAT3DA-Player

Paul Schuladen

Silver Winner in Category 1: Category 1: Contemporary Music, Computer Music. TU Berlin, Germany, with “Flying Thoughts”
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Mattias Hållsten

Silber Winner in Category 1: Contemporary Music, Computer Music. Royal College of Music, Stockholm, Sweden, with “Walls of Amber”
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Marcel Remy, Category 2

Marcel Remy, Jonas Müller, Max Hartstang and Kai Kirn

Gold Winner in Category 2: Audio Drama / Documentary / Soundscapes. Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart, with “Aurale Entfremdung – eine hörbare Interpretation von Franz Kafkas Heimkehr”
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Jan Schulten

Silver Winner in Category 2: Audio Drama / Documentary / Soundscapes. Fachhochschule Dortmund, Germany, with “Franz”
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Hanna Brühwiler

Hanna Brühwiler

Bronce Winner in Category 2: Audio Drama / Documentary / Soundscapes. FH Joanneum Graz, with “The 4 Elements”
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Jonas Kieser, Category 3

Jonas Kieser

Gold Winner in Category 3: Music Recording / Studio Production. Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart, with “Rhythm Is A Dancer”
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James Bagshaw

Silver Winner in Category 3: Music Recording / Studio Production. University of Hull, Kingston upon Hull, UK, with “Helicopter Synths”
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Alexander Lekscha

Bronce Winner in Category 3: Music Recording / Studio Production. Universität der Künste Berlin, Germany, with “Extract from Shostakovich's piano trio in C minor”
Open CAT3DA-Player

Many thanks to the Jurors who evaluated the contributions with highest verve and compentence:

  • Joseph Anderson, DXART, Washington University, Seattle, USA
  • Thibaut Carpentier, ircam, Paris, France
  • Michael Iber, University of Applied Science, St. Pölten, Austria
  • Mads Kjeldgaard, NOTAM, Oslo, Norway
  • Daniel Mayer, IEM, Graz, Austriy
  • Robert Mores, HAW, Hamburg, Germany
  • Filip Pantelic und Marko Peric, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
  • Magdalena Piotrowska, University Techn., Gdansk, Poland
  • Martin Supper, University of Arts, Berlin, Germany
  • Van der Loo, NOTAM, OSLO, Norway
  • Sebastia Amengual Gari FB Reality Labs, Redmond, USA
  • Tom Ammermann, New Audio Technology, Hamburg, Germany
  • Joseph Anderson, DXART, Washington University, Seattle, USA
  • Thibaut Carpentier, ircam, Paris, France
  • Daniel Deboy, DELTA Soundworks, Sandhausen, Germany
  • Thomas Görne, HAW, Hamburg, Germany
  • Michael Iber, University of Applied Science, St. Pölten, Austria
  • Mads Kjeldgaard, NOTAM, Oslo, Norway
  • Matthias Kronlachner, Consultant, Vilnius, Latvia
  • Pawel Malecki, AGH University, Krakow, Poland
  • Daniel Mayer, IEM, Graz, Austria
  • Nils Meyer-Kahlen, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland
  • Robert Mores, HAW, Hamburg, Germany
  • Annika Neidhardt, TU Ilmenau, Germany
  • Lasse Nipkow, Unv. Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
  • Filip Pantelic und Marko Peric, University of Arts, Belgrade, Serbia
  • Tom Parnell, BBC R&D, Manchester, United Kingdom
  • Chris Pike, BBC R&D, Manchester, United Kingdom
  • Magdalena Piotrowska, University Techn., Gdansk, Poland
  • Ulli Scuda, Frauenhofer Institut Soundlabs IIS, Erlangen, Germany
  • Martin Supper, University of Arts, Berlin, Germany
  • Dietz Tinhof, Tonmeister/VSL, Vienna, Austria
  • Christian Vaida, cvmusic film/ton, Heidenheim, Germany
  • Van der Loo, NOTAM, OSLO, Norway

Sponsors of the Competition

Dear Reality GmbH

Read more

FLUX:: Immersive

Harpex Ltd

New Audio Technology

SSA Plugins

ambiXes

Block 5

The Competition is a cooperation of the Institut für Elektronische Musik und Akustik der Kunstuniversität Graz (IEM) and Verband Deutscher Tonmeister (VDT). The contribution format is 5th order Ambisonics as there are many free production tools available and no licence fees have to be paid by the students.
Contributing to the Competition is an important step for the students into the professional world of pro audio. At the same time there are attractive prices for the winners waiting. Many thanks to the sponsors of this year's Competition!

Headtracking with Camera-Tracked 3D Audio Player (Cat3DA)

It is best to use circumaural headphones. To be able to use head tracking, a webcam must be available and enabled on the playback device. The following browsers are suitable for playback: Firefox, Opera or Chrome on a PC (Mac or Windows). Playback via the Safari browser, smartphones or tablets is currently not possible or not recommended.

Test Cat3DA-Player Read more

Productions of other years

Become curious? All award-winning submissions of the 3D-Audio Competitions since 2020 can be heard binaural with headtracking here:

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