3.2. Correction filters 3.3.

Calculation of Ambisonics coefficients

In terms of Ambisonics, the tetrahedral microphone setup Using L discrete microphones for spatial sampling on a
as shown in section 2 is doing a free-field sphere decompo- sphere, the integral becomes a sum written as
sition [13]. The coefficients Am
n (k) from such an array are L
obtained using Amn (k) = Vn,α (kR) ∑ gl sl (rr l , k)Ynm (θl , φl )∗ . (11)
l=1
Z2πZπ The constant factor gl is introduced by changing the inte-
Am
n (k) = Vn,α (kr) s(rr , k)Ynm (θ , φ )∗ sin(θ ) dθ dφ , (9) gral to a sum [10]. The functions Ynm (θ , φ )∗ can be com-
0 0 bined to a mode matrix Ψ . This matrix holds mode vectors T
Y ∗1 , Y ∗2 , Y ∗3 , Y ∗4 ], where Y l (θl , φl ) = Y00 , Y1−1 , Y10 , Y11

[Y
where s(rr , k) denotes the capsules signal as described in holds the respective spherical harmonic values for the series
equation (3). The function of order N = 1. If the real valued version of Ynm is chosen
and angles are taken from equation (1) the mode matrix can
1 be written
Vn,α (kR) = (10)
α jn (kR) − i(1 − α) jn0 (kR)
 
1 1 1 1
1  1 −1 1 −1 
Ψ=√   (12)
contains the array response in its denominator [17]. These 4π  1 −1 −1 1 
filters are referred as equalisation or non-coincidence cor- 1 1 −1 −1
rection filters [7, 9]. The B-Format counterparts of the fil- as it is found in [5] omitting the constant factor, taking into
ters V0,α (kR) and V1,α (kR) for analogue filter design are account the specific order of the A-Format signals as well
denoted as W and X in [5]. Figure 2 (top) shows the fre- as the order of spherical harmonics.
quency responses of both variants. Note that all gains are
set to unity. The filter functions show good accordance up to Using the A-Format signal s A (k) of equation (2) the com-
10 kHz. Above this frequency, in praxis a diffuse field com- putation of the Ambisonics coefficients is carried out
pensation is added to filter functions W and X of the sound-
V n (kr)}Ψ
A (k) = diag{V Ψ s A (k), (13)
field microphone. The design of such filters is described
in [11] and further discussed in [4]. Here, the diffuse field where vectors V and A are arranged in the same manner as
compensation is left out for the sake of comprehensibility. the vectors Y l in Ψ . Note that V0,α (kr) introduces a gain of
3 2
Looking at the phase response of both filter implementa- 2 and V1,α (kR) causes a level gain of 9 when α = 3 is cho-
tions in figure 2 (bottom), a difference between filter X and sen. This is different from the gain factors given in [5] and
V1,α (kR) becomes visible. The latter adds a phase shift of has to be taken into account when converting a B-Format
90◦ to the signal, whereas the B-Format filter does not. This signal to a Ambisonics representation. More precisely, the
is discussed later in section 3.4 of this paper. Further inves- related functions of filters V0,α (kR) and V1,α (kR), which
√ are
tigations of the correction filters are found in [7, 8]. W and X, exhibit gain factorsqof unity for W and 12 for
3
X. An additional gain factor for the directional signals
2
√
20 finally leads to the overall amplification of 18 (=12.6
ˆ dB)
10 X, V1 as mentioned by FARRAR [9]. To obtain an Ambisonics
Level (dB)

0
representation
√ from a B-Format signal, therefore a gain of
−10 W, V0
−20
2 (=3
ˆ dB) has to applied to the directional components
−30 x, y, z.
−40
1 2 3 4 5 The components w, x, y, and z of the B-Format signal are
10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz) found in the Ambisonics vector A (k) of equation (13) as A00 ,
A11 , A−1 0
1 , and A1 .
100
50
3.4. B-Format signals
Angle (deg)

W, X, V0
0
−50
−100
V1 The B-Format microphone assumes plane waves, amd
−150 therefore the theoretically expected values of Ambisonics
−200
coefficients describing a plane wave are derived now. A
1 2 3 4 5
10 10 10 10 10 plane wave impinging from direction k i is written as
Frequency (Hz)
T
(14) pi (rr , ki ) = eikki r
Figure 2: The filter functions for post filtering, from equa-
tion (10) “—” and from [5] “– –”. All gain factors discussed in the frequency domain [19]. The Ambisonics coefficients
in the text are set to unity for better comparability. describing such a plane wave are [13]
∗
Am n m
n,plane (θi , φi ) = 4π i Yn (θi , φi ) , (15)
Page 3of 5
and it is easily seen that they are constant in frequency. As
equation (4) is a monochromatic description of the sound
field, the only varying parameter is Ynm (θi , φi )∗ which is de- f = 80.00 Hz
noted as Ambisonics signal here. The Ambisonics coeffi-
cients Akn (k) as defined earlier in this section carry a 90◦
phase shift which is introduced by filter V1,α (kR) as shown 0.03
above. This phase shift in turn is reflected by the factor of 0.02
0.01
i, if order N = 1 is assumed. 0

z
−0.01
−0.02
−0.03
4 PROPERTIES OF THE B-FORMAT 0.02
MICROPHONE −0.02
0
0
−0.02
0.02 y
x
As outlined in the introduction, the B-Format signals re-
f = 8000.00 Hz
fer to the directivity patterns of omnidirectional and figure-
of-eight microphones. For traditional microphones as well
as for microphone arrays these become disturbed when the
0.03
physical size of the microphone (array) gets similar to half 0.02
0.01
of the wavelength of the sound field [3, 11]. In this section 0

z
some simulation results illustrate this problem. −0.01
−0.02
−0.03
In figure 3 the directivity pattern of A00 (or W component 0.02
0
of the B-Format signal) is shown for 80 Hz (top) and 8 kHz −0.02
0 −0.02
0.02 y
(bottom). Obviously the error is especially large in regions x

of the sphere where the capsules of the array have largest

distance. Figure 3: Directivity pattern of the A00 or W component of
Also for the directivity pattern of the A01 coefficient (or Z the B-Format signal. Where the pattern is shaped ideally for
component of the B-Format signal) and similarly the A1 and 80 Hz (top), strong deviations occur for 8 kHz (bottom).
1
A−1
1 components deviate from the ideal figure-of-eight for
higher frequencies. For A01 the highest error is found at 45◦
of incidence in the xy-plane. This in turn means a reduced
quality of the spatial information carried by the Ambison-
ics signal. Some aspects to overcome this problems are dis-
cussed in [3]. Comparisons of the B-Format microphone f = 80.00 Hz
directivity patterns with native B-Format microphone im-
plementations are carried out by B ENJAMIN [4]. 0.06
0.04
0.02
5 CONCLUSION 0
z

−0.02
The B-Format microphone was revised in modern terms of −0.04
terminology of Ambisonics. A detailed investigation of all −0.06 0.02
−0.02 0
processing steps gave links from the traditional B-Format 00.02 −0.02
y
x
processing to current fields of research. Namely the use
of new spatial sampling schemes or modified correction fil- f = 8000.00 Hz
ters lets expect further developments for this type of micro-
phone. 0.06
0.04
0.02
REFERENCES 0
z

−0.02
[1] Ambisonia. http://www.ambisonia.com. An −0.04
ambisonic community project by Etienne Deleflie. −0.06 0.04
0.02
Last access 2009-05-29. −0.04
−0.02 0
0
−0.02
0.020.04 −0.04y
x
[2] Jens Ahrens and Sascha Spors. Analytical driving
functions for higher order ambisonics. In Proc. of the
ICASSP, pages 373–376, 2008. Figure 4: Directivity pattern of the A01 or Z compoent of the
B-Format signal. The two other components A1 , A−1 1 or X,
[3] Johann-Markus Batke and Hans-Hermann Hake. De- Y are similarly shaped, but with different spatial1 direction.
sign aspects for an improved b-format microphone. In
European Signal Processing Conference, 2009. ac-
cepted.
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 [4] Eric Benjamin and Thomas Chen. The native b-format ciples and Applications of Acoustic Wavefield Decom-
microphone: Part i. In Audio Engineering Society position. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2007.
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[18] Wikipedia. Tetrahedron. http://en.
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wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahedron, last
[5] Peter Graham Craven and Michael Anthony Gerzon. visit 2008-09-03.
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[19] Earl G. Williams. Fourier Acoustics. Academic Press,
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nodes/nodes.html.
[11] Michael A. Gerzon. The design of precisely coinci-
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