About This Issue

This issue and the next one (Vol. 41, No. 1, Spring 2017) present articles on a topic of growing importance in computer music: high-density loudspeaker arrays (HDLAs). The word “density” in this term refers to the number of speakers surrounding the listener, usually in three dimensions, with “high” density implying a relatively large number of speakers. The guest editor for these two special issues, Eric Lyon of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), defines HDLAs as systems having at least 24 independent speakers. The articles in the current issue focus on institutional facilities using HDLAs for computer music research and production. Some of these facilities contain up to several hundred speakers, affording composers the opportunity to create intricate spatial effects with much finer spatial resolution than is possible with, say, the octophonic arrays that have become comparatively common in institutional listening spaces for computer music. For a description of the articles and the guest editor’s thinking in assembling this issue, please refer to his Editors’ Notes in the following pages. Also see the Letters section of this issue, which consists of a series of position statements by various individuals on the topic of computer music for HDLAs.

The Reviews section, edited as usual by Ross Feller, covers two discs unrelated to the theme of the special issue. The first disc comes from Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief of Leonardo Music Journal and a professor in the sound department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The reviewer observes a creative contradiction between the disc’s funky packaging—reminiscent of the composer’s reputation as a do-it-yourself hardware hacker—and the high-tech multimedia production involved in the DVD’s contents (compositions that the reviewer finds “highly compelling”). The second review reports on a CD by a percussion-and-electronics duo, in which the electronics performer uses an Akai MPC 1000 sampler and sequencer to create loops and layered textures.

Normally, each Winter issue of CMJ ends with program notes for the annual Sound and Video Anthology. This year, the online anthology is curated by the guest editor as part of his pair of special issues, and the program notes will instead appear with the second of these issues (Spring 2017).

Our thanks to Eric Lyon for envisioning this special issue, overseeing the peer review process, and shepherding the articles to completion. We are sure that readers will find the results to be timely and intriguing.