# Preliminary evaluation of a virtual acoustic environment for rehearsal and performance in unknown venues

Charlotte Fernandez, Martin Lawless, David Poirier-Quinot, Brian F. G. Katz

► To cite this version:

Charlotte Fernandez, Martin Lawless, David Poirier-Quinot, Brian F. G. Katz. Preliminary evaluation of a virtual acoustic environment for rehearsal and performance in unknown venues. International Symposium on Musical and Room Acoustics, Acoustical Society of America, May 2025, New Orleans (LA), United States. pp.015020:1-12, 10.1121/2.0002205 . hal-05468536

HAL Id: hal-05468536

https://hal.science/hal-05468536v1

Submitted on 20 Jan 2026

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 - Attribution - International License
JANUARY 23 2026

# Preliminary evaluation of a virtual acoustic environment for rehearsal and performance in unknown venues

Charlotte Fernandez; Martin Lawless; David Poirier-Quinot; Brian FG Katz

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Check for updates

Proc. Mtgs. Acoust. 58, 015020 (2025)

https://doi.org/10.1121/2.0002205

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

View
Online

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

Export
Citation

## Articles You May Be Interested In

- Two-scale structure of the current layer controlled by meandering motion during steady-state collisionless driven reconnection

*Phys. Plasmas* (July 2004)

- Single particle motion near an X point and separatrix

*Phys. Plasmas* (June 2004)

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

ASA

LEARN MORE

Advance your science and career as a member of the
**Acoustical Society of America**
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

ISMRA 2025
NEW ORLEANS
*Playing The Room*

**International Symposium on**
**Musical and Room Acoustics**

24-28 May 2025

Loyola University
New Orleans, Louisiana

**Architectural Acoustics**

**Preliminary evaluation of a virtual acoustic environment for**
**rehearsal and performance in unknown venues**

**Charlotte Fernandez**

Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Sorbonne University Pierre and Marie Curie Campus: Sorbonne
Universite Campus Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, 75005, FRANCE;
charlotte.fernandez@etu.sorbonne-universite.fr

**Martin Lawless**

Mechanical and Facilities Engineering Department, SUNY Maritime: Maritime College, Throggs Neck,
NY, 10465, USA; mlawless@sunymaritime.edu

**David Poirier-Quinot**

Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Sorbonne, University Pierre and Marie Curie Campus: Sorbonne
Universite Campus Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, 75005, FRANCE;
david.poirier-quinot@sorbonne-universite.fr

**Brian FG Katz**

Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Sorbonne, University Pierre and Marie Curie Campus: Sorbonne
Universite Campus Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, 75005, FRANCE; brian.katz@sorbonne-universite.fr

This paper presents preliminary results of an evaluation study on a rehearsal tool designed for musicians, enabling practice in a virtual acoustic environment with audience-positioned playback. The tool's quality and usability were evaluated with musicians of varying instruments and proficiency levels. Findings indicate that rehearsing in a virtual acoustic matching the performance venue improves acoustic awareness and enhances ease and comfort compared to practising in a different environment. These preliminary results tend to support the proposition integration of virtual acoustics in rehearsal tools to help musicians better adapt their performance to concert settings.
# 1. INTRODUCTION

Virtual acoustic environments (VAEs) are computational models designed to simulate realistic auditory scenes, enabling users to perceive and interact with sound as if they were in a physical space. These environments integrate principles from room acoustics, digital signal processing, and psychoacoustics to achieve perceptual accuracy. While initially developed for applications in entertainment and virtual reality (VR), VAEs now play a significant role in fields such as architectural acoustics, auditory research, and music performance.

In real-world environments, sound undergoes complex transformations due to reflection, diffraction, and absorption, which influence its spectral content, temporal structure, and spatial characteristics. These acoustic phenomena are essential for spatial hearing and source localisation.² Accurate reproduction of such effects in VAEs requires a balance between physical realism and computational efficiency. High-fidelity VAEs can evoke natural auditory perception and behaviour in controlled settings,²⁰ making them valuable tools for research and practical applications.

Beyond their traditional uses, VAEs have been employed in music performance and auditory training. During the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual choirs gained prominence, enabling singers to perform together remotely.¹¹ More recently, Daffern et al.³ introduced a multi-user VR experience that allows individuals to sing within a pre-recorded choir, aimed at improving the well-being of care home residents. Such applications highlight the potential of VAEs in enhancing musical experiences and fostering social interaction.

In live music, venue acoustics significantly influence performance and interpretation. Musicians can rehearse in concert halls before performances to acclimate to the acoustic characteristics of the space. However, logistical constraints may often prevent this practice. Informal interviews conducted with various professional musicians indicated that adapting to unfamiliar acoustic environments during live performances can be challenging. They further expressed interest in experiencing a venue's acoustics from the audience's perspective before a concert.

This study investigates the role of VAEs in musical rehearsal within unfamiliar performance venues. A VAE-based rehearsal tool was developed to allow musicians to perform on a virtual concert hall stage and experience the room's acoustic response in real-time. The tool also enables musicians to record and review their performances from different audience positions, accounting for spatial variations in room acoustics. The study aims to evaluate the impact of this tool on musicians' adaptation to performance spaces, offering insights into the potential benefits of VAEs in musical preparation and training. This paper presents the rehearsal tool as well as preliminary findings of the study through a questionnaire completed at different phases of the study.

# 2. REHEARSAL TOOL DESIGN

## A. GENERAL OVERVIEW

To address the intention of the study, the rehearsal tool should allow musicians to (1) perform on a virtual concert hall stage, providing real-time auditory feedback from the simulated room, and (2) replay performances from various positions in the room, for users to assess the impact of the acoustics on their performance.

Conceptually, the rehearsal tool first captures the dry acoustic output of the musicians performance with a microphone. It then sends that signal to the VAE that “projects” it in the simulated acoustics of a virtual room. The resulting *auralisation* is then rendered to the musician over headphones. A schematic diagram of the rehearsal system is shown in Fig. 1.

Projecting a dry audio signal into a VAE can be achieved by convolving it with a room impulse response (RIR).¹⁰ An RIR represents the time-domain version of the room's transfer function from a given source
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1:** Schematic diagram of the rehearsal system. The direct sound captured by the microphone is convolved in real-time with the BRIR<sub>auto+rev</sub> for the corresponding performance space, then rendered over headphones. Distance between acoustic source centre and microphone was 40 cm.</figcaption></figure>

to a receiver, encapsulating the direct sound, reflections, and the accumulated absorptive and diffusive properties of the room's surfaces. RIRs are typically measured by placing a microphone in a room to capture the response of a loudspeaker emitting a broadband excitation signal designed to cover the full audible frequency range.⁷ Convolving an anechoic audio stimulus with a measured RIR results in an audio signal that reproduces the acoustic propagation effects of the stimulus being played and recorded within that specific acoustic environment and configuration. An anechoic recording is a recording of the direct sound of a source without any room reflections. The overall process, which allows listeners to perceive how sound would behave in a given space, is known as auralisation.

To enhance the perceptual realism of auralisations, the rehearsal tool employs *binaural* room impulse responses (BRIRs). Binaural processing replicates human spatial hearing by using two-channel audio to reproduce interaural time and level differences, as well as spectral cues essential for localisation.² BRIRs can be captured using a dummy head microphone setup, ensuring that the resulting auralisations preserve the spatial characteristics of real-world listening.²¹ When accurately measured and reproduced, BRIR-based auralisations can be perceptually indistinguishable from real listening experiences.⁸,¹³

## B. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The rehearsal tool was installed in an acoustically damped studio, with an ambient noise level below 30 dBA and a low reverberation time, helping to limit contributions of the natural acoustics of the rehearsal room to the virtual acoustics. The performance was captured with a omnidirectional microphone (Bedrock BAMT 1), positioned at a fixed distance from the musician's instrument. The use of the omnidirectional measurement microphone was motivated by the fact that realism of the auralisation is highly sensitive to variations in input sound level. A flat measurement microphone was selected to minimize imparting any colouration, compared to directional studio microphones. In addition, although musicians were instructed to remain on-axis and avoid movement during the experiment, the use of a directional microphone could lead to both level and colouration fluctuations due to frequency dependent directivity patterns. Such artefacts could reduce the perceived realism of the system.

Reducing position dependent artefacts in colouration and sound level variations was prioritized over minimizing room reflections, given that the experiment took place in a low-reverberation space.

A visual marker was placed on the floor to encourage participants to remain at a constant distance from the microphone while using the rehearsal tool.
The signal of the microphone was converted through an audio interface (RME Fireface UCX) for processing within a Cycling'74 Max 8 patch. The convolution processing was performed using the RoomZ VST plugin,¹⁷ a low latency multichannel partitioned convolution engine.

The result was rendered over a pair of open headphones (AKG K1000). Previous studies have shown that these headphones are sufficiently acoustically transparent for musicians to hear their natural direct sound without attenuation or colouration artefacts.¹⁸ For example, Schneiderwind et al. (2020) compared several open headphones. Their results suggest that open, extra-aural headphones provide the best transparency and perceptual performance. In their study, the AKG K1000 ranked slightly behind their selected headphone (BK211), but it presents a better trade-off in terms of freedom of movement and physical bulk – a factor that is particularly important for active use by musicians, as opposed to the passive listening setup used in the referenced comparison.¹⁹ Subsequent studies compared various configurations, with the AKG K1000 provide the preferred configuration for singers.⁶, ¹⁴, ¹⁵

It can be assumed that the latency to be stable, as well as the system's response, which supports the assumption that the system behaves as Linear Time-Invariant (LTI). However, we acknowledge that we have not provided direct measurements or validation of this assumption.

To ensure an *autophonous* auralisation,¹² *i.e.* an auralisation with coincident source and receiver positions, the VAE used BRIRs recorded with loudspeaker and microphone located in close proximity. The direct sound and first floor reflection were then removed from the BRIR. Musicians therefore heard the natural direct sound only from their instruments, followed by the virtual room environment. These BRIRs are noted here as $BRIR_{auto+rev}$.

The real-time VAE reverberation was accurately time aligned with the natural direct sound of the musician by removing leading zeros from the $BRIR_{auto+rev}$, representing acoustic propagation delay, such that the final total system latency was equal to the measured time delay between the direct sound and the early reflections in the measured BRIRs.⁴, ¹⁵

# 3. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

The experiment consisted of 2 phases: a rehearsal in a studio with the VAE (Phase 1), and a performance on the stage of an auditorium (Phase 2). The auditorium used for the experiment was that of Sorbonne University's Pierre et Marie Curie campus. To assess the effect of the rehearsal tool on the musical rehearsals, two groups of participants were formed. The rehearsal tool of the first group was configured to render the auditorium VAE. The second group, acting as control, rehearsed in the bare acoustics of the studio. The two groups are respectively referred to as $G_{match}$, $G_{control}$.

## A. BRIR MEASUREMENTS

The Auditorium is an approximately 500 seats modern, multi-purpose hall. BRIR measurements were performed using a loudspeaker (Genelec 8030A) and a mannequin recording head (Neumann KU-100). Figure 2 illustrates the BRIR measurement setup. This loudspeaker was used as a rough substitute to approximate the average directivity of a musical instrument.¹⁶ The stimulus used was a logarithmic sine sweep.⁷

Four source/receiver configurations were recorded: one autophonous with both the loudspeaker and mannequin head co-located on the stage, three with the loudspeaker on stage and the mannequin head at various positions in the audience. For the autophonous configuration, the mannequin head was placed on the stage above the loudspeaker, to generally mimic the position of the ears with respect to the mouth position. The perceptual impact of the offset between the source and receiver position for the autophonous configuration was judged negligible, particularly as both the direct sound and first floor reflection are removed from the $BRIR_{auto+rev}$.¹⁵
<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2: Photos of measurement session. Auditorium, configuration with the source on the stage and the receiver at the back of the room.</figcaption></figure>

<table><caption>Table 1: Acoustic characterisation of the rooms considered in the study, following the ISO standard.⁹ Reported values are computed from the omnidirectional RIRs averaged across the 500 Hz and 1000 Hz octave bands.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th><i>T</i><sub>30</sub> (s)</th><th><i>EDT</i> (s)</th><th><i>C</i><sub>80</sub> (dB)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Studio</td><td>0.14</td><td>0.13</td><td>37.3</td></tr><tr><td>Auditorium</td><td>0.98</td><td>0.94</td><td>6.0</td></tr></tbody></table>

For the other configurations, the mannequin head was positioned near the front, centre, and back of the auditorium. These positions defined the potential listening positions for playback within the rehearsal tool. They were selected to provide three distinct listening perspectives for musicians to fully appraise the interaction between their performance and the acoustics of the space.

An additional set of RIRs was recorded to quantify the acoustic properties of the auditorium. Acoustic measurements were performed using a dodecaedron omnidirectional loudspeaker (Lookline 103) and an omnidirectional microphone (Bedrock BAMT 1). The results of this characterisation, including that of the studio in which the rehearsal tool was setup, are reported in Table 1.

## B. DETAILED PROTOCOL

Phase 1 was the rehearsal in the VAE. It began with a 10 min demonstration of the rehearsal tool and explanation of the experimental protocol. Participants were instructed to:

* Not remove the headphones during the rehearsal.

* Take 1 h to prepare for a performance in the room emulated by the VAE.

* Freely use the playback feature to listen to their last performance from three distinct positions in the room.

* Select one recording as being ideally performed on stage in a concert situation.

Participants were free to select the musical piece they wanted to rehearse. This option was proposed to ensure that each participant would practice on a piece both well adapted to their instrument and expertise, challenging them enough to justify a 1 h rehearsal, while not being too complicated so that they would be able to concentrate on the acoustics of the performance.⁵

Phase 2 mainly consisted of a musical performance on stage, carried out within 2 weeks of Phase 1. Phase 2 was divided into two parts: a 20 min warm-up/rehearsal in the studio with the same VAE as in
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3: Participants during experimental (a) Phase 1 and (b) Phase 2.2. (c) Graphical user interface within the Max patch.</figcaption></figure>

Phase 1 (Phase 2.1) and an on-stage performance in the auditorium (Phase 2.2). Travelling from the studio to the auditorium was kept short to limit remembrance biases reported in previous studies.⁴ During Phase 2.2, participants were instructed to perform the piece they had rehearsed during Phase 1 and Phase 2.1. They were also instructed to directly start their performance upon arrival in the auditorium to limit their interaction with its acoustics. Figure 3(a,b) shows participants during both phases of the experiment.

## C. USER INTERFACE

The interface of the rehearsal tool mainly consisted of a *record* and a *replay* button (see Fig. 3(c)). The latter allowed participants to playback their most recently recorded performance from the four available auralisation positions: on stage, in front of the room, at its centre, or at its back. An additional button allowed participants to save their last recorded performance as their favourite at any time. A timer on the interface, updated only every 15 min so as not to stress participants, provided a rough estimate about time remaining in the session.

## D. CALIBRATION

A gain calibration was conducted to ensure the rehearsal tool did not alter the acoustic energy of the virtual room. The system gain was set so that an auralisation using an impulse BRIR — containing only the direct sound — matched the perceived loudness of a real direct sound for the musicians. Once calibrated, replacing the impulse BRIR with a unit-gain normalised $BRIR_{auto+rev}$ (with the direct sound removed) preserved level accuracy. BRIRs for audience positions were scaled using the same gain, maintaining the relative level differences measured on-site. The calibration of autophonous auralisations is detailed in Mullins *et al*.¹⁵

The process used an acoustic calibrator (Brüel & Kjær Type 4231) generating a 94 dB tone at the microphone. A sound level meter (Brüel & Kjær 2250) inside a Neumann KU80 mannequin measured the level at the ear canal. Headphones were placed on the mannequin, and the system gain was adjusted to yield 94 dB SPL per ear.

## E. PARTICIPANTS

General background information on the subjects obtained through the questionnaire is summarised in Fig. 4. The participant panel included 9 musicians (3 F/6 M). The average age was $27 \pm 5.7$ years. Taking into account expertise and instrument, participants were divided into the 2 condition groups for the study (see Table 2). It is noted that one participant had previously performed in both the auditorium, but in an orchestra setting, not a solo performance.
<table><caption>Table 2: Distribution of instruments and expertise across groups.</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>G<sub>match</sub></th><th>G<sub>control</sub></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="3">Experts</td><td>guitar</td><td>cello</td></tr><tr><td>violin</td><td>violin</td></tr><tr><td>oboe</td><td>recorder</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Non-experts</td><td>cello</td><td>voice</td></tr><tr><td>voice</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## F. QUESTIONNAIRE

Participants were asked to complete two questionnaires, one after Phase 1 and one after Phase 2.2. Each questionnaire presented 32 assertions, aimed at assessing various points:

* Quality of the tool from a sound and practical point of view

* Musicians' satisfaction with their rehearsal while using the VAE tool

* Usefulness of the tool during the rehearsal

* Impact of the rehearsal tool on their final musical performance

* Fatigue induced by the use of the tool

Participants evaluated each assertion using 5-point Likert scales, ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. The order of the assertions was randomised for each participant. The polarity of the assertions varied, such that the participants were required to either answer in the affirmative or negative and did not become accustomed to responding in one particular way. The average time for completing each questionnaire was 25 min.

## 4. PRELIMINARY RESULTS

### A. GENERAL METRICS

The behaviour of the participants during rehearsal Phase 1 was supervised using overhead video camera monitoring (see Fig. 5a). Several videos were recorded and positional variations were analysed using a

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4: General demographic and performance habit information on the participants.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 5:** Overhead camera view in the rehearsal room: (a) Example of participant, Phase 1 and (b) Overlay of tracking results. (c) Representative position analysis for 4 participants showing distribution histograms by frame from video analysis, removing the offset with respect to initial reference position, excluding silent passages: (left) Radial distance to microphone, (right) Angular position to microphone.</figcaption></figure>

mean. Mean-Shift approach.¹ The headband of the headphones served as the primary reference object, as it contained high contrast and notable features. As evaluation of the participant's position is only meaningful during musical production (as compared to when interacting with the GUI interface), a parallel analysis of the audio component to threshold out position data during silent portions was included. Audio analysis was performed using the *audioEnvelope* function of the Audio Toolbox in Matlab (R2024b) on the squared audio signal, with an analysis window equal to 1 video frame duration, further applying an 11 frame smoothing function to avoid eliminating small silences or pauses between notes. A threshold value of 0.1 was used to classify silent frames. An example of the resulting position tracking data is shown in Fig. 5b. One can see minor outlier data near the keyboard, likely due to extraneous noise, which is not serious to the overall analysis results.

From the tracked positional data, the variation in distance and angle relative to the microphone was analysed. Representative results are shown for 4 participants in Fig. 5(c). These results show nominal variations in radial distance and angle, as musicians appear to have remained focused on their task and relatively fixed at their initial reference position. Outliers for subject **vocal-1** mostly appear to be due to extraneous noises when the participant was at the keyboard, near -90° (to the left of the image, see Fig. 5 for directional reference), or taking water from their bag, near 80° (to the right). One can also notice that
<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6: Participants' ratings of the rehearsal tool after Phase 1 and Phase 2.2. Error bars indicate mean and standard deviation of ratings. Stacked histograms represent rating distributions.</figcaption></figure>

vocal-1 varied slightly more their distance to the microphone, while the other exemplary participants were more reliable in their distance. In general, these results show that the participants were able to remain in roughly the prescribed area according to instructions for their rehearsal performance.

Following the basic law of spherical spreading for acoustic propagation in the free-field (Eq. (1)), for a given reference distance of 0.4 m, a change in distance of 5 cm would result in a change in captured sound pressure level of 1 dB, the generally accepted just-noticeable-difference (JND) for a listener. A change in distance of 16 cm would result in a change in captured sound pressure level of 3 dB, generally accepted as a clearly noticeable difference for a listener. This information is useful when considering the effect of musician movements during use of the rehearsal system.

$$ \Delta SPL = 20 \log_{10} \left( \frac{r_2}{r_1} \right) \qquad (1) $$

From Phase 2 monitor recordings, the amount of time the participants were actively engaged in music production, versus listening, was evaluated. Audio analysis was performed using the `audioEnvelope` function of the Audio Toolbox in Matlab (R2024b) on the squared audio signal, with an analysis window of 1 s, further applying an 11 frame smoothing function to avoid small silences or pauses between notes being misclassified. A threshold value of 0.1 was used to classify silent frames. The results were an average of 71% of the time in Phase 2 being in music production, versus passive activity (listening, GUI, short pauses for water), out of a total of 20 min. On average, participants used the recording function (to listen to themselves from a position in the audience) 17.3 times during Phase 1 and $5.6 \pm 5$ times during Phase 2.1.

## B. EVALUATION

Preliminary analysis of the participants' responses to the questionnaire is provided here, examining questions pertaining to Quality, Satisfaction, and Usefulness. As reported in Fig. 6, participants overall appreciated the rehearsal tool itself during Phase 1. Comfort (Q1), sound quality (Q2) and ease of use (Q4) were rated quite high (3.6, 4.3 and 4.5 respectively). The relatively lower comfort score is likely due to the use of the rather large headphones, reported by the cellists to sometimes interfere with the musical practice when it touched the keys of their instrument.

All participants appeared satisfied with the realism of the VAE (Q3, 4.0), indicating that they overall felt ready to perform in its physical counterpart (Q5, 3.9). These judgments, made without comparison to a real acoustic reference, were likely based on personal internal references, criteria related to pleasantness of the
acoustics or sound quality. Even the $G_{control}$, rehearsing with no auralisation, judged the VAE as realistic. A very similar result was observed regarding the usefulness of the tool, as illustrated in ratings aggregated over U1–U4 in Fig. 6.

These usefulness ratings were compared to those reported after Phase 2.2, aggregated as P4–P10 in Fig. 6. While participants in $G_{match}$ gave similar usefulness ratings after both phases, $G_{control}$ significantly dropped between Phase 1 and Phase 2.2 (4.4 vs. 3.0). This result confirms that, regardless of the criteria used by participants for ratings in Phase 1, the quality of the auralisation was a criteria used to assess usefulness after Phase 2.2.

## 5. CONCLUSION

This study proposes a rehearsal tool and protocol to evaluate whether whether a virtual acoustic rehearsal tool could help musicians prepare for performances in unfamiliar venues. The designed tool allowed musicians to (1) rehearse as though they were on an actual stage with real-time acoustic feedback and (2) listen back from various audience positions with auralisations of their recordings. Two groups of participants used the tool prior to performing on the stage of an auditorium. During the rehearsal, one group was immersed in an acoustic environment that matched that of the auditorium while the other rehearsed in that of a dry recording studio. After the experiment, questionnaires were administered and analysed to assess the perceived usefulness, quality, and satisfaction of the rehearsal tool.

The rehearsal tool was largely effective. Musicians generally found the virtual acoustics to be natural and noted that the headphones provided a clear balance between their instrument's direct sound and the simulated environment. Participants typically felt the auditorium VAE accurately represented the acoustics of the auditorium and often reported feeling more at ease and found it easier to perform on stage during the final performance compared to the studio rehearsal condition group. Additional conditions and more detailed analysis of the questionnaire's results specifically on these aspects are currently a work in progress.

Future work also includes considerations of how this tool would be used in practice. While this study occurred under "laboratory" conditions, several of the design choices are suitable for musicians at home, such as the utilisation of a sufficiently damped practice space, which may be found in many musical academic settings in the form of rehearsal studios accessible to students. This experiment was conducted in an acoustically treated studio, rather than an anechoic chamber, which demonstrates that the setup is feasible in many real-world environments. One feature that may change in future iterations is the system calibration – a critical factor for achieving realistic auralisations. This experiment used professional equipment to ensure that direct sound recorded from the musicians had an accurate relative amplitude to the reflections in the BRIRs. A more simplified calibration procedure will be developed to alleviate the need for such equipment.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are grateful to Renato Mariano Braga and Sarabeth S. Mullins for the room acoustic measurement campaign. Funding was provided in part by the French project PHEND (The Past Has Ears at Notre-Dame, Grant No. ANR-20-CE38-0014, phend.pasthasears.eu). Additional funding provided by the SONICOM project (www.sonicom.eu), European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program grant agreement No. 101017743.

## REFERENCES

¹ BERNHARDT, S. Mean-shift video tracking. https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/35520-mean-shift-video-tracking (last viewed 2025-04-01), 2025. MATLAB Central File Exchange.
² BLAUERT, J. *Spatial hearing: the psychophysics of human sound localization*. MIT Press, 1996.

³ DAFFERN, H., WEATHERLY, H., SARAMAGO, P., STEELE, K., GREAVES, D., KAVANAGH, M., COONEY, L., SPREADBOROUGH, J., HONNAN, S., JOHNSTON, D., AND TOOMER, R. Virtual choirs in care homes: the development and early assessment of a new virtual reality choir intervention. *Virtual Worlds* 4, 1 (2025), 8:1–25, doi:10.3390/virtualworlds4010008.

⁴ ELEY, N. *A study on the influence of acoustics on historically informed performance of baroque music*. Ph.D. Thesis, CY Cergy Paris Université, Apr. 2023. https://hal.science/tel-04109151.

⁵ ELEY, N., LAVANDIER, C., PSYCHOYOU, T., AND KATZ, B. F. G. Listener perception of changes in historically informed performance of solo baroque music due to room acoustics. *Acta Acustica* 8, 6 (2024), 1–15, doi:10.1051/aacus/2023069.

⁶ ELEY, N., MULLINS, S., STITT, P., AND KATZ, B. F. G. Virtual Notre-Dame: Preliminary results of real-time auralization with choir members. In *Immersive and 3D Audio Conference* (2021), pp. 1–6, doi:10.1109/I3DA48870.2021.9610851.

⁷ FARINA, A. Advancements in impulse response measurements by sine sweeps. In *122nd Audio Engineering Society Convention* (2007), no. 7121, pp. 1–21.

⁸ GOSPODAREK, M., WARUSFEL, O., RIPOLLÉS, P., AND ROGINSKA, A. Methodology for perceptual evaluation of plausibility with self-translation of the listener. In *Audio Engineering Society International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality* (2022), pp. 401–410.

⁹ *ISO 3382-1 - Acoustics—Measurement of Room Acoustic Parameters—Part 1: Performance Spaces* (2009), International Organization for Standardization.

¹⁰ KLEINER, M., DALENBÄCK, B.-I., AND SVENSSON, P. Auralization - an overview. *Journal of the Audio Engineering Society* 41, 11 (1993), 861–875.

¹¹ LEIPER, T. A study of the impact on health and wellbeing of amateur choir singers as face-to-face group singing moved online. *Voice and Speech Review* 17, 1 (2023), 48–65, doi:10.1080/23268263.2021.1994698.

¹² LUIZARD, P., BRAUER, E., WEINZIERL, S., AND BERNARDONI, N. H. How singers adapt to room acoustical conditions. In *Auditorium Acoustics* (2018), Institute of Acoustics, doi:10.14279/depositonce-8704.

¹³ MEYER-KAHLEN, N., SCHLECHT, S., GARÍ, S. V. A., AND LOKKI, T. Testing auditory illusions in augmented reality: Plausibility, transfer-plausibility, and authenticity. *Journal of the Audio Engineering Society* 72, 11 (2024), 797–812, doi:10.17743/jaes.2022.0178.

¹⁴ MULLINS, S., LE PAGE, V., DE MUYNKE, J., CANFIELD-DAFILOU, E. K., BILLIET, F., AND KATZ, B. F. G. Preliminary report on the effect of room acoustics on choral performance in Notre Dame and its pre-Gothic predecessor. *Journal of the Acoustical Society of America* 150, 4 (2021), A258, doi:10.1121/10.0008212.

¹⁵ MULLINS, S. S., AND KATZ, B. F. G. Immersive auralisation for choral ensembles. In *International Conference on Auditorium Acoustics* (2023), vol. 45, pp. 1–8, [url](https://doi.org/10.1121/10.0008212).

¹⁶ PÄTYNEN, J., TERVO, S., AND LOKKI, T. A loudspeaker orchestra for concert hall studies. In *Auditorium Acoustics* (2008), Institute of Acoustics, pp. 45–52, doi:10.25144/17500.
17 POIRIER-QUINOT, D., STITT, P., AND KATZ, B. F. G. RoomZ: Spatial panning plugin for dynamic RIR convolution auralisations. In *Audio Engineering Society International Conference on Spatial and Immersive Audio* (2023), pp. 19:1–7, [url].

18 SCHÄRER KALKANDJIEV, Z., AND WEINZIERL, S. The influence of room acoustics on solo music performance: An experimental study. *Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain* 25, 3 (2015), 195–207, doi:10.1037/pmu0000065.

19 SCHNEIDERWIND, C., NEIDHARDT, A., AND MEYER, D. Comparing the effect of different open headphone models on the perception of a real sound source. In *Audio Engineering Society, 150th Convention* (2021), no. 10489.

20 VORLÄNDER, M. *Auralization: fundamentals of acoustics, modelling, simulation, algorithms and acoustic virtual reality*, 1st ed. Springer, 2008.

21 ZAUNSCHIRM, M., FRANK, M., AND ZOTTER, F. Binaural rendering with measured room responses: First-order ambisonic microphone vs. dummy head. *Applied Sciences* 10, 5 (2020), 2–16, doi:10.3390/app10051631.