Arkamys
Encyclopedia
Arkamys is a French
-based company specialising in digital signal processing
. Its audio processing solutions are applied in the sectors of Consumer Electronics
and Car audio
.
Arkamys was founded in Paris
in 1998. The company initially used its patented sound spatialization
process to remaster
movies and DVDs for the professional entertainment industry. Today its audio enhancement software is implemented in consumer electronic products, such as mobile phones and mp3 players, as well as portable media players and car radios.
The Arkamys technology is based on a process which allows the spatialisation of an existing audio signal
(mono, stereo
, 5.1) and thereby aims to create a more realistic listening experience. The spatialisation process is initially used to remaster cinematic masterpieces such as Subway
by Luc Besson
(remastered in 2001) for the cinema and DVD
industries.
Arkamys saw rapid growth and chose to settle down at Château d'Hérouville
, a recording studio where stars like Elton John
, The Bee Gees and Pink Floyd
recorded their music. The Château’s main hall was used for the audio tuning and the tapes were afterwards remastered in order to transform a monophonic or stereophonic sound into a multichannel sound
. Numerous movies were modernised with the help of Arkamys’ spatialisation process among theses for instance Peau d'Âne
(Donkey Skin), a film inspired by the work of Jean Cocteau
, but also Bagdad Café
, Dirty Dancing
, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
as well as the series Le Gendarme with Louis de Funes
.
First customers were media player manufacturer Archos and the airline company Air France
that chose Arkamys to optimize audio restitution over headphones on their Business Class flights. A major licensing deal was closed in 2008 when Renault
announced to equip most of its Mégane line-up with Arkamys technology.
are placed low in door panels which results in a perceived sound “coming from the floor” that is in many cases too lateralized, either coming from far left or far right. Audio reproduction is often unnatural and can lead to a phenomenon called listener fatigue after an extended period of listening.
The aim of Arkamys car audio software is to create a natural audio image with a harmonious positioning of music and voice in front of the driver at windshield level. This is called the sound scene.
The main difficulty is to create this sound scene without changing the car’s speaker configuration. The software implemented on the radio processes the digital signal of any media players (radio, CD, mp3, etc.). The processing has to be optimised for each car model taking into account the specific characteristics of the car’s interior (size, form, number and positioning of speakers)
The diversity of car models makes several configurations necessary in order to adapt to different equipment levels from low level stereo systems to high end multi-channel sound systems which reproduce a 5.1 or 7.1 sound over 10 speakers.
) that guaranty optimal audio restitution. These factors downgrade the audio quality of mobile devices.
Arkamys’ audio enhancement solution is entirely software-based which means that the original speaker configurations remain unchanged. The software operates in real time on audio streams and processes the signal (mp3, CD, radio, etc.) according to the specific constraints of the device in question (size, type and position of speakers, headphone type, player type, material used). The software is configured for each model and then installed on the digital signal processor
(DSP). This process is in fact comparable to a remastering of the music.
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Acoustic Echo cancellation
(AEC) technology as well as volume control and audio enhancement software libraries are applied. The voice amelioration software is implemented taking into account the overall sound concept of the car or device in order to deliver a coherent listening experience for music as well as for telephone conversations.
The coherence has to be respected concerning:
(AES) with subjects such as sound spatialisation and morpho-acoustic studies. Additionally, the company participates in conferences and symposia all over the world.
Basing their research project on the science of the head-related transfer function
(HRTF), the CNRS and Arkamys intend to make personalized 3D audio for listening over headphones available to the general public.
The researchers presume that today’s headphone solutions are limited because they are all standardized in terms of their acoustic restitution. This is linked to the fact that the shape of each individual's ear and the size of their head are not taken into account.
The project “Listen with your own ears" aims at developing an automatic process that measures the morphological
characteristics of each person in order to directly treat audio streams with digital processing software. This will personalize one’s audio content for listening over headphones according to the shape of one's ears for a more realistic 3D audio effect
.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-based company specialising in digital signal processing
Digital signal processing
Digital signal processing is concerned with the representation of discrete time signals by a sequence of numbers or symbols and the processing of these signals. Digital signal processing and analog signal processing are subfields of signal processing...
. Its audio processing solutions are applied in the sectors of Consumer Electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
and Car audio
Car audio
Car audio/video , auto radio, mobile audio, 12-volt and other terms are used to describe the sound or video system fitted in an automobile. While 12-volt audio and video systems are also used, marketed, or manufactured for marine, aviation, and buses, this article focuses on cars as the most common...
.
Arkamys was founded in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1998. The company initially used its patented sound spatialization
Spatial music
Spatial music, music in space, or space music uses the localization of sounds in physical space as a compositional element in music, in sound art, and in sound editing for audio recordings, film, and video...
process to remaster
Remaster
Remaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...
movies and DVDs for the professional entertainment industry. Today its audio enhancement software is implemented in consumer electronic products, such as mobile phones and mp3 players, as well as portable media players and car radios.
1998 - 2004
Arkamys was set up to exploit the internationally patented sound spatialisation process invented by one of Arkamys co-founders.The Arkamys technology is based on a process which allows the spatialisation of an existing audio signal
Audio signal
An audio signal is an analog representation of sound, typically as an electrical voltage. Audio signals may be synthesized directly, or may originate at a transducer such as a microphone, musical instrument pickup, phonograph cartridge, or tape head. Loudspeakers or headphones convert an electrical...
(mono, stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
, 5.1) and thereby aims to create a more realistic listening experience. The spatialisation process is initially used to remaster cinematic masterpieces such as Subway
Subway (film)
Subway is a 1985 French film directed by Luc Besson, starring Isabelle Adjani and Christopher Lambert and is part of the Cinema du look movement.-Plot:...
by Luc Besson
Luc Besson
Luc Besson is a French film director, writer, and producer. He is the creator of EuropaCorp film company. He has been involved with over 50 films, spanning 26 years, as writer, director, and/or producer.-Early life:...
(remastered in 2001) for the cinema and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
industries.
Arkamys saw rapid growth and chose to settle down at Château d'Hérouville
Château d'Hérouville
The Château d'Hérouville is a French château of the 18th century located in the village of Hérouville, in the Oise valley near Paris. The castle was built in 1740 by Gaudot, an architect of the school of Rome. In the 19th century, it was used as courier relay station and stabled a hundred...
, a recording studio where stars like Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, The Bee Gees and Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
recorded their music. The Château’s main hall was used for the audio tuning and the tapes were afterwards remastered in order to transform a monophonic or stereophonic sound into a multichannel sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
. Numerous movies were modernised with the help of Arkamys’ spatialisation process among theses for instance Peau d'Âne
Peau d'Âne
Peau d'Âne is a 1970 French musical film directed by Jacques Demy. It is also known by the English titles Once Upon a Time and The Magic Donkey. The film was adapted by Demy from Donkeyskin, a fairy tale by Charles Perrault about a king who wishes to marry his daughter...
(Donkey Skin), a film inspired by the work of Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, but also Bagdad Café
Bagdad Café
Bagdad Café is a 1987 German film directed by Percy Adlon.The film is a comedy set in a remote truck-stop café and motel in the Mojave Desert. The plot is centered around two women who have recently separated from their husbands, and the blossoming friendship which ensues. It ran 95 minutes in...
, Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...
, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a 1974 American independent horror film directed and produced by Tobe Hooper, who cowrote it with Kim Henkel. It stars Marilyn Burns, Paul A. Partain, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, and Gunnar Hansen, who respectively portray Sally Hardesty, Franklin Hardesty, the...
as well as the series Le Gendarme with Louis de Funes
Louis de Funès
Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was a very popular French actor who is one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel...
.
2004 - Present time
In 2004, Arkamys re-orientates its business activities transforming from a service company that remasters movies into a supplier to the Consumer Electronics industry, specialising in car audio, mobile phones and media players. Therefore, the digital processing algorithms had to be adapted to the limited processor capacity of mobile devices and auto radios.First customers were media player manufacturer Archos and the airline company Air France
Air France
Air France , stylised as AIRFRANCE, is the French flag carrier headquartered in Tremblay-en-France, , and is one of the world's largest airlines. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group and a founding member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance...
that chose Arkamys to optimize audio restitution over headphones on their Business Class flights. A major licensing deal was closed in 2008 when Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
announced to equip most of its Mégane line-up with Arkamys technology.
Key Events
- 1998: Founded in Paris, France
- 1998: First sound spatialisation patent
- 1998-2004: Studio postproduction, entertainment & broadcast: hundred DVDs and music albums
- Jun 2001: Arkamys settles down at the once famous recording studio Château d'Hérouville.
- 2005: First applications for portable media players with Arkamys technology implemented on the Archos 604.
- Feb 2006: Arkamys is selected by Air France to enhance the music experience offered by the in-flight entertainment program.
- Jun 2006: Arkamys announces a licensing agreement with Sagem communication to improve audio quality restitution on the My700x mobile phone.
- Feb 2007: Arkamys partner with STMicroelectronicsSTMicroelectronicsSTMicroelectronics is an Italian-French electronics and semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.While STMicroelectronics corporate headquarters and the headquarters for EMEA region are based in Geneva, the holding company, STMicroelectronics N.V. is registered in Amsterdam,...
to embed its audio solution on NomadikNomadikNomadik was a microprocessor for multimedia applications from ST-Ericsson. It was based on ARM architecture. Nomadik application processors were designed specifically with mobile devices in mind....
processor. - Jan 2008: Arkamys and CNRS-LIMSI present “listen with your own ears”.
- Nov 2008: First car with Arkamys technology embedded. Renault presents its new Mégane with “3D Sound by Arkamys"
Car Audio software
The audio quality in cars suffers from physical constraints linked to security norms and concerns to optimise in- car roominess. SpeakersLoudspeaker
A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer that produces sound in response to an electrical audio signal input. Non-electrical loudspeakers were developed as accessories to telephone systems, but electronic amplification by vacuum tube made loudspeakers more generally useful...
are placed low in door panels which results in a perceived sound “coming from the floor” that is in many cases too lateralized, either coming from far left or far right. Audio reproduction is often unnatural and can lead to a phenomenon called listener fatigue after an extended period of listening.
The aim of Arkamys car audio software is to create a natural audio image with a harmonious positioning of music and voice in front of the driver at windshield level. This is called the sound scene.
The main difficulty is to create this sound scene without changing the car’s speaker configuration. The software implemented on the radio processes the digital signal of any media players (radio, CD, mp3, etc.). The processing has to be optimised for each car model taking into account the specific characteristics of the car’s interior (size, form, number and positioning of speakers)
The diversity of car models makes several configurations necessary in order to adapt to different equipment levels from low level stereo systems to high end multi-channel sound systems which reproduce a 5.1 or 7.1 sound over 10 speakers.
Audio enhancement for mobile devices
Due to their small size portable devices like mobile phones and portable media stations are not able to use high-performance speakers. Moreover, compressing audio formats such as mp3 have become widely popular and users choose high compression rates to store as much music as possible on their players. Finally, cost constraints prevent manufacturer from using high-end equipment (speakers, headphonesHeadphones
Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, held close to a user's ears and connected to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, CD player or portable Media Player. They are also known as stereophones, headsets or, colloquially, cans. The in-ear...
) that guaranty optimal audio restitution. These factors downgrade the audio quality of mobile devices.
Arkamys’ audio enhancement solution is entirely software-based which means that the original speaker configurations remain unchanged. The software operates in real time on audio streams and processes the signal (mp3, CD, radio, etc.) according to the specific constraints of the device in question (size, type and position of speakers, headphone type, player type, material used). The software is configured for each model and then installed on the digital signal processor
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
(DSP). This process is in fact comparable to a remastering of the music.
Voice improvement software, AEC, ANC
This software is used to improve intelligibility and listening comfort during a conversation for all forms of communication systems: landline, mobile as well as car communication systems.Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and Acoustic Echo cancellation
Echo cancellation
'The term echo cancellation is used in telephony to describe the process of removing echo from a voice communication in order to improve voice quality on a telephone call...
(AEC) technology as well as volume control and audio enhancement software libraries are applied. The voice amelioration software is implemented taking into account the overall sound concept of the car or device in order to deliver a coherent listening experience for music as well as for telephone conversations.
The coherence has to be respected concerning:
- timbreTimbreIn music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
and dynamicsDynamics (music)In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
of the sound (the sound texture) - spatial position of the sound and the voice
Publications for the AES
Arkamys regularly contributes articles to the Audio Engineering SocietyAudio Engineering Society
Established in 1948, the Audio Engineering Society draws its membership from amongst engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or products for audio, and persons working...
(AES) with subjects such as sound spatialisation and morpho-acoustic studies. Additionally, the company participates in conferences and symposia all over the world.
Research project "Listen with your own ears"
"Listen with your own ears" is a research project that Arkamys is currently undertaking in cooperation with the Computer Sciences Laboratory for Mechanics and Engineering Sciences (LIMSI) that is part of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS).Basing their research project on the science of the head-related transfer function
Head-related transfer function
A head-related transfer function is a response that characterizes how an ear receives a sound from a point in space; a pair of HRTFs for two ears can be used to synthesize a binaural sound that seems to come from a particular point in space. Some consumer home entertainment products designed to...
(HRTF), the CNRS and Arkamys intend to make personalized 3D audio for listening over headphones available to the general public.
The researchers presume that today’s headphone solutions are limited because they are all standardized in terms of their acoustic restitution. This is linked to the fact that the shape of each individual's ear and the size of their head are not taken into account.
The project “Listen with your own ears" aims at developing an automatic process that measures the morphological
Morphology (biology)
In biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
characteristics of each person in order to directly treat audio streams with digital processing software. This will personalize one’s audio content for listening over headphones according to the shape of one's ears for a more realistic 3D audio effect
3D audio effect
3D audio effects are a group of sound effects that attempt to widen the stereo image produced by two loudspeakers or stereo headphones, or to create the illusion of sound sources placed anywhere in 3 dimensional space, including behind, above or below the listener.There are several types of 3D...
.
External links
- Official website
- Audio Engineering Society
- LIMSI
- Listen with your own ears - Project blog