– Professional Sound Engineer – Consulant Acoustic Engineer –
Sound has been a passion of mine from my early teens and this led me to study Electroacoustics for four years in the Department of Acoustics at the University of Salford in England. Since completing my degree, I have worked full time with acoustics and in particular research and development of loudspeaker systems with Bang & Olufsen and Harman Professional. Throughout this time, I have also worked with live and reproduced sound. My experience spans live sound for lectures, conferences and hundreds of concerts together with consultant activities within product development, installation of sound systems, design of studios, building and rooms acoustics, and tuning of new sound systems and loudspeakers for a wide range of Danish and international companies and customers.
Today, I own the company PC Sound & Acoustics and have over 25 years of experience. I offer solutions for live sound including gear, install projects, acoustic measurements of noise, room and building acoustics (also design, specification and consultancy), and product development and sound tuning. I am also available for recording, mix and mastering, FM transmission and live-streaming of events with video and sound. On a day-to-day basis, I have a desk at Sound Hub Denmark in Struer. I am also a guest lecturer on the AV, Sound & Light Technicians education at EUC Nord in Frederikshavn. Read more about these activities and see a selection of pictures from my work below. I also put pictures and updates on my Facebook profile.
Live Sound
During the more recent years, I have mixed live sound for the following artists (among others):
– Vilma – Dahlin – Cichosz – Rigmor – Oh Land – Twang – Moonjam – Little Fury – Per Worm – Huxi Bach – Sinne Eeg – Livestrings – Store Nørd – Onkel Reje – Rod Sinclair – Mellemblond – Johan Reuter – Tango Spleen – Cæcilie Norby – Mathilde Falch – Undertekster – Gospel D’Light – Bo Evers Band – The Agreement – Rikke Thomsen – SPJustFrost – Alberte Winding – Sebastian Klein – Katrines Kvartet – Signe Svendsen – Guido Paevatalu – Nikolaj Stokholm – Niels Jørgen Riis – Benjamin Koppel – Jonah Blacksmith – Anders Mikkelsen – Who Killed Bambi – Nice Little Penguins – Martin Fabricius Trio – Anders Lund Madsen – Malene Kjærgaard Trio – Dissing, Dissing og Las – The Rumour Said Fire – Orquesta Social del Tango – Tante Andante Band Lemvig – Dana LaCroix & Murali Coryell – Christian Alvad & Anna Wirsén – Marc Bernstein & Debbie Cameron – Viggo Sommer and his Backhowlers – Live Bleeding Fingers & Travis Haddix – Ole Koch-Hansen, Bo Stief & Bobo Moreno – McGoldrick, McCusker & Doyle –
I have also supplied sound and light equipment for shows with the following artists as well as provided technical support:
– Hush – Teitur – Lars Lilholt – Poul Krebs – Allan Olsen – Søs Fenger – Hanne Boel – Søren Huss – Sko og Torp – Folkeklubben – Lis Sørensen – Niels Skousen – Peter Sommer – Niels Hausgaard – Steffen Brandt – Dodo & The Dodos – DR Big Band with Basco – Kathrine Windfeld Big Band – Hans Theessink & Knud Møller – Anne Dorthe Michelsen – Ester Brohus & Knud Møller –
Recording & Mix
I have substantial experience with live concert recordings and later mix and mastering. Live recordings are made digitally where all tracks are laid down untouched. The finished mix can be supplied as a file and/or as CD’s including graphics.
Building Acoustics
The design and realisation of buildings including rooms with special acoustic requirements or targets, is a speciality of PC Sound & Acoustics. This includes sound studios, music and rehearsal rooms, classrooms and child nurseries, where there are specific requirements for the acoustics stated in the building regulations. These include reverberation time, sound transmission and noise. I have worked with local councils when existing schools are being renovated and brought up to the current regulations – acoustic measurements give precise information about the required adjustments, meaning time and money can be saved in the project and the correct results can be achieved. The pictures below are of the studios at Sound Art Lab in Struer. PC Sound & Acoustics was responsible for the specifications including ventilation, led the project, and installed all the acoustic surfaces and audio connections. The studios have a constant reverberation time of 0,3 seconds from 63 Hz to 8000 Hz and particularly high sound insulation from adjacent rooms and from outside.
The two pictures below show the studio control room, vocal box and music room (through the double window) at the Music and Culture Venue at VIA University College in Nørre Nissum, where their music education takes place for trainee teachers. The £2M project involved complete renovation of two historic buildings with creation of the sound studio, music rooms and classrooms, renovation of a small classical concert hall and complete new ventilation system. PC Sound & Acoustics was the consulting engineer on the project.
The four pictures below show acoustic treatment of several rooms installed by PC Sound, where the acoustic solutions combine with visual identity and asthetics. I often use products from Ecophon, Rockfon og Norto. Norto create products of upcycled wood and many of Norto’s acoustic products have been developed i collaboration with PC Sound & Acoustics and measured at Sound Hub Denmark. The central picture shows a 10 metre long decoration wall at Sound Hub that was installed by PC Sound. The envelope illustrates the spoken words ‘Sound Hub Denmark’.
"A measurement is worth a thousand words"
Acoustic measurements help us to find the truth and are very important in solving an acoustical problem – such as in a loudspeaker or a room. To have the correct measurement results at hand can save a lot of time and money later. The pictures below illustrate a number of measurements in the field. Clockwise from top left: measurement of absorptions coefficients in a reverberation chamber according to the relevant ISO standard, measurement of reverberation time at Restaurant Domæne in Herning, acoustic measurements during the construction of the Black Circle Stage, sound tuning of loudspeakers from MAPU in one of the IEC listening rooms at Sound Hub Denmark, and measurement of a prototype bass-reflex loudspeaker.
Research & Development
My earlier carrier had focus on development of loudspeaker technologies and R&D in concept and product development for Bang & Olufsen in Struer. These years included projects such the as active consumer loudspeakers Beolab 1 and Beolab 9 and the Beolab 7 series of television loudspeakers. Something that unfortunately never became more than a concept was a series of modular studio monitors. Later, I moved to Automotive and developed sound systems for cars Bang & Olufsen – which later became a part of Harman. Her I continued this work for a number of years before I became self employed. Some highlights are:
- World class listening training and regular hearing checks (normal hearing 2023).
- Concept and product development of consumer, professional and automotive sound systems.
- Research into the average energy in programme material.
- Further development of an acoustic lens technology for constant horizontal sound radiation.
- Development of low frequency sound field control in rooms and car cabins.
- Specification and installation of IEC standard listening rooms.
- Specification and development of loudspeaker drive units for specific applications.
- Modelling of the thermal behaviour of drive units and adaptive real-time protection in active loudspeaker systems.
- Mapping and calculation of tolerances in the supply-chain all the way to final production test of loudspeakers.
- Signal flow design, DSP programming and filtering in speaker systems with for example Audiomulch and Sigma Studio.
- Development of concepts and demos for B&O and Bowers & Wilkins brands for: Audi, BMW, Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, VW og Volvo.
- Mentoring of university students.
Publications
Through the years, when I have been heavily involved in R&D, I have written a number of technical papers that have been published. These are listed below (click on the titles to see a PDF which opens in a new window):
- Programme Material Analysis, Copenhagen 1996
- Thermal Simulation of Loudspeakers, Amsterdam 1998
- Complete Thermal Simulation of an Active Loudspeaker, Paris 2000
- Quantifying Acoustic Measurement Tolerances and their Influence in the Loudspeaker Supply Chain, Berlin 2014
- Ambient Atmospheric Conditions and their Influence on Acoustic Measurements, Berlin 2014
- Effectiveness of Vapour-Deposited Coatings on Improving the Performance of Hard Dome Tweeters, New York 2015
- On Acoustic Modelling and Validation of Automotive Loudspeaker Grilles, 2017
Contact
Contact me via mobile +45 20 61 29 24 or by e-mail peter.chapman@mail.dk for an informal chat or quote.