Octophonic sound is a form of audio reproduction that presents eight discrete

audio channel An audio signal is a representation of sound, typically using either a changing level of electrical voltage for analog signals, or a series of binary numbers for digital signals. Audio signals have frequencies in the audio frequency range of ro ...

s using eight

speakers Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...

. For playback, the speakers may be positioned in a circle around the listeners or in any other configuration. Typical speaker configurations are eight spaced on a circle by 45° (oriented with first speaker 0° or at 22.5°), or the vertices of a cube to create a double quadraphonic set-up with elevation. In reference to his own work,

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...

made a distinction between these two forms, reserving the term "octophonic" for a cube configuration, as found in his ''

Oktophonie (Octophony) is a 1991 octophonic electronic-music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A component layer of act 2 of the opera , it may also be performed as an independent composition. It has a duration of 69 minutes. Function in ''Dienstag' ...

'' and the electronic music for scene 2 and the Farewell of ''

Mittwoch aus Licht ( English: Wednesday from Light) is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting, four scenes, and a farewell. It was the sixth of seven to be composed for the opera cycle (Light: The Seven Days of the Week), and the last to be staged. It was ...

'', and using the expression "eight-channel sound" for the circular arrangement, as used in ''

Sirius Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CMa ...

'', ''

Unsichtbare Chöre ''Unsichtbare Chöre'' (Invisible Choirs) is an eight-channel electronic-music composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A component part of the opera ''Donnerstag aus Licht'', it may also be performed as an independent composition, in which form it ...

'', or Hours 13 to 21 of the '' Klang'' cycle. While

quadraphonic sound Quadraphonic (or quadrophonic and sometimes quadrasonic) sound – equivalent to what is now called 4.0 surround sound – uses four audio channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of a listening space. The system allows for t ...

uses four speakers positioned in a square at the four corners of the listening space (either on the ground or raised above the listeners), this cubical kind of octophonic

spatialization Spatialization (or spatialisation) is the spatial forms that social activities and material things, phenomena or processes take on in geography, sociology, urban planning and cultural studies. Generally the term refers to an overall sense of s ...

offers both horizontal and vertical sound spatialization, meaning listeners get a sense of height. In order for such movement in space to be heard, it is necessary that

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed ...

s be slow, and pitches change mainly in small

steps Step(s) or STEP may refer to: Common meanings * Steps, making a staircase * Walking * Dance move * Military step, or march ** Marching Arts Films and television * ''Steps'' (TV series), Hong Kong * ''Step'' (film), US, 2017 Literature * ...

or in

glissando In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a glide from one pitch to another (). It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In some contexts, it is distinguished from the ...

s. Some notable composers who have worked with octophonic spatialisation include Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jonathan Harvey,

Gérard Pape Gérard Pape (born April 22, 1955 in Brooklyn, New York) is a composer of electronic music, author, and Lacanian psychologist. He is a former student of David Winkler, George Cacioppo, William Albright, and George Balch Wilson. He became the d ...

, and

Larry Austin Larry Don Austin (September 12, 1930 – December 30, 2018) was an American composer noted for his electronic and computer music works. He was a co-founder and editor of the avant-garde music periodical '' Source: Music of the Avant Garde''. Aus ...

. The first known octophonic (that is, eight-channel) electronic music was John Cage's ''

Williams Mix ''Williams Mix'' (1951–1953) is a 4'15" musique concrete composition by John Cage for eight simultaneously played independent quarter-inch magnetic tapes. The first octophonic music, the piece was created by Cage with the assistance of Earle Br ...

'' (1951–53) for eight separate simultaneously played back quarter-inch magnetic tapes. Austin later made a surround-sound octophonic mix of ''Williams Mix'', ''Williams (re)Mix d' (1997–2000), using the score and different sound sources. This version is intended to be played back on eight speakers surrounding the audience in a 360° circle, using (unlike Cage's original version) stereo source recordings heard in adjacent speaker pairs. Octophonic sound (in the general sense of eight-channel playback) was stimulated primarily by "the equal coverage it provides to all listening angles" and also by the precedence of eight-channel (initially tape) sound and subsequent ease of playback.

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* * * * * {{Music technology Sound production technology Spatial music

See also

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