about
Matthias Kronlachner is an Austrian engineer and artist specializing in electronic music, live performance and spatial sound.
He studied at TU Graz, the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and has lived and worked in Austria, Germany, the USA and Lithuania.
An active musician working with live electronics, bass and clarinet, he often explores large-scale loudspeaker installations that examine the interplay between sound and physical space. Recent pieces include Spatial Wires – Standing Waves for two resonating wires and the 393 beamforming loudspeaker array.
His work has taken him to festivals including Ars Electronica Linz, Steirischer Herbst, Wien Modern, Gaida and Jauna Muzika, and to collaborations with Klangforum Wien, the Lithuanian Ensemble Network, the Chordos Quartet, Winfried Ritsch and Bernhard Lang.
Beyond his engineering and artistic practice, he is a well-known contributor to the open-source audio community. His Ambisonic and multichannel plug-in suites ambiX and mcfx, released in 2014, have become standard tools for working with Ambisonics and with loudspeaker and microphone arrays. They were promoted by Google for YouTube Ambisonics productions and are still maintained.
Engineering
As an audio engineer he specializes in embedded software and spatial audio, working on home and automotive audio products – building bridges between signal processing, software, hardware and user experience. His work covers:
- spatial audio rendering, loudspeaker and microphone beamforming
- audio system architecture, embedded real-time software and amplifier firmware
- audio algorithms using signal processing and machine learning
- active noise control, sound zones and upmixing
- tuning and acoustic measurement of home, mobile and in-car audio systems
- open-source audio software in C and C++ for new media art, since 2011
See his LinkedIn profile for details.
Education and awards
- Electrical Engineering – Audio Engineering (Master, 2014), Graz University of Technology and University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM)
- Composition (ERASMUS), Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Vilnius; later teaching sound programming at its Music Innovation Studies Centre
- AES Student Design Competition 2014 – Gold award for ambiX and mcfx, with low-latency binaural headphone playback including head tracking
- Best art exhibit at ICT 2013
Earlier
Born in Vöcklabruck and grown up in a musical family in Schwanenstadt, Upper Austria. Before and during his studies: recordings from small ensembles to orchestras with choir, live sound and recording for musical productions (Elisabeth, Queen, The Lion King, Jungle Book), a concert tour through China as musician and audio engineer, lab work at AKG Acoustics in Vienna and MED-EL in Innsbruck, and bands such as 3mal3, ICE (IEM Computer Music Ensemble), spielmaschine and pi.
See the projects for more.