Zirkonium3

Zirkonium3 Summertime example

Introduction to Zirkonium3: ZKM's Sound Spatialization Environment

Zirkonium is a free spatialized sound environment for the ZKM Hertzlab, formerly ZKM Institute for Music and Acoustics, which wraps various spatialization algorithms and abstracted speaker layouts with a path sequencing interface designed for composers in mind. The project was developed for the Sound Dome (Klangdom), a 43 speaker half dome in the ZKM Kubus studio however is applicable to almost any physical setup. Zirkonium has had three major versions since 2006 and this workshop introduces the current version, Zirkonium3, which utilizes libpd and Pure Data patches for its sound engine. The background and basic concepts will be introduced with the goal being for participants to stream live audio from Pd/Max/Ableton/etc projects into Zirkonium3 with live control.

Requirement: macOS 10.13+

Zirkonium Website: zkm.de/en/zirkonium

Length: 2-3 hours

What You Need

  1. Download and install Zirkonium3 from zkm.de
  2. Grab the example and supporting material for the workshop: ZirkoniumWorkshop.zip

If using Pure Data, the example requires Pd 0.47+.

If using Max, the example Max patch requires installing the "CNMAT Externals" package.

For the Brave

Not on macOS but using Pure Data? Try the internal spatialization server abstractions: ZirkoniumSpatializationServer patches Github repository

Build the externals with: make

All audio playback and control functionality used by the Zirkonium GUI is supported in the "zirkonium_server" patch however you will need to manually send all of the required control messages which are listed in the README. If you want to start with a single audio source to speaker output without all of the overhead, try the "zirk_id-help.pd" patch.

Previous Workshops