Sound design is a relatively recent field of design, based on an approach that aims to consider the sound component right from the design phase of an object in order to make an intention audible; or, to put it another way, and to quote Louis Dandrel, a discipline that mainly consists of designing with sound. Its raw material therefore addresses issues of generation, representation, transformation... in other words, the manipulation of a sound object that is most often digital – or digitised – and for which signal processing and sound synthesis are essential and fertile tools. More specifically, one of the major issues in the sound design process concerns the transition from ideation to realisation. The question is how to move from a symbolic representation (graphic, semantic or even simplified audio) to a sound artefact – even at the sketch or prototype stage – capable of meeting functional and aesthetic specifications. This often weak but crucial link in the design process will be explained and illustrated by experiments and implementations carried out as part of various research-project approaches that have enabled us to acquire new knowledge in the field as much as to provide solutions to an applied problem.

Bio: Nicolas Misdariis is a research director, head of the Sound Perception & Design group in the Ircam STMS Lab. He is graduated from an engineering school. He got his Master thesis on applied acoustics and his PhD on musical and environmental acoustics. He defended his HDR (Habilitation to Direct Research) on the topic of Sciences of Sound Design. He has been working at Ircam as a research fellow since 1995.

During that time, he developed research works and industrial applications related to sound synthesis and reproduction, environmental sound and soundscape perception, auditory display, human-machine interfaces, interactive sonification and sound design. Since 2010, he is also a regular lecturer in the Sound Design Master at the High School of Art and Design in Le Mans (ESAD TALM, Le Mans).