Pipe dreams now a reality

4:50pm Thursday 11th September 2008

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STUDIO-quality music will be transmitted via fibre-optics for the first time in the UK in an experiment involving York and Edinburgh universities.

Bagpipe music performed by students in Edinburgh will be captured by sophisticated microphones in surround sound and sent using the Janet Lightpath network to York, 300 miles away.

In York, award-winning composer Ambrose Field will mix the recordings to create a new composition, and the results will be beamed back to an audience in Edinburgh.

The development will allow artists to perform in a studio hundreds of miles from where their sound is recorded, opening up possibilities for remote composition and performance.

The Lightpath remix project is a joint venture, undertaken between the University of Edinburgh E-science centre and the University of York.

Dr Rob Fletcher, of the University of York, said: “The demonstration illustrates the potential of Janet Lightpath to deliver affordable transfer of audio recordings.”