Carmen and Carmencita electroacoustic systems

During the last 20 years, CSTB successfully installed many Carmen systems in prestigious venues requiring variable acoustics all around Europe. Electroacoustic systems like Carmen turn a performance hall with naturally dry acoustics into a multipurpose venue that can host any type of performance from theatre to symphonic music. Carmen is based on the virtual wall principle, meaning that it simply changes the perceived absorption of walls and ceilings and their perceived distance to the receiver by placing Carmen cells on them. This principle enhances the natural acoustics of the hall without introducing any kind of electronic reverberation. Due to the large number of Carmen cells (typically over 30) required to homogeneously enhance a hall reverberation time, Carmen is not suited to small venues (under 700 seats). Also, it is well known that the main limitation of assisted reverberation systems is their significant price. Therefore, CSTB developed a new system called Carmencita using much less cells (8 to 16) and introducing a specific reverberation matrix to provide to small venues a large panel of acoustic presets. Moreover, to meet the growing demand of spatially diffused sound effects for theatre and contemporary dance, Carmencita also features new real time spatial diffusion algorithms.