Engineers at the University of Nottingham have developed a new way to create sound effects by controlling how sound waves interact with each other. The team built a new solid-state rotary speaker that aims to recreate the rich sound movement of classic mechanical speakers without using moving parts.
The research was carried out by engineers from the University of Nottingham’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. The work was published in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, according to the University of Nottingham.
The new device is inspired by the Leslie speaker, a rotary speaker first developed in the 1930s for electric organs. Traditional Leslie speakers use motors, belts, horns and other moving parts to create changes in the sound that listeners hear.
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Instead of physically moving the speakers, the Nottingham design uses a circular array of speakers. The audio signal is electronically shifted between the speakers, creating the effect of a sound source moving around the listener.
The key difference is where the sound modulation takes place. Rather than changing only the electronic signal before it reaches a speaker, the system changes the phase of the physical sound waves produced around the listener.
Phase describes the timing or position of a wave within its cycle. By controlling this relationship between sound waves, the system can change how the sound reaches the listener and create a more spatial effect.
The approach sits between traditional mechanical sound effects and modern electronic or digital effects. Common digital effects such as phasers, chorus effects and software plug-ins can reproduce some aspects of rotary speaker sounds, but they do not physically move the sound source around the listener.
The Nottingham team says its design aims to capture some of the acoustic character associated with the original Leslie speaker while removing its mechanical components. This could make the technology easier to build, maintain and adapt for modern music equipment.
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Fernando Perez-Cota, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said sound modulation has generally been divided into two areas: acoustic-mechanical systems such as the Leslie speaker and electronic-digital systems. He said the new work attempts to create an approach between these two categories.
Nicholas Wolstenholme, a master’s engineering student involved in the project, said the concept could go beyond recreating the Leslie effect. He said it could provide a new way to design sound modulation effects and potentially make high-quality effects more accessible to musicians.
The technology is still a research-stage concept, so its performance and practical use in commercial music equipment will need further development. It also does not mean that mechanical or digital effects will be replaced.
Still, the work could give audio engineers another way to shape sound. By controlling physical sound waves through a speaker array, future systems could create new spatial and modulation effects that are difficult to produce with conventional audio processing.
The research shows how engineers are exploring the space between physical acoustics and digital audio. If the approach can be developed into practical products, it could find uses in music production, live performances and other audio applications.
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