An archaeoacoustic reconstruction of the great hall of the palace of Binche (1545-1554)

With this paper the attempt to digitally recreate the soundscape in the great hall of the Palace in Binche is presented. Special attention was given to the description of room acoustic properties and the identification of the sound sources present in the hall during the well-documented festivities of 1549. These were organized on the occasion of the visit of Emperor Charles V and his son Philip II to Queen Mary of Hungary (Regent of the Low Countries). Multiple building accounts, descriptions and iconographic sources were used to create a simplified CAD model of the hall that burned down in 1554. Following the historical sources, material properties (in the form of sound absorption and sound scattering) were assigned to all interior surfaces of the acoustic 3D model. However, due to some uncertainties, multiple material configurations were compared. Simulations of binaural room impulse responses of different variants were performed, followed by analysis through the comparison of objective room acoustic parameters for music (EDT, T
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, Cs o, G) with optimal values for modern chamber music halls. It was concluded that the tapestries that were temporarily installed in the hall likely contributed to an acoustic field that was more suited for listening to classical chamber music according to modern standards. Finally, an elaborate auralisation was made using a historical piece of music, interpreted in modern music production software. Each instrument was synthesized individually and was simulated with its own directivity pattern in the virtual room acoustic model.