The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.

This is a case study of Carlstad Comic Con 2011 and 2012.The purpose is to study the event in relation to a project management and a local culture policy perspective. This in order to analyze the organization of a popular culture event and see how such a local event may benefit Karlstad as a city. Besides studying the organization of Carlstad Comic Con and its outcomes I am sketching a short cultural history of popular culture media and its context within recent year?s globalization.The study shows that the events have had a great beneficial impact on the local industry; lacking any negative sides, and have put Karlstad in an international context which goes directly in line with the standard guidelines for project management of region culture policy. Concerning how to organize the event the organizers have not followed a strict project structure.

Research shows that almost 30 per cent men and 20 per cent women at the age of 16-24 in Sweden download music on a regular basis instead of buying records. Thanks to modern technologies teenagers of today have become used to downloading music illegally from theInternet. Even though legal alternatives, such as Spotify, have become popular, the behavior of illegal download of music still persists. What do record companies do to prevent this phenomenon and why do they go to such length to stop this widespread movement? The question is, why is illegal download of music a problem ? and for whom? To investigate this I?ve read books about the subject, analyzed web pages of alternative record companies and interviewed a drummer in a local band.

Abstrakt Sound branding är i dag ett begrepp som är välkänt bland marknadsförare. Fördelarna med en unik och genomarbetad ljudidentitet har dock inte nått fram till många svenska företag och varumärken. Vi ämnar med detta kandidatarbete att utforska ljudets funktion för varumärkesbyggande samt skapa förståelse för vilka faktorer som är avgörande gällande ljuddesignen i reklamsammanhang. Genom tidigare forskning samt produktion av sonic logos och musik, åt olika beställare, har vi försökt besvara frågeställningen: Hur ger man verksamheter och varumärken en ljudidentitet? Abstract Sound branding today, is a well-known concept amongst marketers.

This work is about Cuban music and my relationship to it. My study contains two different parts. In the first one I try to give a short summary of Cuban music history. The second part is about possibilities and problems that can arise in the meeting with foreign cultures. I have focused on three themes: Music and respect, cultural encounters and travelling, and communication.

Abstrakt Sound branding är i dag ett begrepp som är välkänt bland marknadsförare. Fördelarna med en unik och genomarbetad ljudidentitet har dock inte nått fram till många svenska företag och varumärken. Vi ämnar med detta kandidatarbete att utforska ljudets funktion för varumärkesbyggande samt skapa förståelse för vilka faktorer som är avgörande gällande ljuddesignen i reklamsammanhang. Genom tidigare forskning samt produktion av sonic logos och musik, åt olika beställare, har vi försökt besvara frågeställningen: Hur ger man verksamheter och varumärken en ljudidentitet? Abstract Sound branding today, is a well-known concept amongst marketers.

This essay presents a picture of swedish reggae listeners and how their love of music give meaning to their lives and unite them in a sub-culture. Based on interviews with six young men about their involvement in reggae, it also investigates the relationship between music and identity, or more clearly; how identity is expressed through music. Furthermore, I discuss the notion of taste according to Bourdieu, and argue against his statement that taste in music affirms the class and social background of an individual. Results from my empirical data have indicated that reggae music is difficult to associate to a distinct lifestyle, which inclines me to argue that it has managed to transcend phenomena such as ethnicity, class and cultural affiliation..

Purpose: Exploring the relatively new technology of convolution reverb, to gather knowledge on its limitations when used practically in the production of pop music, and from these findings to learn about applications in other performing arts and sound design. Methodology: This is a case study of creating convolution reverb by doing impulse responses (IR) and then applying them to studio recorded pop music. The empirical data consists of the final song results, notes and journals from during the process and the comparisons, as well as established litterature on acoustics, psycho-acoustics and music production. Results: Convolution reverb can widely and freely be used in the production of music and other audio-based art forms, since our study shows that the result of a well-made impulse response from a particular room is indistinguishable from music that is actually played and recorded in the same space..

The aim of this master's thesis is to study how the design of the music library space affects how it is used and its role as an arena for culture. This is done in form of a case study of Library 10 in Helsinki, a public library branch that specializes in music and information technology. The backdrop to the study is the changing context for cultural activity in the information society and the role of public libraries as public space and meeting place. By analyzing the distribution of space in the library, the distribution of functions and artefacts and the spatial use of the room, I interpret the ways in which this distributional logic produces a unique place for music and culture. I discuss the music library design in a space and place perspective, utilizing theoretical tools from cultural geography and the space theories of Henri Lefebvre.

This paper examines a popular music song (Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez) as a sign system in television advertising. The study was conducted through qualitative questionnaires in connection to an audio-visual method of analysis called Masking. The method facilitates the analysis of isolated parts in the audio-visual spectrum by masking/hiding parts of the audio-visual totality.The survey had seven respondents where a hermeneutic epistemological approach was used. For the analysis Cooper's theory of brand identity (Practical and Symbolic Attitudes to Buying Brands) was used together with an interaction model for music in audio-visual advertising called "Modes of music-image interaction?.

The purpose of the master thesis was to reflect and analyze music library activities and policies in the public libraries in the area around the city of Borås, in the south-western part of Sweden. With this thesis I also wanted to look at the interaction between the public libraries, the music school and the music associations in the same area. To investigate these matters, qualitative method was used in the form of interviews with seven librarians from seven different libraries and five representatives of different local music organizations. Other methods used were observations and source studies. The literature used discusses the role of the music department of public libraries as well as that of a music librarian working in a public library.

The purpose of this master thesis is to examine different factors that may influence the librarian in the selection of popular music. The study is conducted through a qualitative method, influenced by grounded theory. The results are based on patterns drawn from both interviews with six libraries and from literature. The literature review concerns foremost cultural politics, music aesthetics, the sphere of popular music in Sweden today and the impact of commercialism. Also the purposes of popular music in a library, aspects of values of popular music and assortment policies are being discussed.

The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.

The company Sound Precision has developed a new Line Array loudspeaker system (VHA-40). When using this system, their customers need computer aid to get the best possible sound-quality and control of sound levels for the whole audience. The aim of this thesis is to develop a truly useful sound quality simulator for the VHA-40. The system will help the sound engineers to position the loudspeakers for optimal sound by simulating loudspeaker configurations and visualizing the resulting sound quality and quantity. To solve this a human-centered design (HCD) approach is taken to implement a system that is truly useful for the users, meaning that they will use it more and hence deliver better sound for the audience.

Drawing from the theoretical foundations of the ?critical theory? of the Frankfurt School and the media ethnographic ?cultural studies? approach of the british Birmingham School, this study attempts to sketch out a media theoretical overview of the contemporary state of media culture. Using the term convergence culture as the foundation, this study offers a theoretical background to the two contemporary streams that are the significant and distinct tendencies of convergence culture: intermedial convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies that can be traced back using the past media theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School, and cultural convergence, its contemporary state and historical tendencies, which lineage in a media theoretical context can be traced back to the british ethographic ?cultural studies? field. Using contemporary drama serials to identify and pinpoint these two stream, this study shows how intermedial convergence expresses itself today through media conglomeration in terms of branding, product placement and marketing as the result of the ?completed? convergence between screen culture and popular music as the current defining state of commodity culture.