Product Sound Design
Sounds of everyday products, such as cars and household appliances, communicate with their users in many different ways. Think of the roaring of a car engine, the whiz of an opening beer bottle and the crunch of a biscuit providing information about the nature, quality and vitality of the product. These sounds can convey information, emotions, and a certain brand image, and therefore needed to be carefully designed by experts.
Our team offers a systematic approach including the analysis of product sounds with machine learning techniques, the creation of target sounds, their evaluation by potential customers in the real context as well as the implementation of the target sounds into the concrete product. For us, good product sound design is achieved when sound properties such as loudness and the frequency spectrum can be directly decoded by its users into brand properties such as luxus, freshness and authenticity.
Publications (selection)
Music influences the perception of our acoustic and visual environment
Steffens, J., Steele, D., & Guastavino, C. (2016)
Proceedings of the 45th International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, INTER-NOISE 2016
Können Wassergeräusche zur Minderung der Lästigkeit von Straßenverkehrslärm im Wohnumfeld [Can water sounds contribute to a reduced annoyance caused by road traffic noise in living environments?] beitragen?
Steffens, J., Skoda, S., Becker-Schweitzer, J., Kameier, F., & Heinze, M. (2014).
Zeitschrift für Lärmbekämpfung, 9(4), 172–178.
"Wie viel Realität braucht der Mensch?" - Untersuchungen zum Einfluss der Versuchsumgebung auf die Geräuschbeurteilung von Haushaltsgeräten ["How much reality do people need?" - Investigations on the influence of the test environment on the sound evaluation of household applicances]
Steffens, J. (2013)
Dissertation. Technische Universität, Berlin.
Realism and ecological validity of sound quality experiments on household appliances.
Steffens, J. (2013)
Soundscape of European Cities and Landscapes: (e-book), J. Kang, Chourmouziadou, K. Sakantamis, B. Wang, & Y. Hao (Eds.), (pp. 132–135).
Urteilsbildung bei der subjektiven Bewertung des Innengeräusches von Elektrofahrzeugen.
Steffens, J. (2012)
Zeitschrift für Lärmbekämpfung, 7(3), 133–135.
Psychological factors influencing the evaluation of electric vehicle interior noise
Steffens, J., Küppers, T., & Skoda, S. (2011).
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(4)
Contribution of single sounds to sound quality assessments of multi-source environments.
Skoda, S., Steffens, J., & Becker-Schweitzer, J. (2014)
IProceedings of Internoise 2014, Melbourne (Australia).
Investigations on subconscious perception of product sounds.
Skoda, S., Steffens, J., & Becker-Schweitzer, J. (2013)
Fortschritte der Akustik 2013: DAGA-AIA, Merano, Italy. CD-ROM.
Multisensory interaction – A comparative study on driving sound evaluation in moving base and fixed base driving simulators.
Skoda, S., Steffens, J., & Becker-Schweitzer, J. (2012)
Proceedings of the Driving Simulation Conference 2012. CD-ROM.
Structurized sound design process of electric vehicle interior sound.
Küppers, T., Biermann, J.-W., & Steffens, J. (2011)
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 130(4), 2546.