Dr Densil Cabrera

Consultations and Appointments

Consultation Hours:
Consultation Rooms:

to make an appointment outside of these hours.

Research Areas | Units and Programs | Academic Qualifications | Professional Experience | Memberships and Associations | Biography | Publications and Outputs

Research Areas

• Applications of psychoacoustical models.
• Singer voice quality.
• Auditory spatial perception.
• Room acoustical quality.
• Auditory display.

Units and Programs

• DESC9011 | Audio Production
• DESC9116 | Loudspeaker Design
• DESC9133 | Architectural Acoustics Practice
• DESC9134 | Audio and Acoustics Seminar
• DESC9135 | Digital Audio Production with ProTools
• DESC9138 | Architectural and Audio Acoustics
• DESC9191 | Building Acoustics and Noise Control

Academic Qualifications

• Bachelor of Music | (with merit)
• Graduate Diploma | Communications, University of Technology, Sydney.
• Master of Arts
• Phd

Professional Experience

• 2001 | Program Director, Graduate program in Audio and Acoustics, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney.
• 2006 | Associate Dean (Research),

Memberships and Associations

• 2009 & 2012 | Visiting associate professor, Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tokohu University, Sendai, Japan.

Biography

Dr Densil Cabrera is a senior lecturer in audio and acoustics in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney. He did his PhD in psychoacoustics at the University of Sydney. Earlier degrees include a Master of Arts (University of Technology, Sydney), Graduate Diploma in Communication (University of Technology, Sydney) and Bachelor of Music (University of Sydney).

Current and recent research projects have been in applications of psychoacoustical models, singer voice quality, auditory spatial perception, room acoustical quality, and auditory display. He has been involved in consulting projects in areas such as acoustics education, auditory display design, building acoustics and auditorium acoustics. Dr Cabrera’s main teaching is in the areas of architectural and audio acoustics, acoustic measurements, psychoacoustics and auditory display.

> For more information please see Densil's personal website

Publications and outputs

Books | Book Chapters | Journal Articles | Conference Presentations and Publications

Books

Y. Suzuki, D. Brungart, Y. Iwaya, K. Iida, D.Cabrera and H. Kato (eds), Principles and Applications of Spatial Hearing, New Jersey, World Scientific.

Book Chapters

Journal Articles

2011 | D.Cabrera and W.L. Martens, "Sonifying head-related transfer functions," in Y. Suzuki, D. Brungart, Y. Iwaya, K. Iida, D.Cabrera and H. Kato (eds), Principles and Applications of Spatial Hearing, New Jersey, World Scientific.

2011 | W.L. Martens, D.Cabrera and S. Kim, "The phantom walker illusion: Evidence for the dominance of dynamic interaural over spectral directional cues during walking," in Y. Suzuki, D. Brungart, Y. Iwaya, K. Iida, D.Cabrera and H. Kato (eds), Principles and Applications of Spatial Hearing, New Jersey, World Scientific.

2011 | S. Ferguson, W.L. Martens and D.Cabrera (accepted 15 February 2011), "Statistical sonification for exploratory data analysis," in T. Hermann, J. Neuhoff and A. Hunt (eds), Handbook of Sonification, Berlin, Logos

1999 | D.Cabrera, "Measuring Sound Art," in A. Cavallaro, S. Davies and A. Jonson (eds), Essays in Sound 4. Sydney : Contemporary Sound Arts, 117-124.

1995 | D.Cabrera, "Naum Gabo's Linear Constructions," in A. Jonson, S. Davies and F. Dyson (eds), Essays in Sound 2 . Sydney - Contemporary Sound Arts, 54-58.

Journal Articles

Forthcoming | J.Y. Jeon, P.J. Lee and D. Cabrera, 'Non-auditory factors affecting urban soundscape evaluation', Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

2011 | D.Cabrera, D. Lee, R. Collins, B. Hartmann, W.L. Martens and H. Sato (accepted 7 January 2011) "Variation in oral-binaural room impulse responses for horizontal rotations of a head and torso simulator," Journal of Building Acoustics.

2011 | D. Lee, D. Cabrera and W.L. Martens, "Equal reverberance contours for synthetic room impulse responses listened to directly: Evaluation of reverberance in terms of loudness decay parameters," Journal of Building Acoustics 18(1,2): 189-206.

2011 | D. Cabrera, D. Lee, R. Collins, B. Hartmann, W.L. Martens and H. Sato, "Variation in oral-binaural room impulse responses for horizontal rotations of a head and torso simulator," Journal of Building Acoustics 18(1,2): 227-252.

2010 | D.Cabrera, P.J. Davis and A. Connolly, "Long-term horizontal vocal directivity of opera singers: Effects of singing projection and acoustic environment," Journal of Voice.

2010 | D. Lee and D.Cabrera 'Effect of listening level and background noise on the subjective decay rate of room impulse responses: Using time-varying loudness to model reverberance', Applied Acoustics 71, 801-811.

2010 | D.Cabrera, R. McCarthy, J. Bassett and D. Gilfillan, 'The measurement of directional stage support in a drama theatre: Quantifying the effect of set,' Journal of Building Acoustics 17, 1-14.

2010 | S. Ferguson, D. Kenny and D.Cabrera 'Effects of training on time-varying spectral energy and sound pressure level in nine male classical singers,' Journal of Voice 24(1), 39-46.

2009 | D.Cabrera, H. Sato, W.L. Martens and D. Lee, 'Binaural measurement and simulation of the room acoustical response from a person's mouth to their ears,' Acoustics Australia 37(3), 98-103.

2009 | D. Lee and D.Cabrera, 'Basic considerations in loudness-based analysis of room impulse responses,' Journal of Building Acoustics 16(1), 31-46.

2009 | D. Sun, C. Jin, A. van Schaik and D.Cabrera,'The design and evaluation of an economically-constructed anechoic chamber,' Architectural Science Review 52(4), 312-319.

2009 | K. Stewart and D.Cabrera, 'Effect of acoustic environment on the sensitivity of speech transmission index to source directivity,' Architectural Science Review 52(1), 71-78.

2008 | J.Y. Jeon, Y.H. Kim, D.Cabrera and J. Bassett, 'The effect of visual and auditory cues on seat preference in an opera theatre," Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123(6), 4272-4282.

2008 | S. Marshall, D. Lee and D.Cabrera, 'Comparison of low frequency sound insulation field measurement methods,' New Zealand Acoustics 20(4), 23-33.

2007 | D.Cabrera and M. Morimoto, 'Influence of fundamental frequency and source elevation on the vertical localization of complex tones and complex tone pairs,' Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 122(1), 478-488.

2007 | K. Koralage and D.Cabrera, 'Acoustics of six historic cinemas in New South Wales, Australia,' Acoustics Australia 35(1), 5-8.

2007 | K. L. P. Reid, P. Davis, J. Oates, D.Cabrera, S. Ternström, M. Black and J. Chapman, 'The acoustic characteristics of professional opera singers performing in chorus versus solo mode', Journal of Voice 21(1), 35-45.

2005 | S. Ternström, D.Cabrera and P. Davis, 'Self-to-other ratios measured in an opera chorus in performance,' Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 118(6), 3903-3911.

2005 | Y-J. Choi and D.Cabrera, 'Some current issues in computer modeling for room acoustic design', Acoustics Australia 33(1), 19-24.

2005 | S. Ferguson and D.Cabrera, 'Vertical localization of sound from multiway loudspeakers', Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 53(3), 163-173.

2002 | D.Cabrera, P. J. Davis, J. Barnes, M. Jacobs and D. Bell, 'Recording the operatic voice for acoustic analysis', Acoustics Australia 30(3), 103-108.

2001 | D.Cabrera, 'Subjective assessment of resonating sound art recordings', Journal of Music Perception and Cognition 7(2), 93-111.

1999 | D.Cabrera (1999) 'The size of sound: auditory volume reassessed', MikroPolyphonie 5.

1999 | D.Cabrera, 'PsySound: A computer program for the psychoacoustical analysis of music', MikroPolyphonie 5.

1997 | D.Cabrera, 'Resonating sound art and the aesthetics of room resonance', Convergence 3(4), 108-137.

Conference presentations and publications

2010 | D.Cabrera, T. Okamoto, B.F.G. Katz, M. Noisternig, Y. Iwaya and Y. Suzuki, 'Considerations in characterising an almost anechoic room for interactive spatial audio reproduction', International Symposium on Room Acoustics, Melbourne, Australia.

2010 | D.Cabrera, D. Lee, R. Collins, B. Hartmann, W.L. Martens and H. Sato, 'Characterising the variation in oral-binaural room impulse responses for horizontal rotations of a head and torso simulator,' International Symposium on Room Acoustics Melbourne, Australia.

2010 | D. Lee, D.Cabrera and W.L. Martens 'Equal reverberance contours for synthetic room impulse responses listened to directly: Evaluation of reverberance in terms of loudness decay parameters', International Symposium on Room Acoustics, Melbourne, Australia.

2010 | J. Bassett, D. Spargo and D.Cabrera 'Using an ambisonic microphone for measurement of the diffuse state in a reverberant room,' International Congress on Acoustics, Sydney, Australia.

2010 | Y.H. Kim, E.J. Kim, J.Y. Jeon and D.Cabrera, 'Evaluation of stage support for performance in a concert hall,' International Congress on Acoustics, Sydney, Australia.

2010 | D. Lee, D.Cabrera and W.L. Martens 'Equal reverberance matching of running musical stimuli having various reverberation times and SPLs,' International Congress on Acoustics , Sydney, Australia.

2010 | K. Stewart and D.Cabrera, 'Evaluation of a hard-walled rectangular room model with a planar absorption cavity,' International Congress on Acoustics, Sydney, Australia.

2009 | D. Lee, D.Cabrera and W.L. Martens, 'Equal reverberance matching of music,' Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

2009 | K. Stewart, D.Cabrera and D. Spargo 'Towards an active reverberation room,' Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

2009 | D. Spargo, W.L. Martens and D.Cabrera, 'Evaluation of changes in stereophonic imagery during progressive optimization of loudspeaker configurations in critical listening rooms,' Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Adelaide, Australia.

2009 | S. Ferguson and D.Cabrera, 'Auditory spectral summarisation for audio signals with musical applications', 10th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference, Kobe, Japan, 567-572.

[[b|2008]] | D.Cabrera, S. Ferguson and E. Schubert, 'PsySound3: an integrated environment for the analysis of sound recordings,' Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | M.I. Jan Mohamed and D.Cabrera, 'Human sensitivity to interaural phase difference for very low frequency sound', Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | D. Lee and D.Cabrera, 'Analysing room impulse responses with psychoacoustical algorithms: A preliminary study', Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | L. Miranda and D.Cabrera, 'Evaluation of binaural loudness models with signals of different diffusivity', Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | K. Stewart and D.Cabrera, 'Effect of acoustic environment on the sensitivity of speech transmission index to source directivity,' Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | R. McCarthy, D.Cabrera and J. Bassett, 'Directional assessment of acoustic stage support in a drama theatre,' Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | S. Ortiz, H.-J. Nieh and D.Cabrera, 'Avoidance of noise-related errors in the analysis of room impulse responses', Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | M. Russell, F.R. Fricke and D.Cabrera, 'Expansion chamber silencer with a thin membrane,' Acoustics 2008: Proceedings of the Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Geelong, Australia.

2008 | S. Ferguson and D.Cabrera, 'Exploratory sound analysis: sonifying data about sound,' 14th International Conference on Auditory Display, Paris, France.

2007 | D.Cabrera, S. Ferguson and E. Schubert, 'PsySound3: Software for acoustical and psychoacoustical analysis of sound recordings', 13th International Conference on Auditory Display, Montreal, Canada.

2007 | D.Cabrera 'Control of perceived room size using simple binaural technology', 13th International Conference on Auditory Display, Montreal, Canada (invited paper).

2007 | D.Cabrera and S. Ferguson 'Sonification of sound: Tools for teaching acoustics and audio', 13th International Conference on Auditory Display, Montreal, Canada.

2007 | H.J. Song, K. Beilharz and D.Cabrera, 'Evaluation of spatial presentation in sonification for identifying concurrent audio streams,' 13th International Conference on Auditory Display, Montreal, Canada.

2007 | D.Cabrera, 'Acoustic clarity and auditory room size perception', 14th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, Cairns, Australia.

2007 | K. Stewart and D.Cabrera, 'Effect of artificial mouth size on speech transmission index', 14th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, Cairns, Australia.

2007 | D. Lee and D.Cabrera, 'Nonlinear effects in airborne sound insulation measurement', 14th International Congress on Sound and Vibration, Cairns, Australia.

2006 | D.Cabrera, S. Ferguson and R. Maria, 'Using sonification for teaching acoustics and audio', 1st Australasian Acoustical Societies' Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 383-390.

2006 | D.Cabrera, C. Pop and D. Jeong 'Auditory room size perception: a comparison of real versus binaural sound-fields', 1st Australasian Acoustical Societies' Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand.

2006 | S. Marshall, D.H. Lee and D.Cabrera, 'Comparison of low frequency sound insulation field measurement methods,' 1st Australasian Acoustical Societies' Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 179-185.

2006 | K. Stewart, D.Cabrera and F.R. Fricke, 'Acoustics laboratory fire at the University of Sydney,' 1st Australasian Acoustical Societies' Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 193-199.

2006 | F. R. Fricke, J. Nannariello and D.Cabrera, 'A statistical approach to concert hall acoustical design', 1st Australasian Acoustical Societies' Conference, Christchurch, New Zealand, 399-404.

2006 | S. Ferguson, D.Cabrera, K. Beilharz and H.J. Song, "Using psychoacoustical models for data sonification" [i||12th International Conference on Auditory Display]], London, Great Britain.

2006 | K. Beilharz, S. Ferguson , H.J. Song and D.Cabrera, 'An interactive approach for teaching information sonification', 12th International Conference on Auditory Display, London, Great Britain.

2006 | D.Cabrera, S. Ferguson and G. Laing, 'Considerations arising from the development of auditory alerts for air traffic control consoles,' 12th International Conference on Auditory Display, London, Great Britain.

2005 | D.Cabrera, 'Reproduction of room sound-fields for subjective assessment', Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Busselton, Australia.

2005 | K. Skirlis, D.Cabrera and A. Connolly, 'Spectral and temporal changes in singer performance with variation in vocal effort,' Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Busselton, Australia.

2005 | Pop and D.Cabrera, 'Auditory room size perception for real rooms', Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Busselton, Australia.

2005 | D.Cabrera, S. Ferguson, S. Tilley and M. Morimoto, 'Recent studies on the effect of signal frequency on auditory vertical localization,' 11th International Conference on Auditory Display, Limerick, Ireland, 1-8.

2005 | S. Ferguson, A. Vande Moere and D.Cabrera, 'Seeing sound: Real-time sound visualisation in visual feedback loops used for training musicians', 9th International Conference on Information Visualisation, London, Great Britain.

2003 | D.Cabrera and S. Tilley, 'Parameters for auditory display of height and size,' 9th International Conference on Auditory Display, Boston , USA , 29-32.

2003 | D.Cabrera and P. Davis, 'Laboratory evaluation of a head and torso simulator for opera singer acoustic source simulation', Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference, Sydney, Australia.

2003 | J. Bassett, R. Osman, Y.-J. Choi, and D.Cabrera, 'A means of documenting the acoustic quality of spaces', Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference, Sydney , Australia , 104-116.

2003 | D.Cabrera, 'Auditory image size: Volume and spatial impression', 8th Western Pacific Acoustics Conference, Melbourne , Australia (invited keynote paper).

2003 | K. Koralage and D.Cabrera, 'Historic cinema acoustics', Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference, Sydney , Australia 337-352.

2003 | A. Nguyen and D.Cabrera, 'Spatial impression in auditorium acoustics and architectural design', Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference, Sydney, Australia.

2003 | R. Osman, D.Cabrera, and F. Fricke, 'Acoustic design of small music practice rooms', Australian and New Zealand Architectural Science Association Conference, Sydney, Australia, 476-486.

2003 |S. Tilley and D.Cabrera, 'The pitch-height effect and its relation to auditory image size', 8th Western Pacific Acoustics Conference, Melbourne, Australia .

2002 | D.Cabrera and D. Gilfillan, 'Auditory distance perception of speech in the presence of noise', 7th International Conference on Auditory Display, Kyoto, Japan, 431-439.

2002 | N. McLachlan and D.Cabrera, 'Calculated pitch sensations for new musical bell designs', 7th International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition, Sydney, Australia, 600-603.

2001 | D.Cabrera, 'Acoustical, psychoacoustical and subjective assessment of Alvin Lucier's 'I am Sitting in a Room',' Australasian Computer Music Association Conference, Sydney, 17-24.

1999 | D.Cabrera, 'Psysound: A computer program for psychoacoustical analysis', Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 47-54.

1999 | D.Cabrera, 'The size of sound: A reassessment of auditory volume', Australasian Computer Music Association Conference, Wellington, New Zealand, 26-31.

1997 | D.Cabrera, 'Stimulation and simulation of rectangular room resonant modes', Australian Computer Music Association Conference, Auckland, New Zealand, 14-23.

1996 | D.Cabrera, 'Subjective evaluation of resonating room sounds: Prelude to a study of resonating sound art', Australian Acoustical Society Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 407-417.