Jan 24 2007
Binaural Tendencies
(”Apartment Life Returns,” new with more intrigue, continues for all who click here)
Binaural Tendencies
Almost a year ago, I mentioned binaural recordings in a post called “You Really Orta Hear This.” This time, feast your ears on a little slice of our lives. If you wear headphones or earbuds for this, you might swear we’re in the room with you (or even behind you, in Cassie’s case).
If your portable music player is the only way you can use headphones to hear these, and you want to get the full effect, then right-click the clip’s title to download it.
Coming Home From Work - 0:56
While this isn’t exactly what I hear every time I come home from work, it’s a pretty good idea of the greeting I get from Ben. For some reason, he immediately clammed up. Maybe he saw the mics. Shannon obviously did, as you can tell from her snide remark. Cassie hammed it up pretty well.
Play Doh Minute - 1:05
Ben (left) and his mommy (right) smush and smash the age-old toy. Ben freestyles to make an exotic fruit.
Ben Gets Gross - 0:19
He sings and then makes the nastiest noise he’s ever made. I snap (right) to get Cassie’s attention.
Ben Crashes Cars - 0:12
He runs Hot Wheels off a ramp and does color commentary.
Ben Rolls Cars on Coffee Table - 0:40
First he establishes who gets each car, and then rolls them on the coffee table. He moves from left to right and then barely left of center. The end of this clip is a good example of Ben’s tendency to repeat something until somebody acknowledges it. Persistent little bugger.
Headphones or earbuds are the only way to get the binaural effect. This is because the mics are placed very near the ears, to simulate the soundfield of the human head. Playback on speakers will reduce it to just a good stereo recording.
Technical Details
The above were recorded with my Olympus D-20 digital voice recorder. Originals in .wma format at 128 kbps, converted to uncompressed .wav for cropping and then converted to .mp3 at 192 kbps. Other equipment and software used includes the Core Low-Cost Binaural Microphones (clipped onto my eyeglasses just in front of my ears, for extra cool factor); my PC; the free Winamp; and the free Audacity.
Very, VERY cool Mark!!!
Now how about getting Shan to say more.. *chuckling*
Dave - She doesn’t like the sound of her voice. I guess a lot of people don’t like to hear their own voice — including me.
That’s very cool. If I closed my eyes, I could almost believe I was in the room with you.
I do so enjoy this sort of blogging. There are just so many cool ways to invite web friends into your home these days. And we make exceptional house guests since we never track anything across the floor or help ourselves to your fridge. Thanks for having us over.
Yeah, but if I had the chance I would totally mooch outta their fridge, Moksha. Though I’d probably wipe my feet before coming in.
The last two were the coolest, mostly due to the cars and the obvious left to right binaural effect, along with a little doppler for added ear candy.
Fun!
Moksha - Glad you enjoyed. I intended it as a sonic welcome into our home (besides the sheer geekiness).
Simon - And you’d be welcome to chow on whatever you find. There might even be a Negro Modelo in there from Alvis’ last visit.
The cars recordings were my favorite, too, besides Cassie’s movement beside and behind the listener.
Besides the geekiness? What do you mean…that’s half of what made me feel so at home, Mark. I only wish I could stroll around my home with nifty mics hanging off my head
Thanks for sharing. I do so love a southern accent.
How did I miss brown Play Doh? Something new?
That was cool. I guess I should assume that is a good scaled down glimpse of how they actually achieve 5.1 Surround up to some of the new 7.1 systems. Obviously they probably have some sort of frequency cut-off as well, which gives the .1, or subwoofer sound.
Now I’m curious as to whether or not they actually record it that way, or if they record it and then re-record it with controlled studio microphone placement to separate the sound precisely how they want to. I may have to do some reading now.
Either way, I thought the recordings were cool. The last two with the race cars were the coolest, because they gave the best sound movement.
Oh…and it took me awhile to finally convince LC that the blue car was Sally, and the red car was Lightning McQueen. I’m not sure how he got them backward, but my guess is that it has something to do with the fact that he is still afraid to watch the movie. He watched it once with some sketchy places, but after that he just says, “No…turn it off.” Bummer, because I actually enjoyed that movie. :-)
Moksha - Okay, that’s almost like a dare for me to post a pic, but I’m resisting (for now).
Linda - I don’t know how long they’ve had brown Play Doh, but I know that it’s very easy for it to end up looking like a turd.
Charles - There are special mics for surround sound, but of course a lot of it is done with software after the recordings are mixed together. If you want to read more, go to quietamerican.org and check out some of his field recordings (headphones, of course) and the Links/Resources section. You can get way underwater pretty quick there.
Cars was pretty good. Back when Ben had seen it only that one time at the theater, and got some of the toys from the movie, he was calling Sally by the name Mack. After his first viewing of the DVR-ed Pay-per-view, he got it straight.
Sorry that LC didn’t like it. It is a fun one, and not a lot of violence like Shrek. Although, it is a bit disturbing when you think of the cars, smashing into each other, as living things.
Hell…I double dog dare ya, buddy. ;)
Please stop mentioning CARS. We’ve all seen it in our house well over 500,000 times. We can quote from it verbatim.
Help!
Heck, I’ll triple dog dare you.
Nuh-uh. For real? We used to have to mix red and blue and yellow to make dog dirt! Kids have it too damn easy these days. *grumbling*