Time for Binaural Recording?

Many people are not listening to music at all. Some use loudspeakers when they do. Some are asleep. Another group of people are deaf and can't listen to anything. So the statement "everyone is listening to music through head phones or ear buds" is without foundation.

Ok. Ok. I was exagerating...

I didn't mean that we should stop stereo recording, but many people are listening to portable music players, IPod, CD players through head phones. On the link I gave there is a playback of 44 seconds of binaural recording. Listen to it with head phones. It is rather amazing.

spend some time at gearslutz.com

But its not a new recording tech in studio. only one of the Hi-Fi recording. where is amazing?

people call it as dummy recording tech, it widely use in theater or some live broadcast as well.

There are lots of recording tech and variours kinds of mic and acoustic tech use in studio. All those can produce a wonderful sound for audience.

dont make a fussion on it.

however, making a good dummy head is a skill. meterial is very important, as well as structure.

Hi MSM,

I can see your question has evoked the 'smart' answers already ... you just have to get used to the CR4 group .

Actually, true binaural recordings may not be the best for some music, which is why the recording artists and recording engineers do what they do. If you consider live sessions, it is a little difficult to say what is indeed 'natural' ... where in the 'audience' to locate the recording? In the early days of stereo, many recordings were made with a synthetic separation between instruments and vocals or bass and lead, for instance, but it sounded horrible and mostly was just to emphasise that 'new' technology. While it might be interesting to record from 'center stage', the effect wouldn't be very natural. There are possible exceptions, where a thorough enjoyment of a orchestral presentation, the distiction of the oboe from the strings might indeed be enhanced by a binaural recording, but I can't see many other reasons.

In the studio, from where most recordings come, it makes no difference at all, because many of the tracks are 'laid down' independently anyway, and the ambience of the studio is purposely dead. Often, different artists lay down their tracks at different times, leaving it up to the recording engineer to do the final 'mixing'.

True binaural recording may be a good 'special effect' in some cases, but as the recording industry becomes more and more up to the discression of the artists and engineers, there's not much need.

There's no doubt it's very cool when heard ... a little like seeing in 3D ... but, I'm not sure the real need or application.

Good question, and thanks.

Kind regards .....

Binaural (or stereo) can never capture the full spectrum of sound as we hear it. A dummy head setup in a studio, captures only what is coming from a set of point sources, including any reverberations and reflections. The head doesn't move (rotate or tilt), so the sound source appears to come from the same and only the same points. A human's head doesn't stay in an immobile spot. Turning our head or changing body location keeps the same as-recorded experience. Earphones lock you into an immobile spot. Turning your head or moving doesn't alter the apparent location of the sound source. Loudspeakers actually provide a better sound experience to a point however. Any separation effect we perceive, is artificial and is a studio engineered effect. A recording can never, never perfectly duplicate a live performance. That is an absolute. The best that can be done is to "fool" the mind into thinking a sound we hear is actually the same sound that was recorded.

The closest we could ever get to a perfect binaural (or stereo) experience, would be to have each musician have his own recorded track and played back by a dedicated loudspeaker positioned in the same location as was recorded. A 60 piece orchestra would need 60 microphones, 60 tape tracks and 60 loudspeakers. This is obviously not feasible.