The problem with headphones is that you don't feel the sound in your body. The sound of a band playing moves the air in the room and while the ears pick up on that, so does the body. If you take away the vibrations to the body, you truncate the experience of listening to music substantially.Originally Posted by Zeuhlmate
It's an interesting way to record, it's always good to try these things, but not optimal.
There exist no general optimal way or method, the circumstances, the type of music, etc. is the basis for the choice you make.
No, you dont get the physical experience of a drumkits bassdrum or a bassguitar, bass synth etc. on headphones, but there are lots of music types where this doesnt matter, especially in the acoustic departement with smaller ensembles.
btw - most home Hifi doesnt give you a physical experience either.
At the risk of repeating myself, this is a common misconception because so few speaker systems are phase-coherent, but it is demonstrably false.
The body really only feels the bass notes -- for string quartets, folk, vocal music, solo instruments, acoustic instruments, etc. without electric bass and drumkit, the "body effect" is minimal.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 12-05-2015 at 08:36 AM.
That's also the digital argument that the human ear can only hear between 35 hz and 18K kHz…. therefore don't sample anything that can't be heard.
However, I disagree, the body is much more sensitive that we give it credit for. The effect on the body even from a lower volume performance does have an effect on the skin, electromagnetic fields around us… and quite possibly other things we don't understand yet.
If I played you a musical file that had content only from 20Hz to 35Hz, with everything else brickwall-filtered out, you'd FEEL it (on a good stereo) but you wouldn't be able to make out what it is. It'd just sound like a dull rumble.
If I played you a file with nothing but 18KHz to 20KHz (or even 22, 26 or 30KHz) you wouldn't be aware it was playing at all. Unless you owned a dog.
If you throw a stone in a pond, you will see ripples, if you throw another the ripples will meet, and sometimes make one different, twice as tall or something else wave.
When you cut away all "ripples" above 18khz, there wont be produced any below 18khz from them.
Of course, but the point is that the body does feel something that earbuds or headphones might not. Make no mistake, headphones do serve a purpose, even while mixing an album to get clarity on the positioning of the instruments on the soundstage (does anyone do that anymore or care?) But there is value in that… also wanting to listen in your bedroom so your parents don't run down the stairs screaming at the loud music coming from your room and then find your stash of Columbian Gold you forgot to put away.
There are people -- primarily people trying to sell you their product -- who agree with you. However the science on this is pretty well-established, and no amount of woo is going to change the science.
PeterG's recent thread on sacred choral music caused me to go looking for a YouTube clip of Monteverdi's "Vespers." I found one, and posted it, an excellent recent (2015) high definition recording by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir in the Palace of Versailles.
It was so gorgeous, in fact, that I had to order the DVD.
What I did not realize, until it arrived last night, is that it was recorded in Stereo 2.0, Stereo 5.1 and in binaural.
Now, this work is notable for the placement of the singers. Select soloists, both vocal and instrumental, remove themselves to distant vestibules of the venue and echo some of the main performers, unseen but drifting in as from a great distance. On binaural this effect is nothing short of astonishing.
Plus the Palace is drop dead gorgeous, the choir includes some jaw droppingly good singers, and the instrumental accompaniment is all on period instruments: Baroque lutes, sackbuts, oboes, strings, harpsichord and pipe organ.
Did I mention I enjoyed this?
Is that a typo, or some new (to me) terminology?
I have Robert Schroeder's album brain voyager on vinyl, it is a dummy head recording if that is the same thing as binaural. Although he is known as a synthesizer musican this album features acoustic guitar and a female vocalist so not totally electronic. I haven't listened to it for years but I remember it had a nice gothic feel, I think it was a film soundtrack.
The album David gilmour recorded with the orb was released in a limited edition 3D mix, but it was just a cd no 5.1 mix on DVD. Again I haven't listened to it for ages but I do recall it had good stereo soundstage when listening on headphones.
I realized when I typed that that it wasn't entirely clear -- would "surround sound 5.1" be more obvious?
I just ran across another binaural recording I hadn't seen before. It is "Sessions from the 17th Ward" by Amber Rubarth on Chesky Records (2012). It's just her, on vocals and acoustic guitar, plus a cellist and a violinist, both of whom play occasional percussion by tapping their instruments.
The recording has nice "air," and is played and sung lovely. Like all Chesky recordings it is actually "hybrid binaural" which means that it's half-stereo and half-binaural. What this means is that on headphones it doesn't sound like you're right in between the musicians (like true binaural does), but rather like they're playing a couple feet in front of you. It's not as jaw dropping, sonically, but still pretty sweet. Everything is properly-sized and sounds like a live recording (as, indeed, it was.)
The fact that it's binaural is not heavily advertised. There's a small Chesky bug on the back cover, that's the only clue.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 12-02-2016 at 01:33 AM.
Huh, I just re-read post #10. Oops!
BTW there's an AWFUL LOT of crappy electronic noise out there marketed to the New Age scientifically-illiterate market as "binaural" (for "healing your chakras" or "naturally increasing the size of of your penis") but it is NOT binaural sound in any way, shape or form. Caveat emptor.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 12-02-2016 at 01:35 AM.
I just discovered "Awake" by Now Ensemble, a 2011 live recording (in a reverberant New Jersey church) featuring flute, clarinet, acoustic bass, electric guitar and piano.
It's not exactly binaural, but it was recorded to place the instruments in their proper places and sizes inside a large room with a recognizable size. It's a lovely engineering job!
Musically, it's closer to avant-garde than to, say, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, with not much tunage and a lot of texturage.
There are some Chesky Binaural recordings on www.hdtracks.com. I don't know if they have the type of arrangements you are looking for, but you can at least sample them on the site.
While feeling the bass can be a way cool listening factor, it is not ideal to listen at that volume on an ongoing basis. The sound pressure levels reqired for you to "feel" the music also puts enough pressure on the ear drums to damage them over long periods of time.
I have experienced partial hearing loss after a few of the concerts I have attended.
One was Deep Purple, my first show. Another was after seeing Ted Nugent from the 2nd row at the Fox Theater, right in front of his amp speaker cabinet stack. The last time was Porcupine Tree at the Roxy. PT had chest thumping bass even though the audience were all standing (meaning that a lot of bodies were absorbing the bass). This was certainly an ideal sonic experience in the way you mention, but it also meant my hearing was impaired for about three days afterwards.
For home listening, unless you have a soundproof home and/or listening room, you generally can't play the music that loud without annoying neighbors. Of course, if you live in the boonies and the neighbors live 200 yards away, it might not be a problem. Generally, though, that volume is going to cause someone a great deal of annoyance.
Headphones have their limitations in that regard, but they can also display much greater detail at lower volumes.
The BBC used to broadcast radio plays recorded in binaural. They often incorporated sound effects to show off the system. I thought they were very effective, with headphones or speakers, but I do not know if they still do this.
Member since Wednesday 09.09.09
Yesterday I ran across yet another binaural recording that is not advertised as such, although it's a lovely example of the possibilities. It is the "Preservation Hall Hot 4 with Duke Dejan" from 2005 and it's on the Preservation label so this appears to be a self-issue. It's not exactly my favorite style of music -- Dixieland -- but it's a lovely recording with a real biting trumpet, solid bass, very realistic sounding piano, and a slightly raspy and out of tune singer who fits the material perfectly.
I ran across this track on Pandora, and as with all good binaural recordings, it immediately stood out as three-dimensional in the midst of all the two-dimensonal (stereo) recordings on either side of it.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 06-16-2017 at 10:57 PM.
Yes, I have a radio play done in 1978 by Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers). It consists entirely of sound effects, no dialog -- and so it's not particularly exciting to listen to unfortunately.
But I was thinking today... The human voice is one of the most revealing sources you can use for speakers. Our ears are acutely tuned to listening to voices. And it would be great to find a nice vocal ensemble recorded in binaural.
Looking around online I found a few -- Tapestry, Russian Vocal Ensemble -- but the binaural effect is almost lost with a large ensemble. Normal stereo recording techniques on large ensembles like this are pretty much binaural anyway (a couple of overhead mics on booms maybe...) So I went looking for SMALL a cappella ensembles. Were there any binaural recordings of, oh say, The Persuasions? Turns out that yes, yes there are:
This is on Chesky Records, which uses a technique they call "binaural plus" which isn't as impressive as REAL binaural, but the samples served up online from iTunes still sound pretty sweet. I can't wait for it to arrive.
Anybody know of any other vocal ensembles recorded binaurally?
Gordon Giltrap's CD "Live at Ambergate" is one of relatively few commercially released albums to use the binaural recording methods.
http://www.giltrap.co.uk/news/05--Gu...s-s_Pages/310/
Manfred Schunke did these recordings in the 70s.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/522701-Manfred-Schunke
"Always ready with the ray of sunshine"
Yeah. Not much there to get excited about.
Is it too much to ask for a solo singer in a reverberant church, a small acappella group, a wind ensemble placed all around the listener? Jesus, what a waste of Kunstkopf.
I finally tracked this sucker down:
https://www.giltrap.co.uk/cds/f/CDs/309
It was recorded outdoors, in Shining Cliff Woods, Ambergate, Derbyshire by Dallas Simpson using a prototype Nagra V hard disk recorder and "custom modified DPA 4060 microphones." It's meant to be listened to on headphones, because Dallas carried the microphone rig around the woods and up to some little streams and waterfalls. Very picturesque, with little birdie tweets and footsteps and insect sounds and Giltrap playing acoustic sometimes off in the distance, sometimes right up next to the mics. The mics keep moving all the time, causing the elements to keep panning back-and-forth in the stereo field; somewhat disconcertingly.
It says it's binaural, but on headphones you can tell it's not, it's just a normal X-Y mic matrix.
It's interesting, very pastoral, and I've always enjoyed Gordon's guitarwork so I'm not too disappointed.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 11-02-2019 at 05:43 PM.
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