binaural anyone?

[sourceslut]

Has anyone here experimented with binaural on guitars for getting a good stereo image. i tried recording someone walking into a room once using a binaural pair of microphones. i sat in the same part of the room and then played it back. it was the most sensational stereo experience ive ever heard. it was actuallt very uncomfortable!

id love to know has anyone recorded an amp binaurally at the very left or right so the outermost mic is almost picking almost up no direct sound. i imagine it would be fatastic.

[djui5]

Binaural only works with headphones on, so if you get a great image, it won't translate to traditional speakers well.

Might wanna look into ambisonic recording :)

[paterno]

Originally Posted by djui5

Binaural only works with headphones on, so if you get a great image, it won't translate to traditional speakers well.

Not true. Not true at all.

Although the intent with binaural is for headphone monitoring, there is still plenty of stereo localization info available out of a set of speakers.

John

[recall]

Originally Posted by djui5

Binaural only works with headphones on, so if you get a great image, it won't translate to traditional speakers well.

Might wanna look into ambisonic recording :)

Absolutely not true....+1

As paterno said you lose some of the effect but you still get the psycho acoustic thing. I use them for drum room mics all the time. I feel you"get" more 3d imaging than a normal stereo array.

Also recorded strings and percussion. Guitars I have never tried apart from on an acoustic guitar player which didn't work out for various reasons.

[djui5]

Well it is true. While you may still get some kind of a stereo image, you won't get the binaural effect unless your listening on headphones. If you record something binaural, with all intents and purposes of making a binaural recording, then you need to playback on headphones. If you don't, it won't sound like a binaural recording...


If you want stereo (or even surround), but not the binaural effects, there are plenty of other ways.

I'm just talking about true binaural recording and playback here. Using a binaural recording for some other effect isn't what I'm talking about...and maybe that's the point of this thread....

[Dusty Chalk]

I've not tried it myself, but you may want to look into Dallas Simpson's approach -- he gets a pair of tiny B&K -type mics and sticks them in his ears.

Huzzah for binaural! (I listen mostly to headphones for pleasurable listening.)

[wwittman]

It's not a very pronounced effect in speakers... and it gets swallowed up or blurred pretty easily in the presence of other sounds that are not recorded in the same head ath the same time.

so it's not terribly PRACTICAL for pop music.

I worked a bit on Lou Reed's experiments with it back in the 70's (Geoff Daking did a LOT on that record, we were both at the same studio at that time...) and it really became a big blurry mess pretty quickly when layers of dummy head recording were layed over each other.

[paterno]

Originally Posted by wwittman

It's not a very pronounced effect in speakers... and it gets swallowed up or blurred pretty easily in the presence of other sounds that are not recorded in the same head ath the same time.

so it's not terribly PRACTICAL for pop music.

I worked a bit on Lou Reed's experiments with it back in the 70's (Geoff Daking did a LOT on that record, we were both at the same studio at that time...) and it really became a big blurry mess pretty quickly when layers of dummy head recording were layed over each other.

Well, Tchad Blake's cymbal imaging is pretty great on records like Soul Coughing's 'Ruby Vroom' [among his many great sounding records]. The 'overhead's' were recorded with a binaural head. I can't say for sure what he's doing now, but everything I worked on with him from about '92 on was all 'The Head' as his drum overheads.

I think the placement has a great deal to do with the image width...

John

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by paterno

Well, Tchad Blake's cymbal imaging is pretty great on records like Soul Coughing's 'Ruby Vroom' [among his many great sounding records]. The 'overhead's' were recorded with a binaural head. I can't say for sure what he's doing now, but everything I worked on with him from about '92 on was all 'The Head' as his drum overheads.

I think the placement has a great deal to do with the image width...

John

I'm very interested in this technique and have done a lot of research on the web so far. What binaural head does Tchad Blake use? Is there one set up in particular that is used most in the professional world? I found in ear binaural mics as low as 69 dollars...

bcgood

[paterno]

Originally Posted by bcgood

I'm very interested in this technique and have done a lot of research on the web so far. What binaural head does Tchad Blake use? Is there one set up in particular that is used most in the professional world? I found in ear binaural mics as low as 69 dollars...

bcgood

Tchad uses the Neumann binaural head -- KM-100 is it?? This is the only production one i've ever run across, although there are bound to be others.

As far as 'in ear binaural mics', a good set of small omni mics that will fit in your ears [or lay in your ears, I should say] will basically do the same thing, if you consider how the human hearing system localizes sounds. Research how human hearing works and you will see how this is possible.

happy searching...

John

[djui5]

"Fritz"

http://www.coutant.org/ku100.html

[lampmeister]

One of my hobbies is looking in rubbish skips. Yes, passers by do think I'm weird. I'm used to it. Thanks for your concern. Anyway, a few months ago, strolling through the dockside developments in Bristol (UK) I found a piece of dense foam. It was yellow. I took it home and carved it into the shape of a human head and stuck a pair of DPA 4060's in the ears and stuffed a piece of round wood through it's brain with a mic stand mount on the bottom. Yet to try it seriously on guitar (acoustic or a cab) but field recording have been really excellent over both speakers and headphones. Experiments will continue just as soon as I've wired up all the 90-way Edacs on the kitchen table.



Edit - P.S. Nice Nietzsche quotes by the way; I would call him my hero but I think Nietzsche would find that idea deeply disturbing.

[Dr.Wu]

im using my own head as a dummy head for binaural recordings with a pair of OKM microphones.
They look like ipod headphones.
I have a Roland RSS-10 that can convert binaural recordings into transaural recordings so the spatial information can also be enjoyed on speakers.

[Stephen B.]

Check out the song "Of the Girl" from Pearl Jam's album titled Binaural (you can preview it on iTunes). This is the album that was produced by Tchad Blake and I think this song uses quite a bit of the technique, including guitars.

[ICE HARTMAAN]

Most binaural recordings I've downloaded haven't impressed me as much as this one.

[jimmyz]

Originally Posted by djui5

Might wanna look into ambisonic recording :)

Interesting...

this is not something i know much about- quite into the idea of binaural recording (seen as everyone listens on hedphones these days anyway...!) but ambisonics is still quite mysterious to me.

So, my question is this... With ambisonic recording, i there a known decoder that would allow me to keep certain combinations of the signals for stereo reproduction (or even quad..)? I would like to have some of the ambisonic stuff in a stereo mix but phase wise, it would just be a nightmare (i can only guess at the min).

jn.

[downrazor11]

i think there is a company called core sound that specializes in binaural recording components, but i think they are generally geared towards live show/bootleg recording. probably worth checking out though, i remember the website having lots of info on binaural theory. Core Sound

a while ago i wanted to get a pair of these to do field recordings for things like trains (i was in a "klf:chill out" state of mind), but i couldn't afford a good set plus dat so i didn't. but i might now, this thread has awakened something sleeping...

[Improv]

You know, I'm not sure I could get through a take without laughing if I had a foam head a couple feet away... staring at me.... entranced by the sound of my instrument... foam groupie... hahaha, it's just a funny image.

'Cause you know people put faces on these things. So what's the best face for rock drums? How about classical guitar, should it look insightful? Goatee for jazz?