What is Digg?310 Comments
- BanthaFodder, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24Hey all, first digg comment; hope I don't break any customs. Anyway, I can't get to the site, but the description makes it sound like binaural recording, where you have a simulated human head with omnidirectional microphones in each ear. As each mic receives sound, it gets attenuated by the presence of the rest of the head, and when you play the recording back through headphones, your brain interprets those "recorded attenuations" (not a real phrase) as directional/distance components to the original sound. I've heard a few symphony recordings where they put the mic set in a concert hall; you end up with true-to-life concert hall reverb, and you can often pick out individual instruments or sections from the space in front of you. It's wild.
Recording this way is actually pretty simple to do. To do it well, however, requires a good dummy head like the Neumann KU100 (sample link: http://www.fullcompass.com/Products/pages/SKU--27605/).
Wikipedia page on binaural recording: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording - kevinrose, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16WOW - Make sure you have headphones on - that is pretty amazing.
- soyobro, on 10/25/2007, -0/+11Here's another one:
http://www.sound-ideas.com/mp3/dimensionsfx.mp3 - jaspinDroid, on 11/13/2007, -1/+9Open 2 or more in different windows and start them at different times. I AM BEING SWARMED AHHH
- nuclearpenguins, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Whoa. Don't be stoned and listen to this. Digg++
- Sweetdelight, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7http://www.filefactory.com/get/f.php?f=303ea19fbbfd0514b6a6d330
heres a link, Remember to use headphones - kevinrose, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Yeah, you need headphones for it to work
- darkone_05, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6just think about playing doom or silent hill with this kind of sound....
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5This is REALLY old news - we were doing binaural recordings at the BBC back in the 70's, and there were a series of programmes broadcast back then. The results were stunning, and were very simply achieved.
If you want to try it for yourself, get a pair of cheap electret microphone inserts (the ones that need about 1.5 Volts to work), and attach them to either side of the headband of a pair of headphones. The mechanical conductivity of the headband matters - a small amount of the sound impinging on the left microphone has to be mechanically coupled to the right microphone, and vice versa. This emulates the bone conductivity in your head!
Put the headphones on, connect the microphones to a portable stereo tape recorder, and go for a walk to a busy part of town, recording as you go. When you get home, listen to your recording on headphones, and you'll be astonished by the directional information you'll get - you can hear sound all around you, with good localisation, and you can also locate sounds above and below you!
Binaural recording is great fun, and we had great success recording choral music in a cathedral (the echoes were amazing!), but the problem is that it's only effective when you're listening on headphones (with that bone conductivity thing going on in your head!). This was always seen as the commecial downfall - it isn't effective on loudspeakers.
Give it a try - build your own binaural rig, and see what you can record - you'll be very pleased with the results. - Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Guys, guys, guys.... Don't use speakers. This is not simply surroundsound HRTF, making stuff sound behind you. If you use headphones, it will make things seem like they are ABOVE AND BELOW you. THAT is what is special.
- Daz_Genetic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Jesus, there's some annoying people here on Digg.. No matter how helpful people are, there are some idiots who are just ignoring advice and trying to play this on their 5.1 speakers.
If you are complaining about how it sounds crap on a 5.1 surround rig, then you have to realize that it's a "PRE-PROCESSED" stereo audio file designed to be listened to with headphones. Your 5.1 speakers are for processing and positioning sounds constrained by your speakers. For bin-aural recordings, you have to position your "speakers" where the microphones were during recording. (ie. In, or on, your goddam ears.)
This also goes the to the guy complaining how it didn't work with his 5.1 headphones.. Of course it won't, your headphones are messing with the audio. They attempt to add depth using artificial means, but this audio file is going to work best when played unaltered. If there is a way to override the 5.1 and just play stereo, it will work.
Unaltered means no equalizer settings, no Dolby headphone turned on. Any 3D depth settings on your soundcard need to be turned off.
The effect is also enhanced significantly by closing your eyes. This allows you to interpret the sounds in front of you. When you have your eyes open, your brain won't readily accept sounds that appear to come from no source, so closing your eyes really helps with the positioning. It frees your mind, as it were.
It's annoying how many people are dismissing this and then claiming that their computer does it in realtime. *****. No post-production 3D sound system is even close to being as convincing as a real bin-aural recording. As systems get faster, or maybe once we have a dedicated processor, we will definitely hear sound like this in our favorite games. - abaybas, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I found this one.
It's a woman whispering in your ear. It's amazing.
http://www.holophonic.ch/archivio/testaudio/voce.mp3 - jamiejamez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I remember Playing the original Half-Life in full A3D 2.0 Sound on my "Diamond Monster Sound MX300" Sound Card that did these kinds of effects in real time.
- kohan69, on 02/19/2008, -0/+3You could never get her to say that before?
- beeblebrox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3For those of you who can't wait for this to be used for movies, you don't have to. If you use Power DVD, you already have the technology. Power DVD has an audio mode specifically for headphones called Dolby Headphone. It used binaural to simulate 5.1 surround sound on the fly. As long as you have a quiet room, the technology takes the sound from inside your head and places it in front of you and behind you, as if you had surround speakers. Another user actually submitted the Dolby site a few months ago or I would have provided the link via another Digg story.
http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/headphone.html - diotro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Actually, do be stoned and listen to this. The results feel almost life-like.
- bigboehmboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3close, but not really: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holophony.
- NtroP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ok, for all those "it's been done before people":
1) Use headphones - any headphones. Not speakers. Headphones.
2) It's NOT surround sound. 5.1 surround lets you hear left, right, front and rear. This lets you hear OVER and Under too.
3) You need to close your eyes to hear the "in front" part with this. It's so real your brain realizes that it can't see the "in front" part, so it takes that part to be imaginary - unless you close your eyes.
This is compelling stuff. - BanthaFodder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oops. Evidently made a newbie mistake with the link to the KU100. It should be: http://www.fullcompass.com/Products/pages/SKU--27605/
- phong99, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2it is possible for games to use this technology, but the engine would need to calculate the sound on the fly. there is some pretty serious calculation there + this is only ever going to work with headphones.
- echolyean, on 03/01/2008, -0/+2It's ok now, 2 years in the future.
- pupa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Oh come on, we are talking about _sound_ here, I hope audio can play at real time on my grandmas PC
You have no idea what you're talking about. He's not talking about playing the sound, but about creating it. In a virtual 3D environment like a FPS, that sound will need to be rendered in real-time and it seems that it is not possible (or at least very difficult) with current technology. As someone pointed out, to get this kind of recording you need to record with one of those dummy heads with a mic in each ear. And that's just for recordings in the real world. To get this kind of sound in a game everything would have to be rendered by algorithms and that would be very difficult. - cyberfelon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I realise that this is hardly new technology, and I also realise that it's also referred to as binaural recording. I still submitted it because I am relatively young (20) and this sort of effect hasn't had much exposure as far as I could tell. The overwhelmingly positive response in the comments shows how little people actually know about this technique, so just because some audiophiles have heard it before doesn't make it any less exciting to the majority of people who are yet to hear it for themselves.
Just letting you know so you don't have to keep reminding us how behind the times we are ;) - audiocollective, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this one is a little different. they are not using normal microphones to record it. it is a microphone with a chystal element.
- royalchancer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hate to say this mate - this IS holophonic sound
It uses a technique that takes advantage of the fact the ear actually emits sound. The interference pattern from this sound wave and the sound waves around us are what makes us hear, and helps us to detect direction.
Therefore holophonic sound is NOT binaural - although the recording set up is similar, what is unique is that when recording, a sound that is not perceptible to the human ear is played and the interference pattern recorded. This is why it seems so real, and the direction element has ups and downs even though it is only played through stereo - joseluismb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"There is an even better demo on alt.binaries.paranormal. has footsteps ,saxophone, and a fly buzzing about.Look for "virtual audio"."
A friend showed me this on his iPod but I have been unable to download this file!!! If anyone could email it to jose_0_luis@hotmail.com or just give me another link...
THANKS IN ADVANCE!!!! - boxninja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because it is patented :P
- cambridgeJason, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Whether it's new or not, who cares! It's amazing. Just a warning - I noticed that it won't work with iTunes Sound Enhancer turned on. It makes a world of difference with out that.
- Mjeden2006, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Okay that's insane, freaked the ***** out of me when I first heard it!
- cyberfelon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Maccer (and many others): READ THE DESCRIPTION. You need headphones for it to work properly.
- Rageous, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1BanthaFodder and mictester nailed it. This is simply just Binaural Processing, the kids at Berklee have been mapping sounds to visual elements via Max/MSP and Jitter for years and others have been doing it for even longer. The cool thing about all this is that it proves how pointless 5.1 surround really is -- we only have two ears and consequently hear sounds in 2.1 anyway.
All in all, a super-cool concept some of us electronic musicians actually incorporate into our sounds every day. We've developed enough 3-dimension binaural algorithms to put you anywhere. My personal test project was reproducing the effect of an X-Wing flying through an explosion.
+digg - FuZ3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1All I could think of was, "Would you please stop lighting those matches so close to my ears. They are hot!"
- MaxPeck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Some of their other work:
http://www.sound-ideas.com/audiodemo.html - multifaceted, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1With my hearing loss I usually can't tell what direction sound comes from but I really can with this, very cool.
- mcsurfer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Just using EarBuds on my laptop I thought it was pretty incredible."
yeah, and try them with e5c's - ThankTheCheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How long til we see binaural porn?
- KriTenKs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow! Listen to their site intro! http://www.holophonic.ch/intro.php
- cblalock, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1holy crap in a pita! i though someone had snuck up on me with a box of killer tic-tacs at first.
- gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1+digg for sure. Sounds like binaural to me, but it's well done. Have never heard that much range in heights before in binaural stuff!
- jovada, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just do a search on "binaural" and you'll find even more demos. It's a technique where they put two microphones inside something what looks like a human head with ears.
- TXCinc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It is especially convincing with eyes closed.
- piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ive got 4 of them going... its really relaxing :)
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Another mirror, this one hosted by me:
http://teknews.net/~guspaz/Cereni_-_Holophonic.mp3 - Essefgy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sweetdelight helped me answer my question.
This IS the same audio. I've had this stuff on CD for twenty years. It's also the same technology as on Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" and Roger Waters' "Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" - zero01101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1see, thats bizarre.
it worked fine for me without headphones.
basic crap dell speakers.
i just put my head inbetween the two and closed my eyes.
then i started freaking out. - crimson117, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's designed for stereo (2 speakers, left and right). When you play it through your 5.1 speakers, your sound card tries to "upsample" it to 5.1, but in the process loses the effect. Try it through any old stereo earphones, and you'll digg it.
- AssultMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'll tell you at once that I would much rather have sound this quality than quantum shaded grass (or whatnot) in the next game I play.
Sound is really much more important than it is given credit in today's games.
You'd think Creative (or someone) would be able to build a chip that produces this kind of effect in real time, with dynamic positioning. - clevershark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You have to have headphones for this to work... it's about as realistic as it gets in terms of sound experience, and it does have the above-below effect as mentioned.
- Mysk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1hotlinking via digg.com, we're so leet!
Smart ass comments aside, I suppose that this will teach them to use some sort of hotlink protection. - musicbear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1...and you wonder how many times one can post... you must use headphones...
The remaster of Pink Floyd's Final Cut will show this in use... though it's probably not the casual listeners best choice of Floyd material... :-)... and there is something similar on Roger Waters Amused To Death CD where the liner notes indicate that if the dog barking doesn't sound like it's coming from the next yard that your speakers are "out of phase". A dark room with headphones is best...
And I do remember some 1980's HBO segments on Real Sex I think where they did indeed use this technology (or at least the foam head :-) for a sex audio "magazine" type thing. Could be fun... could be REALLY creepy. -
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