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"Now, there is. Three-dimensional audio is a hot topic again ever since VR industry-types wised up to the fact that immersive video is never going to be believable without its sonic better half. As the VR market scrambles to perfect the technology to immerse listeners in an acoustic space, it will no doubt pull music along with it.
“We’re going to start seeing this sort of new genre of audio experiences,” sound installation artist Gabe Liberti told me in a recent phone conversation. His interactive music installation appearing at the upcoming South By Southwest festival, where a handful of panels will discuss 3D sound this year. “Putting people in spaces hasn’t really been part of the paradigm of producing music. So that’s completely new.”
Three-dimensional “spatial” sound adds the dimension of depth to recorded audio, instead of just panning horizontally between left and right ears like conventional stereo tracks. This puts sounds in space: Sounds seem to be coming from not just above, below, and all around you, but also right up close or further in the distance, in every direction, as if you’re enveloped in an acoustic sphere.
Humans are naturally able to hear in 3D, even though we only have two ears, because of the way the ears are positioned on the head. A sound coming from the right will hit the left ear a fraction of a second later than the right ear and will be perceived slightly softer as the sound diminishes and is reflected off the outer ear and head and torso. These aural cues allow the brain to identify the direction of a sound and pinpoint its spatial location remarkably well—it’s what makes you whip your head around when you hear a twig snap behind you.
The most well-known technique for capturing 3D audio, binaural recording, mimics this natural process by putting microphones in fabricated ear canals on either side of a dummy head. (Or with tiny mics you stick in your ears like these Hooke headphones.)"
"The technology, called BACCH 3D sound, solves the crosstalk problem by putting a real-time digital filter between the two ears to mimic the natural wall a human head or dummy head provides. (Here's a great video of Choueri explaining how it works.) The filter device currently costs around $50,000 (and a few have sold), but the goal is to make an affordable consumer version. Princeton has already licensed part of its 3D sound technology to Jawbone to power the Jambox speaker’s “LiveAudio” feature."
"The holy grail in truly immersive 3D sound is real-time customized spatial audio that is calibrated to the anatomical measurements of one’s ears and uses head-tracking technology to update the soundscape as one moves their head around. “It really becomes real to you, and vivid, if it feels like you’ve been immersed in a new, living acoustic reality,” said Liberti. “You feel like you’re somewhere else.”"
"The technology to create real-time immersive audio is being developed as we speak, dipping into other 3D techniques along with binaural, like ambisonics, holophonics,wavefield synthesis, virtual spatial audio, or object-based audio.
New Kickstarter-funded Ossic headphones claim to use head-tracking tech and calibration sensors in the headphones to measure the shape of a listener’s ears and use that data to locate sounds for more accurate realism. And most of the major VR headset prototypes are also developing a format for immersive spatial audio. The emerging VR market will no doubt inform how 3D sound is incorporated into music.
Audiophiles who obsess over finding a $5,000 power cable to improve sound are “fighting for such small, small, small, arguably imperceptible changes in the fidelity,” said Liberti, “but when you think about the difference between a stereo recording and a real-time, three-dimensional spacial recording or mix, the difference between those is so dramatic. And the opportunities for what we can do in mixing and moving sound around you and immersing you in sound is so vast… I can’t even think about all the possibilities.”
***
Over the years, music has increasingly put sound in space. First with the move from mono to stereo, and then surround sound, and then object-based audio like Dolby Atmos that can direct sounds to specific points in space. Spatial audio is the next sonic boundary to cross, and when we do we may look back on the days we listened to sound in two-dimensional stereo with disbelief, said Chesky."
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-are-we-still-listening-to-music-in-two-dimensions
“We’re going to start seeing this sort of new genre of audio experiences,” sound installation artist Gabe Liberti told me in a recent phone conversation. His interactive music installation appearing at the upcoming South By Southwest festival, where a handful of panels will discuss 3D sound this year. “Putting people in spaces hasn’t really been part of the paradigm of producing music. So that’s completely new.”
Three-dimensional “spatial” sound adds the dimension of depth to recorded audio, instead of just panning horizontally between left and right ears like conventional stereo tracks. This puts sounds in space: Sounds seem to be coming from not just above, below, and all around you, but also right up close or further in the distance, in every direction, as if you’re enveloped in an acoustic sphere.
Humans are naturally able to hear in 3D, even though we only have two ears, because of the way the ears are positioned on the head. A sound coming from the right will hit the left ear a fraction of a second later than the right ear and will be perceived slightly softer as the sound diminishes and is reflected off the outer ear and head and torso. These aural cues allow the brain to identify the direction of a sound and pinpoint its spatial location remarkably well—it’s what makes you whip your head around when you hear a twig snap behind you.
The most well-known technique for capturing 3D audio, binaural recording, mimics this natural process by putting microphones in fabricated ear canals on either side of a dummy head. (Or with tiny mics you stick in your ears like these Hooke headphones.)"
"The technology, called BACCH 3D sound, solves the crosstalk problem by putting a real-time digital filter between the two ears to mimic the natural wall a human head or dummy head provides. (Here's a great video of Choueri explaining how it works.) The filter device currently costs around $50,000 (and a few have sold), but the goal is to make an affordable consumer version. Princeton has already licensed part of its 3D sound technology to Jawbone to power the Jambox speaker’s “LiveAudio” feature."
"The holy grail in truly immersive 3D sound is real-time customized spatial audio that is calibrated to the anatomical measurements of one’s ears and uses head-tracking technology to update the soundscape as one moves their head around. “It really becomes real to you, and vivid, if it feels like you’ve been immersed in a new, living acoustic reality,” said Liberti. “You feel like you’re somewhere else.”"
"The technology to create real-time immersive audio is being developed as we speak, dipping into other 3D techniques along with binaural, like ambisonics, holophonics,wavefield synthesis, virtual spatial audio, or object-based audio.
New Kickstarter-funded Ossic headphones claim to use head-tracking tech and calibration sensors in the headphones to measure the shape of a listener’s ears and use that data to locate sounds for more accurate realism. And most of the major VR headset prototypes are also developing a format for immersive spatial audio. The emerging VR market will no doubt inform how 3D sound is incorporated into music.
Audiophiles who obsess over finding a $5,000 power cable to improve sound are “fighting for such small, small, small, arguably imperceptible changes in the fidelity,” said Liberti, “but when you think about the difference between a stereo recording and a real-time, three-dimensional spacial recording or mix, the difference between those is so dramatic. And the opportunities for what we can do in mixing and moving sound around you and immersing you in sound is so vast… I can’t even think about all the possibilities.”
***
Over the years, music has increasingly put sound in space. First with the move from mono to stereo, and then surround sound, and then object-based audio like Dolby Atmos that can direct sounds to specific points in space. Spatial audio is the next sonic boundary to cross, and when we do we may look back on the days we listened to sound in two-dimensional stereo with disbelief, said Chesky."
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-are-we-still-listening-to-music-in-two-dimensions
