3D/Binaural Audio Mixing (My Tip-Toe Into)

Soniclight wrote on 6/11/2012, 1:41 PM
It's been a latent interest of mine to add kind of subliminal harmonic to my music that actually has similar effects on the listener as the binaural meditation and hypnosis stuff does. Yes, a lot of it is bunk out here but binaural research goes back to the 1920s and is essentially the mixing of 2 frequencies that is experienced as a 3rd one by the human brain. And then of course there is 3D or surround audio engineering.

So I posed the question at the Cubase forum since that's what I use and it was suggested I visit Longcat for they have progs and a plugin that do both. While the below is for the freeware Lite version for AudioStage and hence far less sophisticated, I'm fascinated by how easy this kind of 3D audio mixing can be now.

Maybe old news to many of you but being able to move stuff around the listener has always seemed so cool to me since it first really hit the mainstream with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" et al.

Below the video here is a screenshot of the H3D Binaural Plugin from Longcat which gives a similar feel to what one can do with AudioStage.
NOTE THAT NONE OF THESE PROGS WORK INSIDE OF VEGAS.



Comments

riredale wrote on 6/11/2012, 6:11 PM
First, very clever graphical representation of ambience adjustment.

Secondly, I've always heard the term "binaural" to refer to a particular kind of stereo recording, where mics are placed inside a life-like human head so that on playback with headphones a person hears exactly what he would have heard at the performance. And the effect, while very realistic, only works if one never moves his head, because otherwise the brain says, "Hey! The soundfield is not changing the way it should! This is a fake environment!"
Soniclight wrote on 6/11/2012, 6:23 PM
riredale,

You're correct - and while Wikipedia has its shortcomings, the definition there confirms it I'm using the term "binaural" in a more ethereal post-production sense with the specific purpose to elicit certain responses in the brain, i.e. theta, alpha, etc. waves by mimicking those through the aforementioned 1+2=3 technique. As my post title states, I'm a newbie at all this, so no pretenses of knowing what I'm talking about beyond some basics :)
GenJerDan wrote on 6/14/2012, 5:21 AM
Yep

http://www.sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook/Kunstkopf.html

I was first exposed to it on some Jane albums way back when.

Hmmm...gotta dig them otu and "rip" the LPs one of these days. :)