Speaker 1: I Heart three D Audio. This episode was brought to
Speaker 1: you in I Heeart three D Audio. To experience more
Speaker 1: podcasts like this, search for I Heeart three D Audio
Speaker 1: in the I Heart Radio app. This special three D
Speaker 1: episode is sponsored by Audible, The Conjuring, The Devil Made
Speaker 1: Me Do It, raded R, and World of Warcraft. For
Speaker 1: maximum effect, headphones are recommended. Welcome to Tech Stuff a
Speaker 1: production from I Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive
Speaker 1: producer with I Heeart Radio and how the tech are you?
Speaker 1: So it is President's Day here in the United States
Speaker 1: as a holiday for us here at my Heart and
Speaker 1: as such, instead of working, I am vacating or holidaying
Speaker 1: or something. So we're bringing to you an episode that
Speaker 1: originally published on May twenty one. It is titled how
Speaker 1: three D Audio Works. And there is some three D
Speaker 1: audio shenanigans in this, So if you get creeped out
Speaker 1: by that kind of stuff, it's good to know going
Speaker 1: into this. Best listen with headphones on if you're not
Speaker 1: creeped up by that kind of stuff, and you can
Speaker 1: enjoy a little bit of the effects as well as
Speaker 1: learn about the technology I hope you enjoy. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you a story about my childhood. My family are
Speaker 1: all really big Disney theme park fans, and growing up
Speaker 1: in Georgia meant we were just a short eight to
Speaker 1: ten hour drive from Walt Disney World in Florida. Both
Speaker 1: of my parents were teachers, and they would save up
Speaker 1: money so that every two or three years or so
Speaker 1: we'd make the trip down. Disney World was always where
Speaker 1: my sister and I wanted to go, even when my
Speaker 1: parents gently tried to suggest other places like Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Or New York City. Nope, we want a Disney World
Speaker 1: also quick aside, these days, we still will take family
Speaker 1: trips to Disney World, my parents included, and now with
Speaker 1: my nieces we get to experience seeing Disney through fresh eyes,
Speaker 1: which is pretty great. But anyway, back to my story.
Speaker 1: Back in nine, the Disney Hollywood Studios Park opened for
Speaker 1: the first time. Back then it was Disney MGM Studios,
Speaker 1: and the studios were a working studio with films and
Speaker 1: TV shows shot on the premises. A lot of attractions
Speaker 1: related to film and TV production. There was the Great
Speaker 1: Movie Ride, which closed in There was a behind the
Speaker 1: scenes tour which close in and there were various experiences
Speaker 1: that taught audiences about stuff like special effects, all of
Speaker 1: which have closed. Almost leads you to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Studios aren't so much the Hollywood Studios anymore.
Speaker 1: But I'm off track again. One of those experiences was
Speaker 1: all about sound effects, and it was called the Monster
Speaker 1: Sound Show. I remember that the attraction featured a clip
Speaker 1: of a film starring Martin Short and Chevy Chase, and
Speaker 1: I had a lot of sound effects that played in
Speaker 1: that movie. Then the attraction host would bring up some
Speaker 1: audience members to try and create sound effects live on
Speaker 1: stage using various props while a silent version of the
Speaker 1: film played, and then they would play the film back
Speaker 1: again with the new audience supplied fully sound effects in
Speaker 1: place to great comedic effect. After that presentation, however, you
Speaker 1: could wander through the rest of the attraction and tucked
Speaker 1: off to the side were a couple of rooms large
Speaker 1: enough to hold a few people at a time, and
Speaker 1: they were called sound stations. Inside those rooms were benches
Speaker 1: attached to the walls and there were hooks holding headphones.
Speaker 1: Every couple of feet you would go in, you would
Speaker 1: sit down, you would put on the headphones, making sure
Speaker 1: that the headphone with the yellow pad went over your
Speaker 1: right ear. And then something extraordinary happened. As the lights
Speaker 1: went down, you were presented with a scenario. You're playing
Speaker 1: the part of a new executive at the Walt Disney
Speaker 1: Studios named r. J. McBean. You're told you're sitting behind
Speaker 1: your executive desk waiting for your assistant Hampton to come
Speaker 1: in and start off your day, and the sound orbited you.
Speaker 1: You'd hear the narrator set up the scenario, and her
Speaker 1: voice drifted from one ear to the other, as if
Speaker 1: she were actually walking around you while you sat at
Speaker 1: this fictional desk. And then the scenario would really begin
Speaker 1: and things got really wild. A little tinker bell jingling
Speaker 1: would represent the true beginning, and you would hear Hampton
Speaker 1: come in. He would walk through on a door to
Speaker 1: your right, and then you'd hear him pontificate as he
Speaker 1: walks through your office. You would pour a busy drink
Speaker 1: into a glass of ice, and he introduced you to
Speaker 1: your secretary. Surely, Oh, and also said you would get
Speaker 1: a haircut from a stylist named Ken because of course,
Speaker 1: the big cheese is on his way to meet you,
Speaker 1: and the haircut sounds in particular were really compelling. You
Speaker 1: could almost feel the sensation of someone cutting your hair.
Speaker 1: And I say this as a bald man who hasn't
Speaker 1: had hair in more than twenty years. Meanwhile, as the
Speaker 1: hair goes flying, a director called Flavio shows up and
Speaker 1: pitches a new film to you, complete with using a
Speaker 1: hair dryer to simulate desert winds. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of other cute sound effects that follow, like a paper
Speaker 1: being placed over your head to represent a turban and
Speaker 1: you can actually find recordings of this piece online, though
Speaker 1: I will warn you the effects aren't quite up to
Speaker 1: the quality of the original attraction, which also incorporated stuff
Speaker 1: like actual blowers to blow warm air on you. Oh
Speaker 1: and uh, that big cheese who comes in at the end,
Speaker 1: Well that's Mickey Mouse, of course, he comes into place
Speaker 1: a pair of mouse ears on top of your head.
Speaker 1: The whole thing lasted about five minutes and I loved it.
Speaker 1: And at the end you were instructed to remove your headphones,
Speaker 1: hang them back on the wall, and exit the room,
Speaker 1: whereupon you'd head outside to the blazing Florida sun and
Speaker 1: the wild audio of the real outdoors. That was how
Speaker 1: I first experienced three D audio. At that time, it
Speaker 1: was based off a technology that had a brand name
Speaker 1: of Holophonics. These days, we'd more likely call it binaural
Speaker 1: audio or maybe just three D audio. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways to create the experience, some
Speaker 1: of which requires special equipment, others that require special software.
Speaker 1: You can find examples of three D audio in music recordings,
Speaker 1: amusement park attractions, and stuff like a s MR videos.
Speaker 1: It can be a really compelling experience and I remember
Speaker 1: getting goose bumps the first time I encountered it, and
Speaker 1: depending on who's doing the recording and the effects that
Speaker 1: they're creating, I can still get goose bumps from it today.
Speaker 1: Long time listeners might remember that a few years back,
Speaker 1: I interviewed an a s m R artist named Heather Feather,
Speaker 1: who was one of a handful of creators who were
Speaker 1: really making a SMR a phenomenon. Now we have thousands
Speaker 1: of creators. If you do a search on YouTube for
Speaker 1: a s m R you will see countless videos in
Speaker 1: the category. But the technology and psychology behind this experience
Speaker 1: goes back quite a ways. So I want to explore
Speaker 1: the evolution and technology behind making three D audio. Now,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, there was mono, that is monaural or
Speaker 1: monophonic sound. This sound can come from a single loud speaker,
Speaker 1: or it could be channeled to multiple loud speakers, but
Speaker 1: the signal going to each loudspeaker is exactly the same
Speaker 1: as every other loud speaker. It's effectively a single channel
Speaker 1: of sound. It's how we do podcasts typically, where you
Speaker 1: usually will hear the same level of volume in each year.
Speaker 1: For shows with the multiple hosts, it means that you
Speaker 1: hear all the hosts in both ears equally. Most listeners
Speaker 1: tend to prefer that, but very early on people started
Speaker 1: to experiment with ways to provide more than one channel
Speaker 1: of sounds simultaneously to a listener to create a different
Speaker 1: kind of experience. Way back in eight one, when the
Speaker 1: loud speaker itself was just a few years old, Alexander
Speaker 1: Graham Bell had patented it in eight seventy six as
Speaker 1: part of this telephone invention. Well, that's when a man
Speaker 1: named Clement Adder came up with a clever idea. One
Speaker 1: of the downsides of live theater is that it is
Speaker 1: a scarce resource. Only so many people can fit into
Speaker 1: a theater for a performance, and once that performance is over,
Speaker 1: it's all done. So there is an element of exclusivity
Speaker 1: when it comes to live theater, something that remains true
Speaker 1: because I mean, it's just the limitations of the art.
Speaker 1: But Adder thought of a way that would help people
Speaker 1: listen in to say, a performance of an opera, without
Speaker 1: having to actually go to the opera house. His demonstration
Speaker 1: involved installing telephone receivers in a few rooms at the
Speaker 1: Palais de l Industry. The microphones he installed near the
Speaker 1: footlights at the Grand Opera in Paris, so they were
Speaker 1: across town. People could come into these rooms at the
Speaker 1: Palais in small groups and they would hold two receivers,
Speaker 1: one to each ear. Each receiver connected to a different microphone,
Speaker 1: which meant the sound they were hearing was actually coming
Speaker 1: from two different locations. In an article and Scientific American
Speaker 1: Monsieur Hospitalier is quoted as saying, quote, everyone who has
Speaker 1: been fortunate enough to hear the telephones at the Palais
Speaker 1: de l Industry has remarked that in listening with both
Speaker 1: ears at the two telephones, the sound takes a special
Speaker 1: character of relief and localization which a single receiver cannot
Speaker 1: produce end quote. This was a very early and primitive
Speaker 1: version of stereophonic sound. For those of us who have
Speaker 1: hearing in both of our ears, we experience the world
Speaker 1: in stereo. Sound travels at a certain speed. It's three
Speaker 1: per second if you have an air temperature of around
Speaker 1: twenty degrees celsius or sixty eight degrees fahrenheit. And yes,
Speaker 1: the temperature affects how quickly sound will move through the air.
Speaker 1: And our ears are located upon opposite sides of our noggins.
Speaker 1: That means that sound hits our two ear drums at
Speaker 1: slightly different times, depending upon where it's coming from, and
Speaker 1: we will perceive sound coming from one side of us
Speaker 1: as being louder in that year than in our opposite ear,
Speaker 1: and so on. So mono sound shoves all of those
Speaker 1: sound waves through one channel. Everything is coming out equally
Speaker 1: through each loudspeaker. Stereo sound, however, changes this up, varying
Speaker 1: the amplitude or volume of sound in each channel and
Speaker 1: creating a different effect. While adders demonstration indicated that there
Speaker 1: was something interesting with producing sound using different channels directed
Speaker 1: at different loud speakers, that was just the tip of
Speaker 1: the Iceberg, Alan Dower Bloomline would advance the art considerably
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties. Bloomline was born in three He
Speaker 1: became an electronics engineer and he worked for the famous
Speaker 1: Abbey Road Studios, where he pioneered advancements in stereophonic recording.
Speaker 1: According to an anecdote told by Alan Blumline's son, Simon,
Speaker 1: Bloomline was at the movies with his wife watching a
Speaker 1: film and he remarked that were a blind person to
Speaker 1: go to the movies, they might struggle to follow what
Speaker 1: was going on because the sound was all coming from loudspeakers.
Speaker 1: In mono. There was no way to detect through hearing
Speaker 1: where people were within a scene. Everyone would sound like
Speaker 1: they were in the same spot. You would only be
Speaker 1: able to hear if someone was further or closer to
Speaker 1: a microphone, but otherwise spatially you would have no idea
Speaker 1: what was going on. And that got him into thinking
Speaker 1: about developing a system that would allow sound engineers to
Speaker 1: record and reproduce sound so that had a more localized effect.
Speaker 1: Action happening on the left side of the screen would
Speaker 1: be represented by sounds emanating from loudspeakers on the left
Speaker 1: side of the theater. Likewise, action on the right side
Speaker 1: would be paired with an appropriate amount of sound coming
Speaker 1: from the right. Each speaker might produce some of the sound,
Speaker 1: but at different amplitudes, so that while you might get
Speaker 1: a little bit of the right hand sound from left
Speaker 1: hand speakers, the levels would be lower, and the overall
Speaker 1: feeling would be that you're in the middle of that sound,
Speaker 1: and it would enhance it's the experience of seeing a
Speaker 1: movie and as well as help out those who are
Speaker 1: visually impaired follow what was going on. According to that anecdote,
Speaker 1: Blumline called it binaural sound, which of course will come
Speaker 1: back to a bit later in this episode. I just
Speaker 1: find it interesting that the original term for stereo is
Speaker 1: one we now associate with a more specific approach to
Speaker 1: audio recording and production. He would receive more than seventy
Speaker 1: patents for his various inventions related to stereo sound. He
Speaker 1: created technology to record, process, and reproduce audio and stereo.
Speaker 1: In n four, he oversaw a stereo recording of the
Speaker 1: London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Abbey Road Studios. Blumline also
Speaker 1: pioneered the Blomline method, which would use two microphones mounted
Speaker 1: at a nine d degree angle with regard to one
Speaker 1: another to pick up directional sounds in a recording environment. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, if you think of a room as
Speaker 1: a square, one might is picking up sounds primarily along
Speaker 1: the X axis, and the other is picking up sound
Speaker 1: along the y axis. Bloomline also figured out how to
Speaker 1: create a stereo groove and a record album. Back in
Speaker 1: those days, these were made from shell act but they
Speaker 1: would later be made from vinyl. And when I think
Speaker 1: about that, I'm astonished. I mean, the way a record
Speaker 1: player works is that a stylists or needle fits into
Speaker 1: the groove of a record. That groove causes the stylus
Speaker 1: to vibrate, and those vibrations transmit to a transducer, which
Speaker 1: turns the vibrations into an electrical signal thanks to a
Speaker 1: little electro magnet magic, and that signal then goes to
Speaker 1: an amplifier, which boosts the signal strength, which then goes
Speaker 1: on to loudspeakers and powers them so that they can
Speaker 1: reproduce the original recorded sound that created the groove in
Speaker 1: the first place. It's the edges of these grooves that
Speaker 1: caused the vibration or the wiggle of the stylus. So
Speaker 1: how does one record stereo sound to a physical disc
Speaker 1: with a groove. Well, imagine a groove that slalom's back
Speaker 1: and forth in a nice even path. So the waves
Speaker 1: along either side of the groove are a physical representation
Speaker 1: of the original sound waves that were recorded. Now, usually
Speaker 1: in a mono record, you would just see that these
Speaker 1: waves are evenly distributed on the left and right side.
Speaker 1: It's like they're in sync with one another. It's just
Speaker 1: a nice smooth curve. But what if you wanted to
Speaker 1: record stereo, Well, you could have it where the left
Speaker 1: side of the groove and the right side of the
Speaker 1: groove are actually different. The wall on one side would
Speaker 1: represent the audio recorded in one channel and the wall
Speaker 1: on the other side of the groove was for the
Speaker 1: second channel. So, with the proper equipment, you could play
Speaker 1: this record back and the stylist would vibrate in a
Speaker 1: very specific way. It would be detected by two sensors
Speaker 1: connected to the style of us so essentially to transducers,
Speaker 1: and these two channels of sound could again go to
Speaker 1: specific loud speakers and left and a right, and then
Speaker 1: you get stereo playback. It's pretty incredible. Listening back to
Speaker 1: properly recorded and processed audio would give the listener the
Speaker 1: sensation that they were actually in an acoustic space. It
Speaker 1: would feel as though you were standing at the spot
Speaker 1: where the microphone had been mounted, and that the sound
Speaker 1: you encounter is just as if you were present at
Speaker 1: the recording session. That was the intent anyway, but the
Speaker 1: actual process of getting there is a lot more complicated
Speaker 1: than setting up just a pair of microphones. When we
Speaker 1: come back, we'll learn a bit more about stereo recording
Speaker 1: and editing, and we'll also learn why the Beatles, who
Speaker 1: also made famous recordings at Abbey Road Studios, concentrated on
Speaker 1: creating mono records for a long time, even though stereo
Speaker 1: had been around for decades. But first, let's a quick break. Now.
Speaker 1: I've done episodes about sound to film in the past,
Speaker 1: and also sound on television, so I'm going to skip
Speaker 1: over all of that, Otherwise this episode would be for
Speaker 1: five hours long. Instead, I want to talk a bit
Speaker 1: more about stereo recordings and why bands like the Beatles
Speaker 1: were slow to adopt them. To listen to a stereo
Speaker 1: recording properly, you need a stereo system. That is, you
Speaker 1: need a sound system that has at least two loud
Speaker 1: speakers and a way to send the different channels of
Speaker 1: sound to both the left and the right speakers or
Speaker 1: independently to the left and right speakers. Otherwise, the playback
Speaker 1: would be in mono even if the recording were in stereo,
Speaker 1: and what you would get is a weird case where
Speaker 1: some elements of the recording would be really quiet, as
Speaker 1: those would be the sounds recorded to a channel that
Speaker 1: wasn't getting picked up by the mono playback system. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've ever listened to a recording where some of
Speaker 1: the voices or instruments sound unusually quiet, and that it
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like this was done on purpose, it's likely
Speaker 1: because either someone mixed the audio improperly, or it's a
Speaker 1: stereo recording that at some point got converted over into
Speaker 1: mono and you're losing some of the audio as a result.
Speaker 1: Stereo systems were really expensive when they first came out.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about like stereo systems that you would purchase
Speaker 1: for your home, and a lot of people, particularly young people,
Speaker 1: had really purchased record players that had a single speaker
Speaker 1: incorporated into the player itself. So these were mono playback devices,
Speaker 1: as there was only one speaker for sound to go.
Speaker 1: The Beatles, being a band whose music was disproportionately favored
Speaker 1: by the young, had their audience in mind as they
Speaker 1: mixed their albums. It said that for many of the
Speaker 1: albums from the early to mid period of the b
Speaker 1: as a band, the group would spend hours in the
Speaker 1: mixing studio to get the mono mix just right, but
Speaker 1: when it came time to do the stereo mixes, they
Speaker 1: left that to the audio engineers at Abbey Road and
Speaker 1: we're never around. So why is that? Well, because to them,
Speaker 1: the mono recordings were more important. That was what their
Speaker 1: fan base could enjoy. For that reason, a lot of
Speaker 1: Beatles fans or purists favor the mono recordings of early
Speaker 1: Beatles work. They issue the stereo recordings as failing to
Speaker 1: represent what it was the Beatles were trying to achieve.
Speaker 1: And if you listen to the mono versus stereo recordings
Speaker 1: of some of those early songs like Paperback Writer or
Speaker 1: eleanor Rigby, you really can tell there is a major difference.
Speaker 1: And this leads into one way to create a stereo
Speaker 1: or three D audio sound. You can take a recording,
Speaker 1: and you can change how much of the signal gets
Speaker 1: sent to a particular channel. That determines which loudspeaker or
Speaker 1: set of loudspeakers will play back the audio, or more likely,
Speaker 1: how much volume that particular sound will have in each loudspeaker.
Speaker 1: This is both a science and an art. A lot
Speaker 1: of the work in this field was centered around music,
Speaker 1: and music can contain a wide range of frequencies and tones.
Speaker 1: Imagine an orchestra. You have instruments that primarily create lower frequencies,
Speaker 1: like lower pitches. You've got tubas and basses and cellos.
Speaker 1: Each of those instruments, while creating notes that might be
Speaker 1: in the same general range, have distinct sounds. A tuba
Speaker 1: and an upright bass do not sound the same. In
Speaker 1: other words, then you've got instruments that center on some
Speaker 1: of the higher frequencies, like flutes and piccolos and violins.
Speaker 1: These also sound different from one another, and so it
Speaker 1: became important to figure out how to not just capture
Speaker 1: a recording and divided into channels to create spatial landscapes,
Speaker 1: but also how to balance out the tones so that
Speaker 1: you don't lose anything in the process with the wrong mix.
Speaker 1: One instrument or group of instruments might totally overpower another,
Speaker 1: and it's almost as if those other instruments were never
Speaker 1: even present at the original recording, and so processing recordings
Speaker 1: and getting the mix just right became critical. One part
Speaker 1: of this is called panning, and it relies on a
Speaker 1: pan control. In the old days, you would use a
Speaker 1: mixing board with physical controls on it to control the pan.
Speaker 1: The pan determines how much signal from each input is
Speaker 1: sent to each channel. These days, many audio producers work
Speaker 1: with digital audio workstations or DAWs, and with a DAW
Speaker 1: you also control panning. You can pan either mono or
Speaker 1: stereo tracks. Most DAWs will let you convert one type
Speaker 1: of track into another, splitting a mono into stereo or
Speaker 1: combining stereo into mono. For certain types of audio, like
Speaker 1: MANI podcasts, the default is to go to mono. It
Speaker 1: can be a little disconcerting if you record and publish
Speaker 1: a podcast in stereo. Many years ago, when I first
Speaker 1: started recording large Nerdroun Collider with my friend Ariel, I
Speaker 1: accidentally recorded and published several episodes in stereo, which meant
Speaker 1: all of my audio was in one channel, like the
Speaker 1: left channel and all of Ariel's audio was in the
Speaker 1: other channel, the right channel. So it's like I was
Speaker 1: talking into your left ear and Ariel was talking into
Speaker 1: your right ear, which was very unsettling. I eventually figured
Speaker 1: out what I was doing, and I began mixing our
Speaker 1: recordings into a mono track to avoid that problem. And
Speaker 1: with some early stereo recordings you can hear examples of
Speaker 1: problems like this. It's frequently disconcerting. There are recordings of
Speaker 1: songs in which all the instrumentation is on one side
Speaker 1: and all the vocals are on the other side. Now
Speaker 1: that might have been done purposefully, but it was often
Speaker 1: a sort of heavy handed approach to stereo. There are
Speaker 1: times an artist might desire that specific effect, but other
Speaker 1: times the desire was to be a bit more creative
Speaker 1: with stereo, and you might have a track in which
Speaker 1: the vocalist is on the extreme right of part of
Speaker 1: the recording, then on the extreme left later on. The
Speaker 1: beatles A Day in the Life actually falls into that category.
Speaker 1: Or you might want to create a rich soundscape in
Speaker 1: which there is a sense of location for all the sound,
Speaker 1: maybe not something that's explicitly communicated to the listener, but
Speaker 1: is an important representation of the performance. So how about
Speaker 1: we play around with some post processing panning to create
Speaker 1: a three dimensional experience. My producer, Tari, who is a
Speaker 1: superstar here at iHeart, is always critical to the success
Speaker 1: of this show. But in a moment, she's going to
Speaker 1: take over the experience of what this show sounds like
Speaker 1: to you, the audience. And I'm going to do something
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to do in three D audio. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a little Shakespeare. This piece is
Speaker 1: the prologue to Henry the Five, one of Shakespeare's company
Speaker 1: designated the chorus implores the audience to use their imaginations
Speaker 1: to augment the production of the play itself. And so
Speaker 1: as you listen to this piece, imagine you are seated
Speaker 1: on a stage with the chorus walking around you, explaining
Speaker 1: your role in creating the theatrical experience. Now, I admit
Speaker 1: I'm cheating a little bit here, because the whole point
Speaker 1: of this passage is to say that theater is incapable
Speaker 1: of creating an exact copy of the story of Henry
Speaker 1: the Fifth and England's battles with France. But you also
Speaker 1: have to remember I'm a former English literature major and
Speaker 1: I never get to do Shakespeare. So out here we
Speaker 1: go headphones on, Oh, for a muse of fire that
Speaker 1: would ascend the brightest heaven of invention, a kingdom, for
Speaker 1: a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the
Speaker 1: swelling scene. Then should the warlike harry, like himself, assume
Speaker 1: the ports of Mars, and at his heels leashed in
Speaker 1: like hounds, should famine sword and fire, crouch for employment.
Speaker 1: But pardon, gentles, all the flat, unraised spirits that have
Speaker 1: dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great
Speaker 1: an object, Candice cockpit, hold the vasty fields of France.
Speaker 1: Or may we cram within this wooden oh, the very
Speaker 1: casks that did affright the air at Agincourt. Oh, pardon,
Speaker 1: since a crooked figure may attest in little place a million,
Speaker 1: let us ciphers to this great accompt on your imaginary
Speaker 1: forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls are
Speaker 1: now confined two mighty monarchies, whose high, upreared and abudding
Speaker 1: fronts the perilous narrow ocean parts. Asunder, piece out our
Speaker 1: imperfections with your thoughts into a thousand parts. Divide one
Speaker 1: man and make imaginary puissance. Think when we talk of horses,
Speaker 1: that you see them printing their proud hoofs in the
Speaker 1: receiving earth. For tis your thoughts that now must deck
Speaker 1: our kings, carry them here and there, jumping over times,
Speaker 1: turning the accomplishment of many years into an hour glass
Speaker 1: for the which supply at it me chorus to this history,
Speaker 1: who prologue like your humble patients, prey gently to hear,
Speaker 1: kindly to judge. I'll play. So for that recording, I
Speaker 1: went into our studio at I heart, and I spoken
Speaker 1: to a normal studio microphone. All the manipulation had been
Speaker 1: done in post production, which is an effective way to
Speaker 1: achieve that three D audio sound, but it does require
Speaker 1: a lot of work on the part of the producer.
Speaker 1: But the three D audio I did at the top
Speaker 1: of this episode was done in a different way. I
Speaker 1: used a special microphone. When we come back, i'll talk
Speaker 1: a bit about that technology, and we'll learn about some
Speaker 1: companies that have produced specialized equipment for the purposes of
Speaker 1: three D audio. But first let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: While some engineers and artists experimented with binaral recordings for
Speaker 1: a while, it wasn't until nineteen seventy eight that the
Speaker 1: first pop record using binaural recordings came out. It was
Speaker 1: Lou Reid's Street Hassle. Listening to that album with headphones
Speaker 1: on is pretty cool. To achieve the effect, studio engineers
Speaker 1: took a mannequin head and installed a microphone at each
Speaker 1: ear and used that to record sessions. A company called
Speaker 1: Delta Acoustics put the system together with Manfred Schunk supervising.
Speaker 1: Read made a couple of other albums in binaral audio.
Speaker 1: One was the live Take No Prisoners album and the
Speaker 1: other was The Bells. Other bands would experiment and recorded
Speaker 1: binaral as well. The Rolling Stones did it for their
Speaker 1: album Flashpoint, which was a concert recording of some of
Speaker 1: their big hits and rarities. Pearl Jam recorded a studio
Speaker 1: album called Binaral, recorded fittingly in binaral. The tech used
Speaker 1: to record these albums changed slightly, but it was still
Speaker 1: based on the same underlying principles. I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: widely understood that our ears received sound in the form
Speaker 1: of vibrations through a medium such as the air, and
Speaker 1: then through interactions with the ear drum and the cochlea
Speaker 1: and special nerves. Sending information to the brain. We interpret
Speaker 1: those vibrations as sound in a very simple way of
Speaker 1: looking at it. Sound comes into our ears. But did
Speaker 1: you know our ears also generate sound, Because they totally do.
Speaker 1: It's called auto acoustic emission or o a e. Now,
Speaker 1: to get into o a es, how they work and
Speaker 1: their role in stuff like medicine is beyond the scope
Speaker 1: of this podcast, and more importantly, way outside my general expertise.
Speaker 1: But it is true that a very sensitive microphone inserted
Speaker 1: into the ear canal of a person with hearing will
Speaker 1: pick up spontaneous auto acoustic emissions or s o a ease. Now,
Speaker 1: most folks can't detect these sounds. They tend to be
Speaker 1: at very low frequencies that dip below human perception, and
Speaker 1: they are usually at very low amplitudes, so they're pretty quiet.
Speaker 1: But in some cases people might actually hear the sounds
Speaker 1: generated within their own inner ears and experience it as tenatus.
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people, ya me. Now. The reason
Speaker 1: I bring up that fact that the inner ear can
Speaker 1: be not just a receptacle for sound but also a
Speaker 1: generator of sound is because an inventor named Hugo Zucarelli
Speaker 1: used that as the basis for a system he called holophonics.
Speaker 1: His idea was that our hearing isn't a passive thing.
Speaker 1: That the inner ear generates signals that in her fear
Speaker 1: with the incoming audio signals, and the resulting interaction between
Speaker 1: the sounds made by our ears and the sounds coming
Speaker 1: into our ears plays a part in sound localization. Now,
Speaker 1: long story short, Zuka Relli's hypothesis doesn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of support in the broader scientific community. However, Zuka Relli's
Speaker 1: equipment could record and reproduce sound in a really interesting way.
Speaker 1: It's just the whole interference angle of what was going
Speaker 1: on seemed inconsequential. Zuka Relli used microphones to stand in
Speaker 1: for human ears, spaced apart so that a sound from
Speaker 1: any given direction would reach one microphone before the other,
Speaker 1: and the amplitude of the signal would depend upon things
Speaker 1: such as the distance between the microphone and the origin
Speaker 1: of the sound, as well as the angle at which
Speaker 1: the sound waves would reach the microphone. Zoka Relli made
Speaker 1: a bunch of different recordings to demonstrate this technology, something
Speaker 1: called the shape Matchbox recordings because that was one of
Speaker 1: the sounds he actually recorded using this system. Whether his
Speaker 1: underlying hypothesis was correct or not, the recordings were effective,
Speaker 1: and Zucarelli's approach created a way to make really localized
Speaker 1: audio effects. That's essentially what was going on with the
Speaker 1: Disney sound stations. Some of the microphones used by recording
Speaker 1: studios even resembled a human head, with microphones literally placed
Speaker 1: where the ears should be, and that also plays a
Speaker 1: part in recording a sound accurately, so that the playback
Speaker 1: will seem as though you are really there as you
Speaker 1: listen to it. Beyond just the fact that our ears
Speaker 1: are on opposite sides of our heads and the sound
Speaker 1: will reach each ear at different times and amplitudes, other
Speaker 1: factors also shape the nature of the sound We perceive,
Speaker 1: the shape of our heads, the density of our noggins,
Speaker 1: are sinuses. All of that affects our perception of sound. Collectively,
Speaker 1: we call all of this head related transfer functions or
Speaker 1: hr t F. The technology of holophonics systems and later
Speaker 1: binaral microphones attempts to replicate the experience of hearing hyperlocalized
Speaker 1: sounds through the application of HRTF. But this process is
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated and um it's Matthew So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into deep detail, which is good because I
Speaker 1: would likely mess up the explanation. Also, it's important to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that every person is different, which means there is
Speaker 1: no universal solution towards creating the perfect binaral recording that
Speaker 1: will convince every listener that they are hearing sounds coming
Speaker 1: from ultra specific directions. You kind of have to go
Speaker 1: more general to get a good response, but the more
Speaker 1: precise you try to get, the more the results will
Speaker 1: only work super well for a specific person, you know,
Speaker 1: whomever was modeled for, and not we're can quite as
Speaker 1: well for anyone else. For many years, the microphones used
Speaker 1: to create binaral recordings in studio were prohibitively expensive and
Speaker 1: far too complicated for the average consumer. You would occasionally
Speaker 1: find binaral recordings, such as the one at Disney World,
Speaker 1: but these were pretty rare and very specialized, and only
Speaker 1: big companies like Disney could afford to do them. However,
Speaker 1: over time, companies began to develop microphones that fell more
Speaker 1: into the range of the pro sumer, with some consumer
Speaker 1: level solutions thrown in there as well. Today, there is
Speaker 1: a range of microphones one can use to create three
Speaker 1: D audio. The microphone I used earlier in this episode
Speaker 1: is a three D I O binaral mike or three
Speaker 1: d OH if you prefer. You may have seen one
Speaker 1: of these if you watch a lot of a s
Speaker 1: MR videos. They are very popular. The microphone looks like
Speaker 1: a horizontal bar with two silicone ears attached to either
Speaker 1: end of that bar. The ears are spaced apart to
Speaker 1: mimic a typical human heads width. The three d OH
Speaker 1: doesn't have the mass of a head, it's just that
Speaker 1: bar in the ears. It doesn't have the sinus cavities
Speaker 1: or anything like that, so it is not a perfect
Speaker 1: simulacrum of a person's auditory system, but it gets the
Speaker 1: job done. That style of microphone typically retails for around
Speaker 1: four dollars, so it's a little bit on the pricey side,
Speaker 1: but it kind of falls between consumer and pro sumer. However,
Speaker 1: you can achieve similar results using totally different microphone setups.
Speaker 1: They typically require xl R microphones that connect to a
Speaker 1: recording device that can accept multiple inputs, recording each microphone
Speaker 1: to its own audio channel. It's possible to use two
Speaker 1: normal microphones and space them apart from each other and
Speaker 1: create a binaural experience, though it might take some experimentation
Speaker 1: to get the spacing and gain levels just right so
Speaker 1: that it all feels natural. Or of course, you could
Speaker 1: just do it in post, but like I said, that
Speaker 1: relies heavily on a ton of work on the back
Speaker 1: end of things, and a s MR artists are not
Speaker 1: the only ones using binaural audio. It's also useful for
Speaker 1: stuff like virtual reality experiences and video games. Sound is
Speaker 1: a powerful element that contributes to a sense of immersion,
Speaker 1: and in some games it's critically important. For example, you
Speaker 1: might play a first person shooter game like Player Unknowns
Speaker 1: battle Grounds, and you really need to use your ears
Speaker 1: to figure out where other players are in relation to
Speaker 1: where you are. Not doing so severely reduces your chances
Speaker 1: of making it through the game. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: learn more, I would recommend seeking out Old Tech Stuff
Speaker 1: episodes about surround sound, which relates to this topic quite
Speaker 1: a bit, and also our episodes about audio compression, as
Speaker 1: the process is designed to compress audio trying to take
Speaker 1: the psychology of perception into account. It's all fascinating stuff.
Speaker 1: As for three D audio, I figure i'd leave you
Speaker 1: all with a little bit of horror because three D
Speaker 1: audio works really well to immerse a listener into a world,
Speaker 1: and it is particularly well suited for tales of terror.
Speaker 1: Some of my coworkers used it to great effect in
Speaker 1: a series called Thirteen Days of Halloween, which we published
Speaker 1: last October. And so here is a little excerpt from
Speaker 1: the show they produced. Oh look at all the fun
Speaker 1: we're having in here. I just knew you do. We
Speaker 1: get along swimmingly? Oh, come with me, we'll catch up
Speaker 1: with you later. Diarhard. It is a truly sweet young man.
Speaker 1: I've been a doing to persuade him to see the
Speaker 1: good doctor about his cough, but he'll have none of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could be of service in that department. He
Speaker 1: really seemed to like you. Now, there are hundreds of
Speaker 1: rooms here in the Hawthorne, but this is perhaps the
Speaker 1: very finest, and it just so happens to be your waters.
Speaker 1: Was it luck or fate that placed you here? We'll
Speaker 1: never know. I trust that you'll find everything to your liking.
Speaker 1: And if you don't, notify me and I will make
Speaker 1: sure it is rectified. It's all part of my role
Speaker 1: here as the care taker. You know, your lack of
Speaker 1: verbal reciprocation is really breaking down my sense of boundaries.
Speaker 1: I can trust you, right of course I can. In
Speaker 1: He's coming days, you may notice that Hawthorne manner has
Speaker 1: no shortage of oddities. I've witnessed things myself that strain
Speaker 1: the belief. But there is one strange legend that has
Speaker 1: truly become something of an obsession. Supposedly that somewhere within
Speaker 1: these halls there is a hidden doorway. If the tale
Speaker 1: of what looks on the other side is to be believed,
Speaker 1: then gaining access would mean a sort of ascension beyond
Speaker 1: human imagination, true immortality. I have come to understand that
Speaker 1: one of our guests knows how to locate and open
Speaker 1: this door. Perhaps what they cannot say to me, they
Speaker 1: will happily divulge to you. I have a feeling your
Speaker 1: quiet fortitude will lure them into a sense of intimacy.
Speaker 1: It is certainly works on me. Please make yourself at home.
Speaker 1: After all, this is it, There are so many others
Speaker 1: I cannot wait for you to meet. Well. That wraps
Speaker 1: up this special episode of tech Stuff. Several of the
Speaker 1: I Heart shows are including some binaural audio segments, and
Speaker 1: we've got a lot planned in the three D audio
Speaker 1: space in the days up ahead. I really recommend you
Speaker 1: check it out and explore some of the three D
Speaker 1: audio recordings that are available online. You know that Disney
Speaker 1: one I mentioned, There are actually versions of that up
Speaker 1: on YouTube. People have the recordings up. I will say
Speaker 1: that when I was listening back, it sounded like the
Speaker 1: channels had been swapped. Everything that was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in my right ear seemed to be coming through the
Speaker 1: left ear. And I made sure that I was wearing
Speaker 1: the headphones directly. That's an important point, by the way.
Speaker 1: If you're not wearing your headphones with the proper phone
Speaker 1: over the proper ear, it's very disconcerting. I double checked
Speaker 1: I was doing it correctly. Everything still seemed flipped, and
Speaker 1: the effect was not nearly as impressive as it was
Speaker 1: when I went back to Disney. But I should also
Speaker 1: add the Disney version incorporated some stuff that headphones just
Speaker 1: can't do, stuff like a blower behind each person's back,
Speaker 1: so that when you're getting a haircut in that sequence,
Speaker 1: the hair dryer would actually blow air on you. So
Speaker 1: that would add to your sense of immersion. As it
Speaker 1: stands for me, if I'm listening to a very well
Speaker 1: recorded three D audio set up. Then if someone speaking
Speaker 1: quietly into my ear, it's as if I can feel it,
Speaker 1: because we have to remember sound when it gets down
Speaker 1: to it really are that's just vibration. Those vibrations include
Speaker 1: fluctuations and air pressure. So if you are listening to
Speaker 1: someone talk into your ear through a speaker, you will
Speaker 1: feel it because those are fluctuations in air pressure. It's
Speaker 1: not something you're imagining. You are feeling it. It might
Speaker 1: be heightened because of the way the audio was recorded,
Speaker 1: but it's actually happening to you. I think three D
Speaker 1: audio is an incredible technology. There's a lot more we
Speaker 1: could say about it, and not just from the technological side,
Speaker 1: but the psychological side and the biological side. So maybe
Speaker 1: I will do future episodes that will focus on this more.
Speaker 1: I hope I get a chance to play with the
Speaker 1: three D audio microphone more. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed doing that. I hope that I get
Speaker 1: to participate in some of the three D audio recordings
Speaker 1: that we have planned coming up, including some that are
Speaker 1: delving into different areas of fiction. I would love to
Speaker 1: do that, Honestly, I would love to do a full
Speaker 1: three D audio version of a Shakespeare are in play.
Speaker 1: It is something I have really wanted to do for
Speaker 1: a long time. I'm not even talking about necessarily being
Speaker 1: in it, although it would kill me not to be,
Speaker 1: but to be able to experience a three D audio
Speaker 1: version of one of Shakespeare's plays, to me, would be
Speaker 1: unbelievably amazing. So if you think that's interesting, you should
Speaker 1: write to my Heart and let them know, because I
Speaker 1: think it would be great. I wouldn't mind working on
Speaker 1: something like that, and let me know what play you
Speaker 1: think we should do. Honestly, I'm thinking like much ado
Speaker 1: about nothing. I think a comedy might be fun. But
Speaker 1: that wraps up this episode. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, or maybe you have thoughts about three D
Speaker 1: audio you would like to share, reach out to me.
Speaker 1: The best way to do that is on Twitter. My
Speaker 1: handle is text stuff hs W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio production. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. This episode was brought to
Speaker 1: you in I Heeart three D Audio. To experience more
Speaker 1: podcasts like this search for i Heeart three D audio
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