Last Friday I decided to take a second visit to the Kinetica museum based on Ian’s description of Ray Lee’s and Jim Bond’s interesting sound experiments. Below are some photos I took, they didn’t come out that well due to the lack of light. I also took the liberty of recording some of the sound being produced by the exhibits, they came out relatively well considering I was using my phone.
01 JimBond_runningman.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 72K 02 RayLee_soundmachine.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 253K 03 RayLee_soundmills.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 164K 04 RayLee_soundorgan.jpg 04-Apr-2007 02:54 158K 05 Recording (1).amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 9.5K 06 Recording (2).amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 24K 07 Recording.amr 04-Apr-2007 02:54 83K
Here is a description of the files:
01. A Jim Bond sculpture. I like this work, all the lines of the body blend into the wires holding the character up which double up as indications of movement.
02. Part of a Ray Lee sound sound piece. This machine produces Dr. Who-like sounds depending on the disruption of the field produced by the antenna. Ray Lee has built automated arms that disrupt the field. You can hear this clearly in the file ‘Recording (2).amr’.
03. This is a fantastic Ray Lee sound sculpture. Structures of various heights emitting a variety of tones from speakers mounted on rotating arms produces an eerie atmosphere in the dimly lit space.
04. This is the whole piece of which photo 02 was a part. The other part seen in this photo is an organ being played by robotic fingers controlled by electric motors and cams.
05. A short recording of a mixture of the exhibits.
06. A good recording of the piece in photo 02.
07. A fairly lengthy recording of the sound sculpture in photo 03. About two thirds of the way through I walked over to another Dr. Who-like sound machine that was on display.
This would have been a great place to take a binaural sound recorder. It would have been a really interesting experiment to record the sounds in this exhibit binaurally, then produce a 3d anaglyph animation that represents the sounds visually.
Related Links:
I decided to go down to Aldgate East and see if I could find the Janet Cardiff walk that I mentioned in an earlier post. When we got there it seemed as though the library was closed, so we decided to have a look in the gallery and ask if they knew anything about it. The whole building was going through refurbishments, there was only one video exhibit in the gallery. We asked the woman at the desk and she said they they were still doing the walk from there. £135 x2 deposit later on my credit card and we were off. Due to the fact the walk is supposed to start in the library, we had to wait outside the library doors until the walk caught up. What followed was a wonderful journey around Aldgate East / Brick Lane / Liverpool St from the unique perspective of Janet Cardiff. It was really difficult to tell sometimes if what you were hearing was from the street around you or the recording!
It is definitely something I would recommend to anyone. Notes: Bring the best quality headphones you can find, also you get your deposit back, so it is really free.
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Wikipedia article for Binaural Recording
The Binaural Source. Pretty good articles and projects
Holophonic.ch – A good site with news and info on everything holophonic
Etude Number
2
Your name
Russell Etheridge
Your Pathway Combination
Digital Arts Specialist
The title of your etude
Binaural Test
A short statement of intentions
I want to see if I can create my own binaural recording. Although it may not be possible to re-create the method in which Hugo Zuccarelli records Holophonic interference patterns of sound, it may be possible to create some kind of 3D spacial audio experience.
Conceptualisation of the work
When conceptualising this etude, the first thing I noted was that any difference between the two recording devices would ruin any 3D effect created. At first I envisioned using two identical microphones spaced equal distance apart as human ears, however it proved to be very difficult (or expensive) to organise two mics at the same time. Reaching this barrier I started thinking of alternative routes to my goal. I knew that any speaker can act as a microphone, so I thought why can’t I use a pair of ear phones as two identical microphones? I then realised that most mic inputs are mono and if you plug a pair of earphones into a mic input you only receive a signal from the left ear piece.
After a bit of brainstorming with my audio expert friend we realised that a couple of years ago we both purchased identical headphones. Below is a sketch of how I imagined the recording device to work.
Put simply, both left channels of the headphones are strapped to a balloon blown up to roughly the same size as a human head. The balloon will be strapped to a crutch for support, and a microphone stand will hold up the crutch
Describe and depict what the actual concept of the etude is.
The purpose of this etude is to discover how easy it is to record a relatively good binaural experience. It is also to discover whether the patented version of holophonic sound invented by Hugo Zuccarelli is simply binaural sound with a few bells and whistles. By creating a successful binaural recording with two sets of headphones will prove that such an elaborate process like holophonic is unnecessary.
When you say three dimensional, most people will imagine a 3d space or object with their minds eye. Your ears tend to be overlooked as a detector of 3D space, but they are very good at locating the position of a sound. The way ears do this is not entirely known, but its is amazing that even people with one ear can pin point the origin of a noise. I think this is a very useful area of study and extremely relevant to the 3D Hybrids module. I believe that if this technology becomes advanced enough we will eventually be able to do away with the ever increasing number of speakers in our living rooms and cinemas. Then in time to come, instead of Dolby releasing their new 255.1 speaker system we will have just two audio sources capable of replicating incredible 3D surround sound.
On completion I hope to give the audience of the sound file the same experice (or very similar) as what was happening in the room where the sound was being recorded. I am hoping the listener will be able to visualise the sound sources moving in the room around them.
Documentation of Technical and Artistic Process
After a bit of discussion the design of the recording device was changed to this:
Put simply, both left channels of the headphones were put on one headband, which was then put facing outwards on my head.
A few friends came round, armed with some noisy objects (a shaker, a bongo and a guitar) we were ready to record.
Below is the sound file we created, listen to it with headphones:
References
Documentation of references can be found in the following blog category:
Holophonic Sound Blog Category
How successful is the etude?
The audio created by the setup is better quality than I anticipated. It is possible to detect the position of the instruments but mainly when they are right next to the listeners ears. When the instruments are further away it becomes difficult to determine the direction. Also when we recorded the instruments they were moving vertically as well as horizontally, although in the recording it is not possible to tell when the instruments change in vertical position. With Hugo Zuccarelli’s matches holophonic test it is possible to tell exactly where the sound is coming from even if it is above or below you.
I would definitely like to look into this topic further and perhaps expand it into something more interesting than simple spacial audio tests. It would be great to combine this with my research into anaglyphs and create some kind of combined 3D visual and 3D audio experience.
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Cardiff is a Canadian born artist who specialises in binaural technologies. A couple of my friends told me about her. They had recently experienced one of her exhibitions where you put on a pair of earphones and follow a prerecoded binaural walk around Aldgate East. There will be points that try to trick you and give you a sense of things around you that aren’t really happening, such as cars that aren’t there or someone following you.
Similar Event in Washington D.C.
Below is a link to a review of the Aldgate East audio walk. Iwill try and do this at some point.
Cardiff Aldgate East Binaural Walk Review
Here is a link to a similar kind of event in London. It is on a blog dedicated to binaural events, cd’s and podcasts:
Filed under: Holophonic Sound
Holophonic sound is when, through a special process of recording, an illusion of realistic sound placement is created. The basic idea behind this is to place two microphones at a distance apart equal to the distance between your ears. This in particular is called binaural recording. Taken a little further, placing the microphones in a head shaped object with the mics where the ears would be, would produce a fairly realistic result.
Hugo Zuccarelli…
A more advance version of this type of recording, called ‘holophonic’ invented by Hugo Zuccarelli, is where he creates an interference pattern and mixes it with a barely audible reference signal. This is basically the same principal as the way holograms are captured. The results are spectacular. You have to listen to this with headphones / earphones, it won’t work on speakers: Holophonic Demo MP3
