The Binaural Source ::

Binaural Sounds Like -

as defined by Wikipedia.

Sound Examples:

Binaural Music

Mike Skeet's binaural recording collection
feature Jazz, humor, birds, trains and a great deal of reading too.

Environmental Recordings:

Two recordings, cow with bells and a thunderstorm can be found on this page. The the sounds were recorded with the sennheiser MKE2002 model binaural microphones.

Visit, browse, and listen at the official site of Emmy Award winner Gordon Hempton, The Sound Tracker®.
This is your source for high quality nature & environmental CD's,
made one at a time and signed by the artist. Top drawer listening,
website, and foundational philosophy.

Personal performances by UK recording artist Dallas Simpson
.
These are extracts of complete works that are available as CD Audio and
include seascapes, woodland walks, and urban zone recordings.

Links given as part of the Quiet American Project Pages

Sounds of a walk through Califormia

DSM™* Headworn or HRTF Baffle Mounted Microphones
fully utilize the natural psycho-acoustical cues involved in normal
spatial hearing of ambient surround sound. DSM™ is NOT a traditional
Binaural recording method. As such, DSM™ mics DO NOT have the
headphones only playback limitations typical of Binaural
"in-or-very-near-ear" microphone methods.

(See Dimensional Stereo/Surround Mic (DSM"™!) US.Pat. No 4,819,270) 4.6MB Sound Sample Clip birds and flys against peace and quiet and full page of downloads and sources at [http://www.sonicstudios.com/mp3.htm|]. Includes very nice natural environments like , some very social frogs in California, and a noisy but nice sound picture, proudly presented, of a Barred Owl captured in Maryland. Each of the clips includes complete equipment used in recording information.

Field Recordings

The FreeSound Project present binaural recordings here
Be sure to take a look at the rest of the site, especially the Human
Readable Creative Commons License under Legal in the Information menu
on the left-hand side of the screen.

The World of Darren
has a Phonography page that has images along with the binaurally
recorded sound. More enlightening for my was the "Videos" menu
selections which up the bandwidth needed by delivering the video with
the binaural sound recording. This combination recording enhances the
video and preserves the audio perspective while wearing headphone style
microphones or in-ear mics and is a terrific way to avoid carrying or
planting a "dummyhead".

Google Map with New York sounds. Cool idea, neat trip, worth a listen. Binaural recording? Who cares?

A small online discussion discloses a great deal of information and tips about do-it-yourself binaural recording.

Here is a whole page of tips and tricks on making your own rig.

Scientific Principle Demonstrations:

Plug in some headphones,
click on each of the ears pictured on this page, and listen to a 3D
sound as effected by various shaped pinna (outer ear structure).

This is the most interesting sound demonstration involving binaural
sound. I believe it demonstrates the brain processing capabilities that
are important to the dimensional quality of sounds. The text ibelow is
copied from this page which explains the Huggins Pitch:

The Huggins Pitch
is produced such that the three pitches are played in succession (400
to 440 Hz first, 500 to 550 second, and 600 to 660 third), each for one
second following a section of noise without a dichotic pitch. That is,
the sounds appear in this order: noise, 400-440 Hz pitch, 500-550 Hz
pitch, 600-660 Hz pitch.

Listen carefully and you should hear a faint increase in pitch. You may
have to listen several times. If you have trouble hearing the pitches
(and it does take some listening practice for some people), try
listening to the Narrow Band demo below. Also try listening for an
image toward one ear or the other.

If
you do hear the three pitches, listen again through only one headphone.
You will no longer be able to hear the pitches. Try listening through
the other headphone. Again, you will not hear the pitches. Thus, only
binaural listening allows you to hear the pitches.

The set of sound demonstrations was so compelling
for me, I spent hours looking for it and realized after the search that
the hidden nature of the pages made the task take a good deal longer.

Ambisonics Home Page
saves the higher mathematics until after an overview of listening and
recording basics. This page is clearly from a recording engineer's
perspective.

Binaural Beats

I was ready to restart play with the SID chip of the recent joystick
reincarnation of the C-64 until I stumbled across the significant
contributions of Jim Peters and his binaural beat sound generation utilities and information. Jim recommends Centerpointe
because they've done a great deal of research into binaural beats,
concentrating more on improving overall well-being and holistic
functioning rather than reaching unusual states, and recommends
reading some of the articles on their site (look under "Site Map", for
example their Special Report: "How The Holosync Technology Works" and
their FAQ). I haven't had time to use the materials they sent along
after I responded to their feedback.

Wikipedia provides links (along with a warning) to brain wave effecting examples.

Break Glass if More Information Is Needed:

[http://www.isvr.soton.ac.uk/FDAG/vap/

BETTER BINAURAL RECORDINGS USING THE REAL HUMAN HEAD

Panu Maijala

Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio Signal Processing

Helsinki University of Technology

P.O.Box 3000, 02015 HUT, FINLAND

Tel: +358 9 451 2479 Fax: +358 9 460 224

Email: Panu.Maijala@iki.fi

A page of sound files
related to research projects of the Laboratory of Acoustics and Audio
Signal Processing at the Helsinki University of Technology in the
fields of Physical Modeling, Model-Based? Sound Synthesis, Auralization, etc.

Behavioral and Psychophysical Research

Aurally Accurate Recording and Playback, Signal Analysis, Sound Design, Noise Protection Head Acoustics.

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~wareing/3daudio.htm#Ambisonics Page with many links for/on ambiophonics]

Index Page for Sound Demonstrations

A number of "physics of sound" lessons with examples nicely integrated to illustrate the point.

Reviews of binaural recordings and process on page.

More reviews along with an explanation of the recording process.

http://headwize.com/
A headphone resource site; non-commercial information about everything
to do with headphones: large headphone FAQ section, educational links,
library archives, simple circuits for hooking up headphones, commercial
links. Any answers you don't find here at THE BINAURAL SOURCE you'll
probably find at HeadWize!

Discussion of Head Related Transfer Function or HRTF is worth the read, maybe for you too. A look at one person's journey from interest to recording is some detail. Wikipedia - The Head Related Transfer Function.

Off On Other Tracks:

Equipment and Technique

Headwise covers the essential binaural listening equipment - headphones.

Core Sounds most popular binaural recording kit information and ordering details.

Using a Computer to process - This Australian site sells computer rigs and categorizes a great deal of mid-level information. Worth the read, viewing of pictures, and visit.

Piano piece processed in three different ways provides an introduction to the University of York Music Technology Research Group.

Wikipedia - The Head Related Transfer Function.

The Utimate Spatial Audio Index has a ton of informational links many of which are dead.

Class Examples Tom Erbe . studio director . lecturer in computer music at USCD. Lots of listening material.

Arny Krueger provides free access to do-it-yourself audio quality listening double blind testing software. Shedding light by means of the combustion of snake oil is the byline of this information-rich and to the point web stop.

Tchad Blake, American engineer and producer discusses the advantages of binaural music recordings. A Sound-on-Sound magazine hosted article. Tour the site while you are there or bookmark the location for later use.

Critical review of binaural recording philosophically objects to and expands the possibilities of binaural experiences.

Stereo Sphere Microphone KFM 6 - the smaller version: KFM 360 offers a way to capture without carrying a head-like figure. Just a ball! You can navigate the site to find the other versions.

Becoming a "dummy head" recordist:

Head Acoustics Web Site Get your recording head on!
U.S.
Distributors of the Aachen HEAD Acoustics binaural systems, used both
for precise sound measurement and for commercial recordings.

How to make a binaural stealth mic with an old pair of headphones for around $4 using Radio Shack parts.

http://www.minidisc.org/homemade_mics.html DIY binaural build projects from binaural recording fan Doug Brown.

Users of Binaural microphones make comments to the people at Core Sound, a respected distributor of binaural equipment that seems a little smaller than the other respected major supplier, Sound Professionals.

http://www.klangraeume24.de/
German record label recording much of their catalog in binaural using
an Aachen Head Acoustics system. THE BINAURAL SOURCE exclusively
carries all of their binaural CDs.

Lalila's Home,
and offering a very high level approach to the Art of sound recording.
High fidelity ambisonic microphone hardware hacking, spatial audio,
software, and composition are all covered in detail.

You'll listen for hours! Much information and many recordings all made using DSM™

PDF on Binaural is well presented and contains many worthwhile links and resources.

Books and Readings:

Taking Sound In Another Direction
- Binaural Barracade Against The Audio Police by John Sunier. This is a
more precise statement of the book-sized treatment that follows.

Ambiophonics is related to Binaural Recording?
A book length discussion of the state of the art with emphasis on the
audiophile angles. The proof for the thesis that only two recorded
channels are necessary is delivered along with the necessary solution
for the riddle of delivery without the use of headphones. The rest of
the website deserves attention too.

Tutorial:

"The Sonic CD-ROM for Desktop Audio Production"

Author: Durand R. Begault

Publisher: Academic Press Professional

ISBN 0-12-084738-8 $44.95

Mac and PC version on one disc

Phone Order: 1-800-321-5068

Workshop / Curriculum Listing gives you an idea of what you may have missed in the gear area technology.

Other 3-D Sound Technologies

Karlheinz Brandenburg, one of the inventors of the MP3 format
and the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Technology, has
served up new superrealistic audio technology called Iosono that he
hopes will revolutionize sound in theaters, theme parks, and eventually
the home. http://news.com.com/MP3+creator+returns+with+3D+sound/2100-1026_3-5280535.htmlMore on Iosono.

Hugo Zuccarelli and Holophonics - lots of text and mysterious explanations of the recording technology you can license. Do your own Google search or use this Google Search.

Out of Category

Patented one speaker reproduction of binaural recordings is suggested.

http://www.philomel.com/musical_illusions/description.html#scale You probably have lots of experience with optical illusions. This page will start you down the road to experiencing auditory illusions.

http://www.ambisonic.net/links.html

Out of category and slightly beyond the fringe, probably, you'll find
link here to ambisonic bootlegs. You'll have to download a player and
get to know bitorrent techniques but you might find the exercise
worthwhile and will definitely go further for more detail than you may
have wanted. Learning never ends, so they say.

The following links were Contributed by Simone Fontana and will be integrated later during editing:

Binaural Art & MUSIC:

http://www.dallasmasters.co.uk/dallas/home.shtml

http://www.dieter.loos.com/tb/tchadb.htm

http://www.quietamerican.org/disc_vox_americana.html

http://www.myspace.com/igneousflame

http://fairlights.alphabetset.net/

Audio Dramas

http://www.zbs.org/

Hearing Aids

http://www.isvr.co.uk/reprints/6824-R01.pdf#search=%22hearing%20aids%20head%20acoustics%20dummy%20head%22

Acoustic noise
measurement