Binaural in Music

Summary

Binaural sound is an extremely interesting way of capturing audio and can help create a far more realistic experience for the listener. However, there are major drawbacks and challenges it faces, some of which are being addressed in order to move binaural sound forward and possibly increase its popularity. There is still a long way to go before it will be a common occurrence in music, virtual reality, radio or television or any other kind of media.

 

To sum up, the lack of binaural popularity can be demonstrated with this example. The following video, Figure 28, was a binaural in 360-degree experience of Beck’s recreation Sound and Vision by David Bowie. The 160-piece musical ensemble could be heard from any perspective from the centre of the stage, as seen by the hanging dummy head in the video (Watercutter, 2013). However, the 360-degree experience is no longer available anywhere and the performance can only be found in this video. This demonstrates how binaural audio is still yet to become popular despite its first development more than 70 years ago. Listen to the video with headphones to appreciate the full binaural experience.