For my final year assignment of my Bachelor of Audio Production I made a project called 3D Man Project. The purpose was to recommend a new music release format where the listener would be able to enjoy the experience of being in the studio with their favourite artists. This would be achieved by recording bands using a technique called Binaural Recording.

band recording on a studio

Binaural Recording is done using a pair of microphones, arranged in a way that mimics human hearing. When played back through headphones the listener has the experience of being in the place where the recording was made. It's a similar process to making 3D video, hence binaural audio is sometimes referred to as 3D audio.

One of the most famous examples of binaural recording is the Virtual Barber Shop demo (make sure you're wearing headphones):

You can hear some examples of the recordings I made for this project below:

Great Western - Express Yourself (Madonna cover)

Great Western - Not Enough

Casket Radio - Shakin' All Over (Johnny Kidd & the Pirates cover)

Casket Radio - Overloading

These recordings were made using a binaural dummy head I built following an online tutorial. It involved attaching a pair silicone ears to a mannequin head and inserting a pair of binaural microphones into a couple of plastic tubes, attached to each ear of the dummy head. I called it John.

Binaural dummy head If you're gonna build a binaural dummy head, why not do it with some style?

Binaural recording is not a new technique. Dummy head microphones aren't new either (though I have yet to see one built out of a silver mannequin head). So I thought, why not add a pair of cameras as John's eyes and record 3D video along with 3D audio! Genius, right? Sadly, it didn't work that well. It was pretty hard getting the position of the cameras right. It was also hard keeping them it place. Finally, I found it hard to find people willing to sit still for more than a few minutes, listening to audio through headphones while watching something on a screen, wearing red/cyan 3D glasses. Go figure.

I had a whole marketing campaign almost ready to go on Kickstarter. You can watch the teaser video below:

Although I don't think 3D audio & video will become the norm for media playback in the near future, I still think it's a great experience for the cinema, theme parks and even for the home of tech geeks like myself.