Holophonics

[The Frenchman 0]

While browsing another forum, I came across this thread that had sound samples of holophonics, which gives the illusion that something is above and below you when listening to recorded sound. It's hard to explain in words so I would suggest trying it out for yourselves.

Note: You need to keep your eyes closed and use headphones or it won't work good or at all.

Matches

Various

Woman whispering

I dont know but its cool!

I'd like to see more games with this kind of technology if there is any.

[hellfish6 7]

Cool stuff.

[Myst9999 0]

Wow, freaky.

Yet very cool

[Necromancer- 0]

You need at least stereo for that...

[Daniel 0]

Very cool. The first one with the matches is the best.

[Mr_Tea 0]

That`s working like the X-FI soundchip from Creative.

A sound from behind sounds different than a sound that is in front of you. Based on that, you can produce real surround sound with an ordinary stereo headphone.

[LoTekK 0]

This is pretty nifty, though Disney did something like this a loooooong time ago, after the release of that horrible Rocketeer movie, whose only saving grace was a fine-lloking Jennifer Connely. Anyways, they had this audiotape that came with a 3D comic depicting the movie, and the audio, with stereo headphones, was a really good approximation of the full 360x360 degrees of sound. Not quite as precise as this one, but the tech was there nonetheless.

[ebns72 0]

That is so cool! It sounds so real.

The last one sounds like a blowdryer or something. Whats weird is when it sounded like it was above me I felt my nerves/hairs stiffen just like they would in real life.

Would love to see this implemented in games.

[kavoven 4]

Amazing... I felt like a child playing his first time with snow or something...wow

[xawery 0]

This is pretty nifty, though Disney did something like this a loooooong time ago, after the release of that horrible Rocketeer movie, whose only saving grace was a fine-lloking Jennifer Connely.

That's hardly surprising, seeing as the technology has been around for 23 years. Pink Floyd even used it on one of their albums in 1986 (or so the website says ). To those of you who haven't already done so, I suggest you take a look at the developer's website http://www.holophonic.ch/whats.php. There's some interesting stuff there. For example, the developers had commissioned an experiment to test whether holophonic sounds was emotionally more evocative than 'regular' stereo. Quite a nice read

[theavonlady 2]

You don't need to close your eyes. It's like ghosts in the room!

[PriMo_ 0]

wow! I bought 5.1 system why? So the X-Fi audiocard does this? Because then I'm sure I'll buy it.

[sputnik monroe 102]

That was interesting, I'll admit it only worked for me when I wore headphones. Plus I have an ear infection and can barely hear out my left ear at the moment so I'm sure that had a detrimental effect on how well it worked for me. Nonetheless the matches sounded like they were moving up and down in addition to moving left and right. There was one point where it sounded like the rattling box moved behind my head as they moved from the right to left, that only occurred once for me though. I never did get the sensation of the sound moving out in front of me. Once again though, my hearing is messed up at the moment.

 The matches worked great but the other sound files simply sounded like left to right stereo to me.

 This isn’t my first experience with holophonics. I use to have the Pink Floyd album mentioned in this thread that included holophonics. The said album is titled “The Final Cut†and personally It’s the only Floyd album I dislike. That said I had later heard about holophonics and that that particular album utilized holophonic sound.  That and that alone was able to make me give the album a second chance.

 If you have the Final Cut the best part of the album that demonstrates holophonic sound is at the beginning of the track titled “Get your filthy hands off my desertâ€. With headphones on you hear the following exchange

1. From a distance in front of you you’ll here a deranged man shout “Keep your filthy hands off my desert!â€

2. Next you’ll hear an English sounding fellow to the side of you say “Wot eh say?â€

3. Finally, (the most impressive part) you’ll here a roaring rocket sound from a distance in front of you that passes over your head cumulating with a large explosion sound in the room, hall, backyard or neighbors house behind you.

 It truly impressed me. I mean the rocket really sounds like it comes from in front of you flies over your head and explodes behind you. Couldn’t save that album from stinking though.

 Apparently holophonics has something to do with the shape of the human skull and how it reacts to sound. It’s above me how the concept works, but I’m really surprised that it never really caught on. Very few albums use the process and it seems to mostly exist in demonstration format such as the MP3s linked to at the beginning of this thread.

[Sniperwolf572 758]

Well, the membranes vibrating in my headphones when the girl talked in my ear produced effect like she was really there, I could feel the air like someone was breathing or something.

Also I agree with Avon, when you do open your eyes it really sounds like ghosts.

My headset is kinda nice because you can actually forget that you're wearing them, and then it really sounds awesome.

[chops 111]

Gee whiz! That whispering made me a bit jumpy, listening to it all alone at midnight. I had to turn around a couple of times, just to check...

[DBR_ONIX 0]

Hm, their pretty impressive (The match one espically)..

Can't wait for them to be implemented into games.. Though one problem I'm not sure about is, how does it sound on speakers, mainly surround sound setups (How about 5.1 headphones? ).. If it sounds horrible, it'll be unlikey most companys will implement a sound technique (Assuming that's what it is..)

Also, how difficult is this to record? It must not be completely simple, otherwise it would have been used a lot more by now (Yeh theres similar things done all the time for sudo-surround-sound in most games, but this seems far more impressive..)

- Ben

[Eda Mrcoch 0]

Albeit it is impressive, I do not think that this can be made dynamic (sound changing as you change yours direction or position ingame) and therefore useful for 3D gaming. The sounds are just recorded on special equipment once and probably nothing can be done with them afterwards. Maybe I'm wrong.

[ade_mcc 0]

As mentioned above, the demonstrations work much much better on headphones, the reason being that the recording can dictate exactly what information goes to the left and the right ear. Using loudspeakers, there is much less control due to speaker location, head orientation and the effect of the acoustics within the room you are in. It is correct that in real life what you hear in one ear as opposed to the other is determined by your head shape and how it delays/shaddows sound and therefore how well these demonstations work is determined by how close your head shape is to the head used to create these sounds.

It is an opinion that in a market that is currently dominated by graphics, that the next big leap in game development will be an incredible sound environment.

Cheers,

Ade McC BSc(Hons) Acoustics

[BlackScorpion 0]

Sorry to dig a bit... well, here's a small story of a little incident that happened to me last week.

I had uploaded the "Matches" .mp3 to my MP3-player just the evening before so I wasn't used to the order of the audio files yet. So, I was walking home from school, with the player on and suddenly I heard someone lighting up a match. I looked around and saw nothing. Kept on walking and it took me about five to ten secs to realize that it was actually the .mp3!

So, as a conclusion, you might want to test these outside, too. Empty, not-so-big places, i.e. path in a forest or a park (with lots of trees) work quite well, haven't tested in night time yet, though.

[EiZei 0]

haven't tested in night time yet, though.

Ever tried closing your eyes?

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

pah, those of us who grew up with voices in our heads are used to this stuff. Nothing special!

[crashdome 3]

Hmmm... I must have faulty ears. Sure it isn't partially due to the fact it was stated what the demonstration was that people are hearing it so clearly?

I tried really hard, but all I heard was left and right sounds. To make sure I wasn't being to critical (which I often am :P ) I called in my girlfriend and without telling her what to listen for I asked her what was being demonstrated and she said "sounds moving left and right". After I told her it was a demonstration of sounds above and below she said it wasn't that effective.

I have to agree unfortunately.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

it is the same old trick they use in WWII movies. When a Messerschmidt flies up the sound goes up and when it goes down the sound goes down too.

Thats what they do with the matches as well. The sound goes up, implying the matches are above you and it goes down when they are supposed to be below you!

Not that tricky after all!

[dmakatra 1]

I'm using a 5.1 headset (or maybe 7.1, can't really remember ) and it sounds fecking cool. The matches was... like... inside me!