Verticle Hearing: Is it just an illusion?

[the sinner]

2 speakers, (say heaphones). We all know there is a spectrum of panning from left to right but is there one from the top to bottom?

[nikkik]

Hi!

Cool thread!

 

I personally feel that when mixing, you are "placing" things in a three dimensional space. Close you reyes. Can you picture the band playing? The orchestra? Or is it a single singer, and can you picture where they are standing...or sitting?

 

As far as vertically...well, I guess that is a matter of perception. In a smaller fixed space, with enough going on, do we have the ability to pinpoint in that manner? If we stand outside, and someone yells to us from the 12th story of a building in th emiddle of a city of tall buildings, we can easily determine the sound is coming from above us, and come close (if not dead on) to pinpointing from exactly where. How would you recreate that in a recording?

 

With a visual accompaniment, we are *tricked* into "hearing" the sound from a height of 12-stories in a movie. But, if that single piece of dialogue were played with no visual reference, and played on speakers at ear level in a normal size living room, what vertical perception would we have? Would it sound like someone shouting down from that 12th story? Or would it simply sound like someone yelling from SOMEWHERE on a busy city street, with the voice echoing off of the surrounding buildings' walls?

 

With a mix, say a stereo mix, we can place things side-to-side and front-to-back. Would it then be the simple association of higher pitches being...well, higher in vertical relation, and lower sounds being closer to the "virtual ground" of the space we create when we listen (much like the virtual landscaping we do when reading a fiction novel)?

 

Really interested to hear others' opinions on this one! :D

[dkgross]

oooh..cool thread...gonna have to do some reading about this...I remember reading about some surround-sound headphones that tricked your ears into that kind of depth/height perceptions...

[transitionalphase]

Holophony is a 3D sound recording technique which uses a technique where an original recording is combined with a reference recording. The result is an extremely lifelike three dimensional audio recording which has been said to exceed the realism of stereo sound.

 

holophonic sound can be pretty realistic. put on a pair of headphones, close your eyes and listen to this:

 

http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/holophonics.html