More BINAURAL fun! Chicago's Magnificent Mile!

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Phloodpants

New member
Just did this one today around lunchtime.


Warning: 22MB!

Again, you must use headphones for this! The better they are, the more realistic this will sound.

It starts out with me walking up to the corner of Michigan and Ohio. I stand there for a while as cars go whizzing by, and pedestrians mill around me and talk. There is a traffic cop ahead and to my right in the middle of the intersection. I'm standing close to the curb and at one point a bus passes in front of me. You can really hear the reflections off buildings!

I should've taken my own picture, but here is the same corner. I was standing by the building on the left with the rounded corner, facing into the street.
magmile.jpg


I then take a stroll a few blocks up Michigan Ave. It's a hot day and there are lots of businesspeople and tourists about.

I am making a bit of commentary along the way, but it gets drowned out mostly.

There is a homeless man selling "Streetwise". (a newspaper produced by the homeless) He's seems to be suffering from schizophrenia. I think his mantra is "streetwise" sped up about a thousand times. What the "chorus" of his chant is, I can't tell. Speculation anyone? Whatever it is, it makes a good beat and if anyone is an electronic music artist, have at it!

I then walk across the street to the east side and walk back to Ohio Street.
 
what a riot...I like the cars 'swooshing' by in stereo. the whistle is "there"...isn't it?? like loud and THERE!! coolll stufff
 
Another killer recording.The first car horn scared the S#$! out of me!This sounds better than street sounds on DVD surround sound movies.Definetly cool.
 
Some very familiar sounds I know all too well. I can hear the CTA buses pulling up every so often, and what sounds like some of the tourist types checking out the shops.

Sounds like the chicks were out in full force. :)

So do you work in the loop, Phlood?
 
Yeah, the girls were out... hot day. Oy!

I worked in the loop a few years ago, doing PC field support.

Now I work in Rosemont, but today I had the day off...
 
God that is so coooool!!!! I'm really impressed with the quality of the sound. That's a Marantz recorder?
Man when you get a few more of these....is there any way I could get them on a cd? PM me if that might be possible.
Really good work man.
 
Excellent stuff !! Shurely some of these ambience sounds could be used in songs to give them a live feel.

Love that sound of the sirens in the distance... heaps of detail !

Kramer: I know what you mean about those horns. Still scared me even though I had due warning !

More please.

Maybe we could get together some other binaural recordings from other countries ? Like a virtual sound tour ?
 
Lt. Bob, yes it's a Marantz PMD-650 Minidisc recorder. It's a pro model designed mainly for news gathering, but as you can tell, it is well designed and sounds great! I love it. It's got XLR mic inputs with phantom power, digital in AND out, manual level control and lots of features designed to protect your data. For example, in mono mode, it records a duplicate copy on the right channel that is -15db from the left channel, so if you clip, you've got a backup!
http://www.marantzpro.com/Marantz/PMD650/index.htm

Be sure to check out http://www.quietamerican.org/ for a guy who's done a lot more of this than me!

I'll be compiling a CD of this stuff once I have enough material.
 
They are home made using Panasonic WM-61 omni condenser capsules. I take a foam earplug, cut it to half length, burn a small hole in the end with a soldering iron and glue the capsule inside. It fits right into my ear canal.

Then it goes out to a simple 9V power supply in a little black box. The signal runs unbalanced for just a few feet and no noise is picked up.
 
Cool.:)

I still get the sense that most of the sounds are traveling through my head rather than in front or back. When they're off to either side, though, they sound very realistic.

Headphone quality isn't the only issue. More important to localization is how closely the listeners head and pina (external ear) resemble your own. We all grow up with our own ears and that's what we base our spatial cues on.

The street salesman is really fucking cool.

Great job Phloodpants!

barefoot
 
Barefoot, I wish I had a statistically average head! Yours is probably different enough from mine to throw it off a bit.

Most people I have played it for have found it utterly convincing.

Also, I think there is a psychological effect of not actually being there. If you go to a street scene like this in real life and close your eyes, things seem more stereo than you would expect.
 
That makes a lot of sense.

To me, it's almost frightening, because that's what I hear every day. When he says he's at the corner of Michigan and Ohio, or in front of the Eddie Baurer building, I can get a mental picture in my head that really enhances things, since I know how wide the streets are, where the canopies are . . . I know where the whistle is coming from, what direction the cars are traveling, etc. And when the bus pulls up, it's such a familiar sound, I can tell where he is and how far away in relation to it, because I often get on those very buses.

And it's chilling to listen to.
 
I gotta ask... did you get any funny looks from people ? I spose it just looked like you had a walkman on steroids ?!
 
BiNaural Recordings of Amsterdam

It's funny to hear Chicago again. I moved from Chicago to Amsterdam to study sound at SAE here. I have been making binaural recordings of Amsterdam for my own amusement/samples. I have some train stations, cars on a rainy day, and birds so far.

I still have to get the sound of a tram. I still have to get the sound of a rave from outside the building too.

I'll MP3 them and put them up.
 
Please do! I'd like to hear them!

I'd also like to hear Nieuwendijk Straat when it's bustling with people late at night! Also, the hordes of bicycles from a morning commute would be cool. Maybe from Dam Square?

What equipment do you use?

Dres, I don't get too many funny looks from people, except that I do somewhat strange stuff like stand perfectly still at intersections, and when the light turns, I still don't move... It basically looks like a walkman on steroids, yes. One woman looked at me and smirked. I think she reccognized that I had a recorder.
 
Man, you have got me searching the web for BINAURAL sound sites! This stuff is truly incredible!

Thanks for sharing this! I love 3D sound!
 
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