The future of music: the immersive sound revolution

In recent years there have been many innovations around sound, creating new ways of capturing audio and delivering it to listeners in a different way. Virtual Reality has had a lot to do with accelerating these advances as it is necessary for the sound to rotate around us realistically for an immersive experience. Obviously this extends to any field, from a movie theater to using headphones at home, the goal is always the same: to create an immersive experience, as realistic as possible.

If it’s a movie where you’re on a beach, the goal is to recreate the sound as if you were really there, listening to the waves in the background in front of you and the sound of the jungle behind you. If it’s a classical concert of a orchestra, to be able to differentiate each of the instruments in space, as you would if you were there. One of the great protagonists of this immersive revolution is the 3D sound.

The process is divided into two parts. On one side is the sound capture. Traditionally the recording methods were mono (one microphone) and stereo (two microphones with some separation between them). The same happens with sound reproduction: it can be through one speaker or through two (headphones) or more (5.1 for example). If we focus on the recording, the 3D sound is achieved using two special microphones, with cavities similar to the ears, being able to capture and process the sound as we (humans) would do. The best known are the 3DIO.

For many years, 3D sound has made possible to create semi-immersive experiences using headphones. The classic video of the barbershop is a clear example. The limitation is that the sound can only oscillate from right to left and vice versa, but never from top to bottom. Another problem is that if you turn your head the sound turns with you, which is fine for the barbershop game but in an immersive experience, you totally lose the feeling of being inside.

One of the most interesting experiences I’ve heard lately has been what they call 8D audio, I’m sure you also got the audio or video (above) from Dilbar — AR Rahman (thanks Alex!). It’s nothing different than 3D sound but vitaminated by algorithms that trick your brain to get a much greater spatial feeling. Jaime Altozano, a truly outstanding guy, gives a great explanation about how it works.

As Jaime teaches in his video, last year Google has released an audio software development kit, Resonance Audio, specifically designed to make 3D audio for 360, VR and AR easier to achieve. Probably many of the songs that are being uploaded use similar tools, something that is super interesting even though the use that is being given now is simply a game, since it moves all the sound (and not parts of it) and doesn’t have a specific purpose except to generate a surprise effect. Obviously the Google Resonance Audio for VR experiences with an ad-hoc created sound is an amazing tool.

On the other hand, in the reproduction of sound, the algorithms that trick our brain are saving the hardware limitations that we currently have at home to get real 3D sound, but there are many people working on them. I was backer of OSSIC X that proposed a super powerful solution with head-tracking for the sound to move independent from you and although they got funding and had working prototypes, in the end they canceled the project … There are other alternatives like Nuraphone but none has find the key. Apart from headphones, there are directional sound bars (I was lucky to try Future Worlds) but they have many limitations. If you want to know more innovative sound solutions, check out this article by Amelia Kallman on IBC which is full of links.

Without a doubt, the future of sound is in bringing quality audio to the listener but above all in creating more realistic and immersive experiences of what you are listening to. Expectant on how it will evolve.

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