ZYLIA Blog

What is binaural and Ambisonics sound?

4/15/2021

Some of you, who came across the term ‘3D sound’, probably are wondering what it actually is?
Intuitively, we may understand it by analogy to 3D space, which as we know is made up of three dimensions: width, depth, and height. In real life, any position in space is characterized by these dimensions.

Now imagine, that you are outside, for example in a park, full of various sounds. You can hear children laughing on the playground behind you; a dog is barking on your left, a couple of people are talking while sitting on a bench in front of you – you can hear their voices more and more clearly when you move towards them. We may say that you are in the 3-dimensional sound space. When you move, the sound you hear changes as well, corresponding to the position of your ears (its intensity, direction, height and even timbre).

Reproducing this natural human way of hearing in the recording isn’t easy, however, we already have the technology which allows us to do it – it is binaural and Ambisonics sound.

Binaural sound reflects the way we hear the world through our ears. It means that when we listen to the audio recording through the headphones it is possible for us to locate sounds coming from left, right, front, behind, above or below. Moreover, the binaural sound is very realistic and spatial and gives an impression of being at the place of recording.

Ambisonics sound is also a representation of natural spatial listening. However, when we record with an Ambisonics microphone, we record a 360 sphere around the device, so the whole 3D sound-space. This kind of Ambisonics audio can be further described by ‘orders’. The higher-order there is the better accuracy of the reproduced sound, the greater depth or, in another word, the higher resolution of the recorded sound-sphere.

The most common type of recordings – which you hear while listening to the music on your computer or watching TV –is stereo. You may also come across mono recordings but these have been outdated with the introduction of stereo mixing. Stereo sound basically allows you only to hear if the sound comes from left or right which is the main advantage over the mono-type of audio.

Bellow, you may find some great recordings that will allow you to hear the difference between these different formats. We have also summarized their characteristics in the bullet points, to present the information most clearly.

MONO SOUND

1 audio channel
no option to localize individual sound sources
the same, flat sound coming from all headphones or speakers

STEREO SOUND

2 audio channels (left and right)
headphones or at least 2 speakers required
possibility to recognize if the sound comes from the left or right
no option to recognize if the sound comes from above, behind or below
differences in the sound coming from each speaker
no requirement of using headphones for accurate stereo playback

BINAURAL SOUND

2 audio channels
sound captured identically to the way we hear the world
possibility to localize if the sound comes from left, right, front, behind, above or below
very realistic sound
an impression of being at the place of recording
impression of sound source proximity
immersive sound impression
headphones necessary for accurate binaural playback
customizable headphones playback

AMBISONICS SOUND

4 or more audio channels (at least 16, for high quality and spatial resolution)
possibility to rotate like in 360 movies
compatible with YouTube360 or Facebook360
the representation of natural spatial listening
immersive sound impression
an impression of being at the place of recording
possibility to localize the sound coming from any direction
possibility to decode the sound to any array of speakers
possibility to convert the sound for playback on headphones (recommended)
possibility of moving smoothly across 3-dimensional space both with video and audio

#zylia #binaural #ambisonics #3Daudio #surround #spatial #sound

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New ZYLIA App for binaural and ambisonics audio streaming

4/1/2021

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New ZYLIA Streaming Application allows you to set up binaural and Ambisonics audio streaming on your Mac computer with no need off using Digital Audio Workstation.

It’s FREE for all current ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter owners. So available for users of the ZYLIA PRO Ambisonics and ZYLIA PRO Have it all! sets.

Why it’s worth to stream 3D sound?

Binaural and Ambisonics audio reflects the way we hear the world through our ears. It means, that it is possible for a listener to locate all sounds coming from left, right, front, behind, above or below. Moreover, 3D sound is very realistic and spatial, and gives an impression of being at the place of recording. When experiencing 360° binaural or Ambisonics audio combined with 360° video, the listener is able to spin around. In this case, the sound they hear corresponds to the position of their head.

How can you use 3D audio streaming?

To set up live binaural or Ambisonics audio streaming on YouTube and Facebook
To complete your 360° video stream with 360° audio
To set up 3D audio streaming during Zoom video conference

To set up binaural and Ambisonics audio streaming you will need the following prerequisites:

ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone
ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter plugin (product key)
IEM Binaural Decoder plugin (free)
BlackHole or Soundflower (free)
Live stream software such as OBS, Zoom or other

Learn everything about ZYLIA Streaming Application with the following video presentation:

In the video we cover:

What is ZYLIA Streaming Application?
Which additional software you might need?
How to install the application?
How to use the application?
How to setup ZYLIA Streaming App for binaural streaming with OBS? (skip to 3:18)
How to setup ZYLIA Streaming App for binaural streaming in Zoom? (skip to 4:03)

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What is binaural and Ambisonics sound?

#zylia #binaural #ambisonics #3Daudio #surround #spatial #sound

New ZYLIA App for binaural and ambisonics audio streaming

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