How to place sounds OUTSIDE of the stereo field?

[twitchmonitor]

I remember reading once about a technique you could use to make a sound appear to the left of the left speaker or the right of the right speaker....anybody know what that is?

[tiger vomitt]

flipping the phase on one channel of a stereo sound kinda does this. but it disappears in mono.

there are plugins that try but dont really get close.

[joel hamilton]

Try delaying the signal (stereo delay) super short, like 23ms on one side, and 23 on the other, with the original up the middle, then flip the phase on a mult of one of the delay channels, balance your now FOUR channels of voc, or whatever, EQ the out of phase one mid heavy, with barely any low and, until it wraps around you.

This will make stoners think the guy in the back of the trans am is fucking with them for sure....

[soundguy]

no way dude, jimmy is riding shotgun. Every time he sits back there and I put on the shiner record, he's always making all kinds of noises in my ear behind the seat. Get in the front seat dude...

man, you're just paranoid.

Im not paranoid! just get in the front seat.

dave

[brew]

Placing the instrument slightly beyond (off-axis) the polar pattern of a distant stereo array can accomplish this effect, especially when using a Blumlein pattern. This is the "most natural" way to put something slightly outside of the speaker.

[psychicoctopus]

phase tricks are the way. I have a coincident stereo mic that came to me wired out-of-phase, and some of the recordings I made with it have cool spatial effects going on. placing it 2-3 feet back on a guitar cabinet, mixed with a close mic, made the guitar seem extra wide without losing the sense of center. The tone seemed a little thin but that was a tradeoff. Bonus - when I turn my head side to side while listening, the guitar does a weird 'magic jesus eyes' thing. um... hard to explain... have you seen those relief pictures of a face where the eyes follow you when you walk by?

[cgarges]

Anybody ever done binaural miking with the head (or just the mics, if you don't have an actual head) backwards? Pretty SCHWEEET.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Al]

Anybody ever done binaural miking with the head (or just the mics, if you don't have an actual head) backwards? Pretty SCHWEEET.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Yup!

Al

[twitchmonitor]

phase tricks are the way.

Anybody know the physics behind how the phase does this trick?

[brad24bit]

What do you mean with placing the binaural mics backwards? left mic on right side and right mic on left side?

[cgarges]

What do you mean with placing the binaural mics backwards? left mic on right side and right mic on left side?

No, I mean having the source facing the back of the head. Or, if you're using a pair of cardioid mics on either side of a box or manequin head or whatever, having the source behind the rejection pattern of the mics. Tchad Blake does a lot of this sort of thing: having a percussionist facing a drummer and using the binaural head to get the percussion coming from behind you. It's much more effective in headphones, as binaural miking typically is. You can also play with different variations of polarity-inversion for even more silliness.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joel hamilton]

"Anybody know the physics behind how the phase does this trick?"

I am not very smart,
But I believe it is because the phase weirdness gives you odd locational and spatial cues that belie the listening environment. Filtering can do the same thing.

The way we percieve a given sound and its location in space is all screwed up when we artificially give it phase information that would take some bizarre circumstances to actually happen in a natural state.

That is just my BS theory though. i cant seem to put into words the concept I am trying to get across. Maybe. Does that help>???

[soundguy]

I am not very smart

yeah, but your haircut sorta makes you look like einstein.

dont sweat it.

dave

[Professor]

Binaural recording and subsequent headphone listening is by far the best way to achieve sound effects outside the stereo triangle, but of course most people don't listen on headphones, they listen on less than optimally placed home stereos or car systems.
Lots and lots of research has been done on what is called 'Head Related Transfer Function' (HRTF) which explores how we can localize a sound in space with our two omni directional ears in a way that cannot easily be replicated. The theory is easy enough - take a recorded sound, play it from a point behind someone's head, record what the person is hearing with binaural mics (or a dummy head, etc), compare the original to the recording and create a computer model to replicate the effect. Then apply that computer function to another sound and make it sound like it's coming from behind you.
It all works very well in the binaural world (listening on headphones) but in the trans-aural world (binaural effects through speakers), it kinda falls apart.
I actually have a student who is working on a research project to incorporate binaural effects into radio advertisements as part of his thesis project at the Communications School. It's pretty fascinating stuff, though here again we keep running headlong into the trans-aural problems. He is using a free program he found online from another university that allows him to take a .wav file, process it through a 3-D mapper, and produce another .wav with the HRTF info in place. He then mixes that in with the rest of the advertisement and tests the material on listeners. I'll try to find the details on the software and point you all towards it.

It really does have everything to do with phasing as well as EQ and volume difference between L & R as mentioned by others. Trouble is that the functions are terribly complex and while suggestions like Joel's very enticing setup will work to move the sound around, it is difficult to predict where things may seem to appear, and extremely difficult to break through the third dimension and get a sense of height. But Joel's suggestion does sound like fun, and I am looking forward to trying it.

I'm still waiting for a device for DJs to use on the dance floor that will spin, flip or otherwise manipulate the room in a typical dance floor (like a four speakers in the corners setup) on command - kinda like slapping the 'flip' button to have the whole room seem to barrel roll by 180-deg. and watch all the dancers lean and fall over while it's going. Fun, fun, fun.

-Jeremy

[morganellington]

There's a famous book on acoustics that deals a lot with psychoacoustics and phase issues . . . I remember reading in it that on headphones, flipping the phase of a sound in one ear will make it sound louder than sounds that are phase coherent. Can anybody remember what book this might be? It's very technical tedious reading, but informative.
Morgan