- Hi, I'm Parris.
And I'm very excited to have finally received
my latest piece of binaural audio recording equipment.
This is the Hooke Verse
and it was a Kickstarter project.
More than a year ago, I signed up, helped to fund it,
and have been waiting for them to send this to me.
They finally have it in production.
I'll link to it, down below this video.
If you'd like to find out more,
what it is, it's a wireless Bluetooth headset.
That not only, plays music and sounds for you,
but records with two microphones.
One on the back of each earbud, so facing out.
Records that to your phone.
So, you can be walking around, experiencing life,
and recording it full binaural audio.
And even recording it simultaneously,
on your phone's camera.
And all anyone needs to have in order
to experience this, is a pair of earbuds.
(gentle guitar strums)
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When I ordered this from Hooke Audio,
way back when, it was about $160.
It now goes for about $240.
And I'll put a link to it, down below this video.
There was a delay because they needed to make it compatible
with the new version of the iPhone apparently.
So, it took awhile to get it out.
But it looks like they did a really nice job with it.
Now, in addition to what's in the box here,
you do need to download their app onto your phone.
Which you can get from the Google Play Store
or the App Store for your iPhone.
To start off with, the box that they shipped
this in is very interesting.
Can you see the cutouts in it?
There's ear shapes and things.
This actually folds out to produce,
what's called a head space.
When you're recording binaural audio,
you want to have the microphone location
pretty similar to where your ears
are located on your head.
So, this assembles to create that kind of a space
and you can attach the microphone earbuds
to where the ears would be.
Now, I have my two wig models here,
that I have used for binaural audio recording.
I actually have even dug out the ears of this guy.
So, the microphones that I have,
which I'll show you, have fit in here.
Just protrude it a little.
So, trying to capture that realistic sound experience
of exactly how sound waves come to your head,
bounce around a little, and go into your ears.
Let's see what comes in the box.
And how these actually turned out
from the idea they had on Kickstarter.
The prototypes they put together,
that you could look at on Twitter and Facebook.
And what they actually ended up sending me.
3-D audio explorer, you are now officially
a part of the future.
The device you hold before you is a tool
that will change the way you record the world.
Your stories will come to life like never before.
If you're not familiar with binaural audio,
it's pretty amazing when it's done well.
And when you have a situation
where the sound
really, really makes you think you are somewhere.
More than even the virtual reality or the 360 video.
Here's what comes in the box.
These are the two earpieces.
And the carrying case.
And I think there's a cable in here.
Most of the time, you would think
you would want to use it via Bluetooth
that gets rid of the wired noise.
With my other binaural audio set,
part of the problem was with the wires.
When I would go walking,
to record, like, the locusts in the summer,
I would have to hold the wire a certain way
so it wouldn't rub against the beard or my earlobes
and create a sound that you could
actually hear in the recording.
And it would tend to get caught,
sometimes on my belt or a jacket pocket
or something like that and pull.
And pull the thing out of my ears.
So, this should be much nicer to record with Bluetooth.
But you can also hook it up via cable to GoPro camera,
which I think would be really nice.
Here is the earbud set itself.
Let me show you up close.
You can see the blue portion is meant to go into your ear.
These do work as regular earbud speakers.
So, you can listen to music.
They will work via Bluetooth for phone calls.
All that usual stuff.
But on the other side.
Right on the back here, that's the recording microphone.
And some more electronics, I think,
it says the speaker driver is located up in here.
They are attached by a short wire,
which I'm guessing goes across the back of my neck.
I guess most people's ears work the same way.
You have a big, curved portion up there.
Think my ear hole requires larger earbuds.
Seems the default size put on them is medium,
I've changed that to large.
They have two types of little earbud covers,
one are the silicone,
which I always associate with being less expensive.
And these are a memory foam, nice and squishy.
And seem like they ought to do a good job
of holding it in my ear.
Okay, I think these are good to go.
You can get them in white, as well as black.
I've already downloaded the app.
But I need to pair it now, via Bluetooth, with my phone.
Here's a basic layout of the controls and indicators.
'Kay, I've found the device.
Opens by default to a video recording screen.
I seem to be recording.
Let me stop recording, okay.
Now, I can see the left right bars, going up and down,
showing the recording level from each microphone.
Now, I'm in listening mode.
It's coming out of the phone, not here.
Huh.
Why did it not play back through there?
Well, it's a couple days later.
I got frustrated working on this
because I was having so many issues with Bluetooth.
Didn't seem to be working right on my OnePlus 3.
I went back to my ZTE ZMAX phone,
running an older version of Android, same issues.
Finally, I think I figured out
that you really have to stay inside the app.
It's the only thing seemed to work for me,
including the playback.
If I'm not doing it exactly the right way
inside of their Hooke Audio app,
I get the sound coming out of the phone speaker so.
It's a little particular to get working.
But I believe I have to working now.
So, I am going to set it up the way they recommended.
By the way, while I was killing time,
I put together the device
they offer you to use.
With the binaural earbuds and your phone.
I don't know (laughs).
I'm just really afraid something may break in this.
But just for sitting on the desk,
I guess it's okay to set it up.
Put the binaural earbuds in it,
put the phone in it, and record a little.
But I really wanna go outside
because the sound in here doesn't really
let you experience all the binaural audio has to offer.
So, I'm going to head down to the park
with the Hooke Audio.
And I'm going to bring Roland set and compare them.
Both for ease of use.
But also, what I haven't been able to determine
with this new set is the quality of the sound.
My Roland set has a lot of settings
for the sampling rate and so forth.
Basically, the quality of audio.
This just records at a standard quality,
even though it is binaural.
Okay, I'm gonna walk down this trail
wearing the binaural earbuds from Hooke Audio.
And let's listen to the sounds.
(footsteps crunching)
(sticks cracking)
I'll walk the same path now
with the Roland binaural audio.
And see how it compares.
(footsteps crunching)
(birds chirping)
(footsteps crunching)
(leaves rustling)
(sticks cracking)
Well, having downloaded all those files
on to my computer, listened to them through the headphones,
I think that the Roland sound quality was better.
I could pick up more detail with it.
So, audio fidelity wise, this set up may work better.
But I remember a famous photographer was once asked,
"What's the best camera you can use to take a picture?"
And his answer was, "The one you have with you."
Because if you don't have a camera with you,
you get no pictures.
Now, you're looking at bringing this with you.
And you can even just wear it out as you go.
Compared to having to remember to bring and wear this
and to get it in the right mode
and to make sure that it's recording
and that you're recording on the camera
and you clap or something so you can synchronize it later.
Because all the files here, need to be taken out.
You can plug a cable from this to the computer.
But it's much faster to take out the SD card,
put it into an adapter piece,
plug it into the computer, move the files over.
There's a lot more work involved
to get these binaural files into a video.
When you're using the Hooke Audio system,
it's already part of the video
because the audio from this
is what gets put into the audio channel
of the video you're recording with your phone.
So, it is a nice solution because it means
you're now able to record a lot more things in binaural
than when you had to remember
to bring extra equipment along.
The app for the Hooke audio, for Android,
is an absolute pain.
They really need to work on improving that.
So, that, especially in relation
to the Bluetooth pairing and unpairing
and getting the playback to come through the phone.
These are great as a grab and go solution.
You just need these and your phone.
Record your video, upload it to Youtube,
and there you go, it's all done.
Rather than having to take separate audio files,
go to probably another computer,
get them all synced up,
in order to put the binaural audio onto your videos.
I'll do some additional fidelity comparison videos
between these two systems on my other channel, Parris TX.
For now though, you can find out more
about this at the link down below this video.
I'll be back soon with more video.
And who knows with what kind of audio.
You can keep checking back for those videos
or you can click that subscribe button down below.
You'll get notified when videos go up.
See you on the next review.
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♫ Wanna watch it all night long