Welcome back to another Ohmlab tutorial
Today we're going to be talking about a rather cool technique you can use to add more depth
and separation to your sounds in a mix.
And this technique is called Binaural Panning.
Now, or at least I should say, in Logic Pro it's called Binaural Panning, I know that
the naming scheme does change a bit from one DAW to the next.
I think in Ableton one of the Binaural Panning features is called Spacialisation.
So first let's break down what exactly Binaural Panning is and why you might want to use it.
And this is not to be confused with Binaural Beats, Binaural recording is basically the
idea of taking at least two capture points or microphones to create a 3 dimensional space
for a sound to exist in during playback.
Now what Binaural Panning does is allows you to place a sound inside a 3D environment and
so that brings a whole lot of depth and complexity that just is simply not there in the linear
plane of left to right in the stereo field.
OK, so in other words you can move it forward or backwards or to the right, above, below
so 3 dimensional ok so some DAWs will allow you to do this in just a plane, or planer
type of environment and others will allow you to work in a spherical environment or
a sphere.
So without further ado, lets just jump right into this.
We're just going to use a sound called Simple.
It's actually from a SoundFreqs pack for FM8 called Trap Volume One.
Check it out.
Sounds like this.
OK so very simple sound and I thought that as it had a nice little bit of reverb and
what nought that it would be a good one to show off in this Binaural Panning workflow
so its very simple you can find it right here, just go to the Output area and click and hold
and select Binaural from the drop down menu.
Again in other DAWs functionality is going to be the same or similar at least but where
to find these things may be a bit different.
So all you need to do here is and you'll see that the tradtional pan pot knob has been
converted into this new looking thing and if you've ever recorded something in true
surround sound 5.1 for instance, you'll notice that this is the same exact type of panning
environment and placement tool.
OKso you just double click on that and it brings up this little window here for you
and you've got a few different options, you can run in a traditional plane, in a sphere,
you can create a size difference or adjust size and you can toggle on and off a doppler
effect ok.
And then within the advanced features which you can find using this little disclosure
triangle down here you can actually tilt, tilt direction, vertical offset, you can adjust
these parameters to you liking as well, it's a great way to add a really unique placement
to your own things.
OK, so first lets talk about how you actually place a sound.
Now I'm just going to play the sound back.
And while this is doing its thing, I'm just going to talk over the top of it while we're
moving the sound around in this new Binaural Panning Environment and you can hear yourself
exactly how this works.
So the further out we go on this circle, the more distant the sound will be.
Think of the centre right here being your head.
OK its the very centre of activity this is your target area, this is where the sound
is at any one point in time, this is the centre and you can see that as you bring it in it
keeps things relative as far as distance of left and right to centre, you can change increase
or decrease the amount of space between left and right and centre.
And you can go up to 180 degree direction so let's play back our sound so you can hear
it.
So this is it out on the edge, it's going to increase in volume quite a bit as we get
towards the centre and you can see that we clip there for just a second so you want to
be aware of that adjust your volume accordingly.
Let me just narrow the distance between left and right so our location is a bit more specific
to our ears.
OK so that's all well and good, but let's check out the spherical because this adds
much greater interest in my opinion.
OK now you can change the size, obviously the larger you go, the more distant this is
going to sound.
Especially when you are on the edges so lets increase the size so you can hear that yourself.
And as we bring the size back down you'll hear it get louder as we get closer to the
listener basically.
OK you can also activate the doppler effect and for those that are unfamiliar with Doppler
Effect you can basically understand it as this, when you hear a train go past you or
maybe like a service vehicle of some sort like a police car or ambulance or fire truck
with its siren going, you'll notice that as its approaching you and as its passing you
there's a shift, not just in presence and perceived loudness, but in pitch and there's
actually this pitch bend as it goes passed you, you can hear it kind of go mwau, so the
Doppler Effect here allows for some of that.
OK so let's say you're modulating something in Real Time, the position or placement of
the sound in your Binaural Panning Environment with that Doppler activated you're going to
get a much more dynamic reaction out of a sound, so the perception is altered greatly
for the listener, which of course, helps draw them in and allow them to become much more
engaged participant in your recordings.
So that's it in a nutshell folks, go a little bit deeper instead of panning just left and
right, every once in a while you'll find a tricky spot within one of your mixes and you
really want one of these sounds to shine and stand in its own space so to speak and this
is a really great way to do it and also consider the fact that this is adding the benefits
of environment without reverb which is a brilliant way to add more space and presence to your
mix in general without fear of washing sounds out anyway ok.
So we hope that this made some sense, hopefully its brand new for some of you that, you know,
you've never even seen this before, so hopefully this is kind of new, new territory for you.
Hope you can apply it in your very next project.
As always, leave us a comment below, let us know what you thought.
If you have a request for future tutorials, also let us know that.
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and we'll be seeing you again soon.
Thanks for coming out folks, cheers.