Beck – “Sound & Vision”

The subject of consuming music outside of the accepted norm of stereo is a subject close to my heart. I’ve long advocated multi-channel audio and alternative methods of listening to and recording music. One of these methods is binaural recording. This is a fairly simple process whereby the sound is recorded via two discrete channels whose microphones are placed on an identical axis and the equivalent distance apart as a pair of human ears. Better still, these microphones should be housed in an ear-like holder with pinnae so that you get as close to an equivalent sound input that we would experience ourselves. But the effect can be achieved quite cheaply and easily with just a couple of small microphones clipped to a ruler and mounted on a tripod, or maybe clipped to your shirt collars or your hat. Some people just clip them to their headphones.

The resulting audio is kept on the 2 discrete channels and replayed as such through headphones. This method is about as convincing as it gets to recreating sound as we actually hear it because our ears are being fed exactly what they would have heard if they had been where the microphones were. Obviously, there’s a lot more to it than my “Heath Robinson” description but you really ought to try it one day. And if you want to hear how it sounds, just do a search on SoundCloud for binaural recordings, pop your headphones on and set your ears to stunned 😉

You can also visit Steve Marshall’s “Bilocation’ site and enjoy his attempts at some amazing binaural soundscapes, and marvel at how he’s used technology to replicate the effect using a 5.1 DTS set up.

Anyway, enough about that. What’s this got to do with Beck, I hear you ask? Well, along with director Chris Milk, and in conjunction with Ford Lincoln Motor Company through their “Hello Again” campaign, they have reinterpreted David Bowie’s ‘Sound & Vision‘ song with a myriad live instruments played by over 160 performers, ranging from xylophones to guitars, Buchla Easel’s to alpine horns and a shed load of choirs. And all of this has been captured with an 8 channel binaural head mic!

The result is a stunning piece of group musicianship, musical arrangements and amazingly immersive sound. It has to be seem to be believed. So watch it now. Afterwards, continue down to see more…

In this video, the binaural head mic is explained…

And here is some studio footage from initial arrangement sessions…

And some more stuff here…

I’m not usually a massive fan of these commercial tie ups that artists do, but when it results in something this awesome, how can anyone not fail to be moved by it.