London Sound Survey
I thoroughly recommend this site for ambient recordings made in and around London.
What is Binaural Recording?
This blog centres around binaural recording. So what is binaural recording?
Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses a special microphone arrangement and is intended for replay using headphones. Dummy head recording is a specific method of capturing the audio, generally using a bust that includes pinnae (outer ears). Because each person’s pinnae are unique, and because the filtering they impose on sound directionality is learned by each person from early childhood, the use of pinnae during recording that are not the same as the ultimate listener may lead to perceptual confusion.
The term “binaural” has frequently been confused as a synonym for the word “stereo”, and this is partially due to a large amount of misuse in the mid-1950s by the recording industry, as a marketing buzzword. Conventional stereo recordings do not factor in natural ear spacing or “head-shadow” of the head and ears, since these things happen naturally as a person listens, generating their own ITDs (interaural time differences) and ILDs (interaural level differences). Because loudspeaker-crosstalk of conventional stereo interferes with binaural reproduction, either headphones are required, or crosstalk cancellation of signals intended for loudspeakers. As a general rule, for true binaural results, an audio recording and reproduction system chain, from microphone to listener’s brain, should contain one and only one set of pinnae (preferably the listener’s own) and one head-shadow.
With a simple recording method, two microphones are placed 18 cm (7″) apart facing away from each other. This method will not create a real binaural recording. The distance and placement roughly approximates to the position of an average human’s ear canals, but that is not all that is needed. A typical binaural recording unit has two microphones mounted in a dummy head, inset in ear-shaped moulds to fully capture all of the audio frequency adjustments known as head-related transfer functions that happen naturally as sound wraps around the human head and is “shaped” by the form of the outer and inner ear.
Today, “in-ear” or “near-ear” microphones are now readily available and can be linked to a portable digital recorder, bypassing the need for a dummy head by using the recordist’s own head. Clip-on binaural microphones using the recordist’s own head are offered by Core Sound, Sound Professionals and Soundman amongst others.
Once recorded, the binaural effect can be reproduced using headphones. Binaural reproduction does not work with mono playback; nor does it work while using loudspeaker units, as the acoustics of this arrangement distort the channel separation via natural crosstalk.
The result is a listening experience that spatially transcends normally recorded stereo, since it accurately reproduces the effect of hearing a sound in person, given the 360° nature of how human ears pick up nuance in the sound waves. Binaural recordings can very convincingly reproduce the location of sound behind, ahead, above, or wherever else the sound actually came from during recording.
Any set of headphones that provide good right and left channel isolation are sufficient to hear the immersive effects of the recording, and anyone who has even a cheap set of headphones can enjoy the recordings. As with any playback, higher quality headphones will do a better job of creating the illusion.
Binaural recording in Place de la Bastille
Bastille; Manifestation ‘sans-papiers’ – 29-05-2010
Last Saturday I went out sound-hunting searching for more binaural street recordings to add to my Paris Soundscape collection. First stop was the Gare de Lyon where I made a ten-minute recording of the ambient sound in the station. Unfortunately, the station was not particularly busy and the recording I made reflects the lack of activity, quite unlike the recording I made recently in the Gare du Nord which is much more lively. From the Gare de Lyon I walked via the Porte d’Arsenal to Place de la Bastille where, to my delight, a demonstration was in progress. Ideal territory for a street sound-hunter.
There, I found hundreds of ‘sans-papiers’on the steps of the opera Bastille. It seems that, according to the CGT union, about 1.500 of them were occupying the steps of the Bastille opera in pursuit of their claim for a defining text from the French government on the criteria for the regularization of the ‘sans-papiers’. The occupation in front of the opera started on Thursday at the end of the wider Parisian demonstration against the end of the retirement age of 60. Eleven trade unions and associations supporting the movement were present including the PCF (Partie Communiste Français) including their national secretary, Marie-George Buffet, the PS (Partie Socialist) with Pascale Boistard and the Anti-Capitalist Party represented by their leader, Olivier Besançon.
I have attached a very short extract of some of the speeches. The original recording is much longer and was recorded in wav format. In order to conserve space on this blog I have compressed the file to MP3.
Notes about the Bastille area of Paris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The Bastille was a fortress-prison in Paris, known formally as Bastille Saint-Antoine—Number 232, Rue Saint-Antoine—best known today because of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, which along with the Tennis Court Oath is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. The event was commemorated one year later by the Fête de la Fédération The French national holiday, celebrated annually on 14 July is officially the Fête Nationale, and officially commemorates the Fête de la Fédération, but it is commonly known in English as Bastille Day. Bastille is a French word meaning “castle” or “stronghold”, or “bastion”; used with a definite article (la Bastille in French, the Bastille in English), it refers to the prison.
Early history of the Bastille
The Bastille was built as the Bastion de Saint-Antoine during the Hundred Years’ War. The Bastille originated as the Saint-Antoine gate, but from 1370–1383 this gate was extended to create a fortress to defend the east end of Paris and the Hôtel Saint-Pol royal palace. After the war, it was reused as a state prison, with Louis XIII the first king to send prisoners there
Plan of the Bastille.
The Bastille was built as an irregular rectangle with eight towers, 70 meters (220 ft) long, 30 meters (90 ft) wide, with towers and walls 25 meters (80 ft) high, surrounded by a broad moat. Originally there were two courtyards inside and residential buildings against the walls. Pairs of towers on the east and west facades served as gates through which the rue Saint-Antoine passed. In the 1400s, these were blocked up, and a new city gate was created to the north on the present day rue de la Bastille. A bastion on the eastern approaches was built later. A very significant military feature of the building was that the walls and towers were of the same height and width and connected by a broad terrace. This enabled soldiers on the wall head to rapidly move to a threatened sector of the fortress without having to descend inside the towers, as well as allowing placement of artillery. A similar provision can be seen today at Château de Tarascon.
Storming
The archives of the Bastille show that the building largely held common criminals (forgers, embezzlers, swindlers, etc.), as well as people imprisoned for religious reasons and those responsible for printing or writing forbidden pamphlets. People of high rank were sometimes held there too, and so the prison (which could only hold a little over 50 people) was far less sordid a place than most of the Parisian prisons. But the secrecy maintained around the Bastille and its prisoners gave it a sinister reputation.
The confrontation that led to the people of Paris storming the Bastille on 14 July 1789, following several days of disturbances, resulted from the fact that gunpowder and arms had been stored there, and the people (whose fears had been raised by a number of rumors) demanded access to these. The later idea that they wanted to free the prisoners (only 7 of whom remained) has been discounted. The regular garrison consisted of 82 invalides (veteran soldiers no longer capable of service in the field) under Governor Bernard-René de Launay. They had however been reinforced by a detachment of 32 grenadiers from one of the Swiss mercenary regiments summoned to Paris by the King shortly before 14 July.
A crowd of around 8800 men and women gathered outside around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison, the removal of the guns and the release of the arms and gunpowder. Two people chosen to represent those gathered were invited into the fortress and slow negotiations began.
In the early afternoon around 1:00, the crowd broke into the undefended outer courtyard and the chains on the drawbridge to the inner courtyard were cut. A spasmodic exchange of gunfire began; in mid-afternoon the crowd was reinforced by mutinous Gardes Françaises of the Royal Army, and two cannons, all of which were originally supposed to help the governor protect the prison. De Launay ordered a ceasefire; in spite of his surrender demands being refused, he capitulated and the vainqueurs swept in to liberate the fortress at around 5:30.
When the rioters entered the Bastille, they collected cartridges and gunpowder for their weapons and then freed the seven prisoners (which they had to do by breaking down the doors, since the keys had already been taken off and paraded through the streets). Later, the governor and some of the guards of the Bastille were killed under chaotic circumstances, despite having surrendered under a flag of truce, and their heads paraded on pikes.
As a symbolic gesture, the key to the west portal of the Bastille was presented on March 17, 1790 by Marquis de Lafayette to George Washington and is displayed in George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon.
Demolition
Remaining stones of the Bastille are still visible now on Boulevard Henri IV
The propaganda value of the Bastille was quickly seized upon, notably by the showy entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy, “Patriote Palloy”. The fate of the Bastille was uncertain, but Palloy was quick to establish a claim, organising a force of demolition men around the site on the 15th. Over the next few days many notables visited the Bastille and it seemed to be turning into a memorial. But Palloy secured a license for demolition from the Permanent Committee at the Hôtel de Ville and quickly took complete control.
Pierre-François Palloy secured a fair budget and his crew grew in number. He had control over all aspects of the work and the workers, even to the extent of having two hanged for murder. Palloy put much effort into continuing the site as a paying attraction and producing a huge range of souvenirs, including much of the rubble. The actual demolition proceeded apace; by November, 1789, the structure was largely demolished. The cut stones of the fortress were used in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde.
The area today
The former location of the fort is currently called the Place de la Bastille. It is home to the Opéra Bastille. The large ditch (fossé) behind the fort has been transformed into a marina for pleasure boats, the Bassin de l’Arsenal, to the south, and a covered canal, the Canal Saint Martin, extending north from the marina beneath the vehicular roundabout that borders the location of the fort.
Some undemolished remains of one tower of the fort were discovered during excavation for the Métro (rail mass-transit system) in 1899, and were moved to a park (the Square Henri-Galli) a few hundred meters away, where they are displayed today. The original outline of the fort is also marked on the pavement of streets and sidewalks that pass over its former location, in the form of special paving stones. A cafe and some other businesses largely occupy the location of the fort, and the rue Saint Antoine passes directly over it as it opens onto the roundabout of the Bastille.
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