![]() Technicians precluded no ability to control the balance of audio levels, the equalization of specific parts to their recordings or have the ability to compress independent sounds. ![]() Furthermore they felt powerless over many aspects of binaural audios characteristics, like the control of special effects, general mix balance, stereo width and overall fidelity. Audio technicians felt constrained by using two microphones in a fixed position while using the dummy head. ![]() Powerless Techniciansįirstly, binaural recording is an intensively limited recording approach. Let’s explore these technical limitations. However, sound technicians and engineers were much less enthusiastic about the product due to the KU80s technical shortcomings, and by the mid 1980s binaural recording and production was largely regarded as a failed technology. Hopes soared that the technology would be a watershed moment in audio recording and listening. It was initially received with acclaim by customers and journalists. The KU80 developed by Neumann was the first dummy head made for commercial use, which made it to the market in 1972. Yet it wasn’t until the 1970s that binaural recording began to get off the ground – due to limited understanding of the ear and a lack of technical resources developed. Initial results confirmed “that it fulfilled the listeners’ desire for concert hall realism”. The experiments aimed to reproduce “exact copies of the sound vibrations that would exist in ears if they were listening directly”. ![]() The mannequin in the picture above is the result of a replication from an experiment back in the 1930s, were the first ‘dummy head’ recordings were actioned at the Philips Research Laboratory in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. This idea is not a new one, simply a rare form of recording. Greenwood later wrote that “it should be very interesting”. This was followed up on lead guitarist and keyboardist of Radiohead, Jonny Greenwood’s personal blog, with a photo of a mannequin head placed over Thom Yorke’s shoulder while he played piano parts. What would a mannequin head with microphones built into it be used for in a recording studio environment? Radiohead notoriously hinted at a new recording technique they were trying in 2007, “basically on the new album, you’ll be hearing some of the tracks, mainly piano, as if Thom was playing it in the same room as you ”. ![]()
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