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Demos > Vintage
Effects > Ibanez Flying Pan, Binaural Sound |
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Look at that subject line! OK, we'll say it with you: these guys must have finally flipped their cookies.enough already! Thanks for your concern, but this is all good stuff.
Settling down to record several cartons of neat effects, you try to preserve the sound in a way that would be of real value to our visitors, you try to pick a wise approach. In the case of amplified guitars, and basses you're dealing with so many filters, and sound modifiers in the signal path, it could choke a horse. So; to demonstrate the sound the effects make, we isolated them, and let you hear the pedals on their own. Now it's time for some combos!
Rather than running the laundry list again, and again, (in text), we decided to record some of the menu of modifiers and embrace them as as part of the real deal. As the song says: You're not Salads, you know who you are, and you know that music produced in the studio is very different sounding than what's produced in clubs.
More sophisticated studio treatments lessen the similarities between live sound, and recorded music. Those who persue "the life" eventually experience spending hours tuning the Drums, tweeking a compressor limiter on the BOOMING bass and setting the "Q", so there's minimal cymbal sizzle in the singers high notes. Welcome to a major recording session.
We picked a subtle, yet major factor to start with, it effects sound a great deal: Space! Check it out: Your amp sounds different when you're right in front of it, than when you hear it at the end of your 18 foot guitar cable, or in the 3nd row, and at the back of a big club. Question one: Where is the real sound of your rig, which spot is your sound, you know, really The place? Tick-tock.
For years engineers have been using two, three, or more Mics to record guitars. A popular mix is one close microphone, then add sound from a second Hi-fi Mic; a few feet away, is added at a moderate volume. Plus occasionally, a pinch of 'room take", from a distant microphone is added for fullness. It's a matter of taste, but this will usually sound pretty good. This mixture presents a flowing combination of what walking around the rig sounds like.
Now: Binaural Sound.What is it, and why Binaural?
Binaural recording uses two very directional microphones that are placed on a special head. This head can have the microphones built into the the ears of a plastic humanoid model. They can also be worn by the guitarist recording the samples we'd be posting. Our microphones were custom installed in a set of small headphones. In this case our head phones had no speakers, they've been replaced with tiny microphones. Es Normal? Si!
Here comes the payoffs: the most obvious and best analogy for this technique is these very directional Mics record two totally separate tracks at the same distance apart as your ears. You're hearing the sonic version of a technique used in very early photography. Most of us have seen Stereoscopic photos of old postcards set in a holder that extends out about a foot in front of the viewer. This special viewer; is like "near field" binocular viewer. They allow you to see the two DIFFERENT photos at the same time, when mixed in your brain. Another analogy would be a similarity to the polarized 3-D movies we've seen. Two cameras filming from slightly different perspectives at the same time, produce this effect.
The stereoscopic visual creates a hightened sense of space, and depth. Keeping the images separate until they're taken up by your nervous system hightens visuals, Binaural recording does this for sound. Lot's of sounds arriving at different times, noise, and phasing etc. are drastically reduced. Like a lot of sonic experiences: less is perceived as more pure, more spacious, better quality.
Get your regular headphones out though: keep the tracks separated until they enter your ears for the effect. This is different than Stereo sound, which tries to simulate hearing from myriad angles. With a binaural recording, a moderately priced set of head phones will produce a listening experience far superior to mono, or even stereo that's produced by most speakers from computer systems. Your earphones now work like the turn of the century stereoscope viewers on the samples below. The complete separation they provide, allows binaural recording to do It's thing.
Now listen to the insane Ibanez FP-777, Flying Pan. The guitar is plugged Into two complete rigs, separate Amps & speakers. One of the Amps; by the way, is the one, and a half Watt, Tiny Tone, (Torres Eng.), prototype. The Flying Pan, directs the signal between the two rigs in cycles, it has an onboard phase effect, featured at times. In mono the Flying pan creates a rather nice tremolo effect, a fun piece: why isn't this reissued?
This combination of effect, and recording highlights the awareness of Space, (the ancient Vedas from India, proclaim a fith, "Space Element" in creation, called "Akasha"). It's permiating these samples, there's a feeling along with the audio.
In more Feature Spots to come we'll demo how Binaural recording turned out to demonstrate how some unexpected sounds really are heard while playing. Most people would say no, no, NO, but the recordings will demonstrate It's actually yes, yes, YES! And we're going to listen to some guitars, Amps and Speaker rigs in Binaural Sound too.
The recordings are completed. It's interesting to hear, and identify how the acoustic sound of electric guitars get amplified. We hope our visiting effects fans will open themselves up to our process of tonal discovery, as we begin to reach beyond the kingdom of pedals. Great tone, and sound quality is a very deep subject. Just as pedals effect guitar, Amp and speaker sound, the reverse is also true. Samples below, until next time.enjoy!
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