The aim of this project was to learn how to record audio that’s suitable for playback over a 5.1 system. I would also be learning about immersive sound and how to use binaural and ambisonics mics to create their respective mixes. I would also be further developing my knowledge of microphone techniques by learning how to use arrays and the setup involved with each.

PLANNING

25 May 2025 23:30

This particular project was a bit trickier when it came to the planning aspect as this was the first time I was delving into the world of immersive sound. Obviously, you can use panning to create an immersive environment but not as fully as binaural or a 360 recording would be. Our lecturer shared with us a short film created by Sennheiser called Final Stop: A 3D Audio Thriller where the whole movie was shot entirely on a smartphone and the audio captured by the AMBEO SMART HEADSET wore by the actress. This meant that we as the audience hear everything as if we were in the characters shoes. Another video that was shared with us was the Virtual Barber Shop video on YouTube. Listening to this really expanded my knowledge about the world of immersive audio as I had never realised that you could have a recording sound as if you were really in the room. I was intrigued by the possibilities of this and with the world of VR becoming more popular there is a large market for this type of audio.

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RECORDING

25 May 2025 23:24

For the recording, we arrived early at the venue so that we could start setup before the choir members arrived. The easiest way to describe the layout is if you were to think of the hall in a portrait layout, we had initially intended to record from the back and have the performers positioned at the door. However, due to the size of the choir this wouldn’t be practical so we changed the layout so the choir was in a landscape position rather than portrait. We had brought an equipment list with us so we could check off what we had and where to set it up. We all worked together to connect the uTrack recorder, Audient pre-amps and laptop together and set the mics up in a Fukada tree array as well as 4 spot mics. We used a measuring tape to ensure we had accurate spacing between the microphones in order to capture audio accurately using this technique.  The image of the array below details the measurements that were required:

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EDITING

25 May 2025 23:22

The next day when we came back into college, we all listened to the recording and were devasted to find that there was a lot of distortion whenever the choir were singing particularly loud. There was lots of crackle and clipping throughout and it was very hard to listen to. As we had been learning restoration using Izotope RX 9, we spoke to our lecturer to see if any of it could be salvageable. We bounced a small portion into RX but unfortunately it didn’t seem like there was much we could do. As this was just before our 2 week break for Easter, I said I would look at the session over the holidays and see if there were any parts with either no or minimal crackle. As the session was roughly 2 hours we all thought there was bound to be something in there that we could use. I managed to edit a few portions together of audio that we could use. I also suggested to the group that we bounce each individual stem into RX and try to restore the audio that way instead of all tracks playing together.

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MIXING

25 May 2025 23:00

In terms of the mix for this project, there wasn’t too much that we needed in terms of processing. We had to decide an approach to take for this, whether that be realistic, hyper-realistic or unrealistic. We decided to take a realistic approach as the performance we captured was of a high quality and we didn’t want to mess with this too much but decided we could have a play about with automation on the 5.1 panning.

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SKILLS GAINED

25 May 2025 22:52

I learned new mic techniques through this and the importance of mic choice and spacing between each. I also learned how to record binaural and ambisonic audio as well as recording audio that’s playable over a 5.1 system. As a sound designer, these are great skills to have as VR becomes more popular for both games and movies I feel it’s useful to have the knowledge and understanding of how to both record and mix this type of audio in case either or both tasks are asked of you for a project. It’s also great to be able to offer this as a skill you have as I feel it shows a willingness to branch out and try different ways of sound design for whatever is required.

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