About binaural mode

As I recall, an early manual had a suggestion for endusers to try the binaural mode, specifically. if they want to position a piano somewhere in a mix.

Generally I don't like the binaural mode. I prefer the Player's position, even with my headphones

Interesting discussion. Apparently, binaural 'shouldn't' sound that great on speakers, because of crosstalk (see https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques...1-surround - the section headed 'Binaural and Transaural'). But then, a piano is essentially a single-point 'wide mono' sound, so maybe the crosstalk is no big deal? I do find the binaural sound very attractive on headphones, but haven't thought to try it with speakers - will now do so, as soon as possible!

I believe that Pianoteq's binaural mode, because it is physical modeling, does not simulate microphone capture, but is a real ambience piano simulation, with a headphone icon to provide perspective reference to the source acoustics (the piano). This may be why there are no frequency cuts or cancellations, making sound seemingly better on both headphones and speakers.

One of the problems with binaural mode is that the perspective always stays the same no matter if the player moves his head from side to side while playing. On real piano or using speakers, this variation is possible. In the future, a multi-dimensional 3d headphone may be developed where the sound perspective varies with head movement.

Steinway B Binaural is currently my go-to preset for piano practise. It creates quite unique soundstage compared to other presets. I'm getting addicted to it and I hope other instruments will recieve Binaural presets in the future!

Following this discussion, I tried the binaural mode with Petrof Dreamy which is my go-to preset.
From now, i switch it to Binaural.
You can hear the outcome in "Recordings featuring Pianoteq" forum.

If I got you right, I'm the same opinion.

I sometimes like to hear pianoteq through my onboard speakers (Kawai CA97), and been trying for years now to feel like sound is coming from a player perspective and didn't happen until I recently tried the stereophonic mode, not even the binaural because it felt very flat when sitting infront of the piano, just the stereophonic did the trick for me.

Regards

Quite complete, Qexl.

Mid/Side is certainly what appears to drive soundbars and the front of home theaters.

Part of what I don't understand also has to do with what 'stereophonic' means when driven by Pianoteq through stereo speakers versus using the microphones in Pianoteq which are then played back similarly through stereo speakers.

My interest in Pianoteq has always been duplicating the Player sound of sitting at a real piano.  One project that I put on long-term 'hold' is attaching transducers to my upright piano's soundboard - perhaps that would be the best, though without the radiation of actual struck strings, there might be some additional brightness needed to be added from small additional speakers.

Ah, one day, when I am not so distracted by other stuff...

Absolutely David, (I admire your focus on the player experience!).

I'd certainly recommend we all try using binaural mode, primarily on earphones, and find a setting that makes 'sitting in front of the piano more real to us'. I hope you can award yourself with your transducer experience some day David, it's certainly as interesting to us thinking about it, as it would be greatly enjoyed by you.

I think of Pianoteq's stereo mode, as it relates to our various use cases, as a stable fixed B/A stereo image bass to trebles, without any particular interference from things such as mic positions or mic colouration, (and related independent directional pressures/phasing from each individual mic's own stereo patterns) and without binaural mode's extra processing of cross-talk between speakers. Fixed stage non-binaural processing perhaps sums it?

Think of each microphone as a flashlight to understand the general directional nature, then imagine each beam also having its own stereo field. A Venn diagram kind of thing as a thought experiment can illustrate how that could be rather messy. Whereas, one unified stereo signal from a primarily 'player perspective' can be a lot cleaner heard on a lot of stereo speakers. But, the art of arranging mics can add 'something' too - a choice at least.

Indeed, Stereophonic can be the best solution I feel, for someone looking for their best overall sound which will also work on a majority of other people's sound systems, way ahead of binaural mode for that.

I'm still having that old worry - couldn't sleep if I were to recommend to anyone learning about their best results with audio, that we can "run everything through binaural mode, esp. over speakers".

The simple take-away I'd say is that binaural mode is really not a one-click magic fix for all audio. All this stuff is so nuanced though which makes it so interesting even after a massive amount of time spent experimenting. Some other binaural tools apply all sorts of extra processing including room ambiance to set, like reverb, further space between the listener's perceptive positioning in the sound space. Pianoteq's is wonderfully adaptive by comparison to many other tools - so there's that certainly going in its favour.

Running everything (including Pink Floyd) through a binaural mode, to me, might be akin to auto-colorising the black & white classics of cinema without regard for the art itself and other dramatic inferences, IMO. Or running your nice clean (but ordinary? if you know what I mean) photos through a photo filter de jour insta-making it look a certain way like the 70s, or filmic. It makes you smile today but in later years you trawl through all those old photos and rue the day you discovered that dern filter.

One might like it immensely (in terms only of personal preferences, not considering mainstreaming a product), even for a short term whilst it remains a novel experience - but it's going to eventually suck the life out of it for people who feel it's perhaps resulting in somewhat ruined art which may be best not tampered with etc? - no harm in enjoying it if one does of course but it is a stretch to say it's better in general for others on their much differing apparatus.

@professor - you might really love to look at Waves.com Abbey Road Studio 3 plugin, or their earlier NX (I may have already posted that before somewhere?, or maybe I'm mis-remembering), for headphone mixing - you can use its built-in eye tracking so moving your head around in real time within the space is doable (I recommend that plugin for mixing in headphones - but not exclusively - it's a marvelous tool but I would use it less than a 3rd of the time, everyone will differ in their reasons).

That Pink Floyd mix, to me, is fun to hear, but as they say in Internet lingo lately, "Thanks, I hate it" hehe ;0) Being cheeky in a friendly way - not judging but offering my own perspectives and reasoning.

I suppose I am destined to be 'that one' though who feels the caveats are profound enough to bang on in this essay form.. that joke probably requires some contextual explanation of its own.

Primarily talking about binaural mode on speakers to be clear..

On the face of it, taking any stereo or surround sound mix then applying a fixed binaural mode to it, just doesn't make good sense to me over speakers, mathematically nor experiential. It may sound amazing to some of us but it's a trick which will get old fast in my experience.

Standardising on such a thing risks making us kick our earlier selves in later years (if seriously wanting to record self in a way most others can hear it well), almost guaranteed.

Some interesting thoughts re Pink Floyd; they made their original mix for the ubiquitous sound systems of the day and esp. at a marvelous technical level for the audiophiles of the time and reliant upon some of the best of the best in the business on so many stratums - and it was a no brainer that the best way to listen was on supreme stereo equipment also of the era. (It was not uncommon for typical working/middle-class households to own a primary stereo along with a cupboard stash of all kinds of vinyl). Nothing like turning up a quality old valve stereo with large speakers beautifully tuned for that vinyl sound (except arguably a modern day equiv of course).

But most homes had OK or cut down ones - and some still held on to mono AM radios.. but the thing is, that album would sound great for those systems, compared to other things.

Now, if you play a binaural signal across 100 different systems.. you'd maybe hear it sounding OK on a few, mostly weird in some way on everyting.

Next interesting thing, Pink Floyd and others did make quadraphonic mixes (was a magnetic draw at shows "Man they make this crazy all around sound thing, it's amazing, you can hear things behind you as well as in front and all around!" . The vinyl releases in quadraphonic (not just by Pink Floyd) had always mixed reviews - chiefly among the reasons: because obviously mom-and-pops all over the place were saying "No" when the kids were asking parents to upgrade the home stereo with 2 more speakers.

But, there's a fine reason to be mixing for stereo, and as ubiquitous as home theaters are, it's not the only format - plus, they still playback stereo just the same.. so no loss to anyone - the gain for music is that stereo is more ubiquitous than all other systems combined (or maybe that's a stretch?).. but hope the point is made that by introducing a binaural mode, people playing your music back on whatever weird stereo speakers they use, will likely up front just hear something wrong with your 'mix' and that may sadly degrade your chances of making audio which will help people fall in love with your music as easily.

My cheapskate late 70s or maybe early 80s trick was to take a 'quality dumpster' 3rd speaker, and poke the 2 wires in with the others (both into the red - definitely look it up if interested, keywords like "3 speaker ambient eno") - and voila, a 'kind of triangular surround' sound. The 3rd speaker would emit only the signals in a mix which were not centered.

It was a kind of a brutal physical reverse "Mid/Side-like" trick I learned from reading up on the inimitable Brian Eno's production techniques - and for the life, can't remember actually for which album he wrote about that but it was central to his early ambient series (I think it was on the rear or an insert- maybe an interview - if time permits I'll replace this text with links or quotes - most likely his first ambient record, but maybe I only learned about it after more were released).. but as a young person, that was sheer inanimate animal magic and sexy as all-get-out to make work for the first time.. I could for example experiment with mixing a song that sounded normal in front but have a vocal coming eerily from behind the listener.. "Pssst, don't look behind you". Fun. I remember playing such things to bamboozle my younger cousins (there may have been a ventriloquist doll prop involved, covering the 3rd speaker behind us, definitely not supposed to be aliiiive!). I remember this was not a nice thing for the very young ones and I wouldn't recommend trying it at home with your own children, esp. if you would like them to keep in touch in later life (more solid advice from experience and being young and stooopid more than once).

But, I had to be realistic and know that not everything would automatically sound better with that 3rd speaker behind our head making strange ambience not heard in 'regular mix'.

Mostly because nobody but Eno fans had a 3rd speaker fetish!

Someone needed to explicitly mix "for" that peculiar environment to make it as interesting as possible as well. You could theoretically pull off a mix for a kind of three point stereo image - so no matter which 2 speakers you sat in front of, you'd get a unique stereo experience.. playback again but face the next 2, different, repeat one last time with remaining pair. Fun certainly but pointy-headed in the extreme in a consumer's estimation

The way biggest market (homes with 2 speakers) had spoken and 'interesting' anomalies were relegated to interesting choices made by teens and artists, rather than becoming ubiquitous in family rooms.

Arguably, "Home Theater" with 5.1 and 7.1 surround has captured a large market but, to mix for this, is beyond required ground for most music to this day.. and will likely remain the outlier rather (not insignificant but mostly tied to film scoring) than the standard for much time to come (again, when I opine about that kind of thing, I'm not determining it to be wrong to do - just trying to help draw some bounds we might each want to consider if we're mixing our music for as many other listeners as possible, which kind of ultimately sums up what "the market" is).

The main secondary speaker arrangement; mono, remains to this day possibly more common (thanks due to tiny devices) than any kind of consumer-ready surround out-of-box systems which carry a single-use case for a high cost compared to a multi-use low cost.. telephone etc. Largely 'home theater' audio processing, depending on the electronics etc., can make a compounding odd munge of any binaural or other trickery. It could sound great to you, but next door Johnny is playing it back on 2 vanilla speakers set too close together and it sounds dreadful to him. Mary on the other side thinks we're all too obsessed and gives us reasons to go outside more and take a breather. Thanks Mary! You're a hell of a good influence ;0)

Hope that gives some extra dimension to why I'd be cautious using binaural mode for everything, esp. over 2 speakers.. it's not for that. But also, whatever makes us happy!

I would suggest, a hearing check though too (seriously and with good reason), if things sound better by default in binaural mode over your speakers.. it may be the case that an examination of the ears could find a need to release some pressure in the inner ear which may make your enjoyment of 'normal' spaces return? Also, it's not often said, but making sure that we listen at reasonable volumes at most times is super serious stuff.. your inner ears can go bald (losing organelles) and you can lose chunks of frequencies as it happens. You can have months of recovery from your ears being too thumped by certain frequencies and maybe in future some protein therapies may help regenerate lost stereocilla. Not to mention as we lose hearing, we may self-generate reactive neural cognitive processes (like finding ourselves perhaps battling with a mild onset of a type of amusia?) which I'll leave for now. It's easy in this day and age to plonk on headphones with a B/A perspective, run them too loud for years and some day realise you have lost a lot of treble reception in your right ear, and lost a lot of bass in your left. This last paragraph is worth considering - and taking some breaks from normal headphone use, to allow your brain to re-boot enough so you can come back fresh, to re-listen to your binaural mix mode.. like I say in first posting, give these things time.. you kind of need it to know how your physical and mental processes are firing and time gives the best gauge on these things.

Audio is a tricky, wonderful thing.

That's really good David, plays well.

I seem to get a similar good result doing that with the Steinway B too.

With the C. Bechstein DG, doing the same and dropping the impedance down to something around 94 seems key.

Oh, same with the Ant. Petrof.

The D with that setting might be calling me to play it more often.

Never thought to do this - thanks! - I really like the results.

Noted with great interest, will try that as soon as I can, with impedance setting suggested by qexl. Have tried Stereophonic with several presets and quite liked it, but I don't think I tried it with Steinway D.