Then there’s echo and reverberation of sound as it bounces off objects in our environment. A sound that originates to our right side will hit our right ear ever so slightly faster than it hits our left ear. There’s a discrepancy in how long a sound takes to reach each of our ears. The brain figures out where sounds are coming from through several cues.
How does 8D audio work? A Neumann KU-100 Dummy Head microphone used for binaural recording Neumann These are almost exclusively instrumental versions of popular songs or original works, but you won’t get Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy, for instance, in 8D on Apple Music unless Eilish releases one herself. However, subscription streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify also have growing catalogs of 8D tracks. YouTube is also the place for 8D treatments of your favorite artists.
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With over 11 million matches to “8D audio” on Google, it’s a huge collection, plus there’s no subscription needed. YouTube is probably the easiest place to find 8D audio tracks. At its worst, it can produce feelings of dizziness and nausea. At it’s best, 8D audio treatments of your favorite songs can give you an entirely new way to enjoy them. To my ears, the Eminem track above simply sounds like I’m wandering back and forth in front of a single speaker that’s playing Lose Yourself.Īs with any art form, there are downright masterful uses of 8D and shockingly bad ones too. There are others, of course, who find it awful. In this way, 8D audio is similar to ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) - another YouTube audio phenomenon whose fans insist can help them relax, sleep better, or just experience pleasurable chills. The idea behind that signature movement of 8D audio is that it creates a soothing feeling, though whether it actually does or not is highly subjective.
8D tracks are always on the move through space. On the other hand, 8D uses it as a defining characteristic. The difference is that most professionally produced songs use it very sparingly, and never continuously. In fact, if you’re a fan of listening to music with headphones, you’ve probably encountered lots of tracks - typically from the ’70s heyday of studio production - that use this movement effect. Try it out below with this sample Eminem track - make sure you’re wearing headphones.Ībsolutely.
When a song is given the 8D-treatment, it can create the impression that you’re standing in the middle of a room (or a gym, or a concert hall, etc.) while all of the musicians and vocalists magically “move around” you. So what is 8D audio?ĨD audio uses the principles of binaural recording to trick our brains into thinking that sounds are coming from different places in three-dimensional space. Instead, think of it as a marketing term used to label a very specific kind of audio recording. We’ll explore how the human brain does this a little later, but for now, we’ll simply point out that “8D audio” doesn’t actually possess eight dimensions. It’s how we can tell the difference between a sound that’s coming from behind us and one that is in front of us. Our brains are incredible machines, however, and they can interpret incoming sounds from our ears in three dimensions - the same three dimensions we all inhabit in our daily lives: height, width, and depth. In fact, audio doesn’t really possess any dimensions at all. Let’s get one thing settled right away: There’s no such thing as audio that possesses eight dimensions, nine dimensions, or even 100 dimensions, no matter what a YouTube video may claim. (2005) Spectrum: NASA/CXC/CfA/Kovács et al. Ear we go … How can audio have eight dimensions? An illustration of the Millennium simulation, which uses supercomputers to formulate how the key components of the Universe would have evolved over cosmic time. In short, what the heck is 8D audio, anyway? Give us a few minutes and we’ll explore every dimension of 8D audio.