RunningMusic

[MNSignalProcessing]

Hi everybody,

I just want to inform you about the launch of our new binaural music player app. I know that it's a little bit off-topic since it's an app for *listening* to music, not for *making* music. But maybe you're interested in the background of this app.

In March, we published VirtualRoom, an app which demonstrates the capabilities of MNSP's binaural rendering technology. Following the release I got a lot of comments from people who said they would like to listen to their music binaurally. However, I was not very convinced that this would really be as impressive as people would imagine it (I mean, convolving music with BRIRs is ok, but still not soooooo exciting and without individual BRIRs it is even unlikely to lead to a stable localization of the sounds - think front-back confusion...).

So after considering how I could make an app that allows to listen to music binaurally and still provides the user with an *interesting* binaural effect, I came up with the concept of RunningMusic: an app that lets you listen to music while running or cycling as if the music was played by loudspeakers which are part of your environment (and which therefore move relative to your head). As expected, it turned out that this gives a much more stable localization due to the moving sources. Furthermore, having these externalized sources that relate to the physical activity proved to be really pleasant.

If you are interested in knowing how it sounds, there is a video which switches around 0:30 from stereo to binaural (binaural rendering done with the exact same BR2™ rendering engine that is used also in the app):


The app itself is here: http://itunes.apple.com/app/runningmusic/id540375182

If anybody wants to write a review (on a blog, a running website, etc.), I can provide promo codes.

Best regards,
Fritz

[martygras]

This is a good idea Fritz. I use binaural tones to de-stress and to help with practicing meditation.
I have noticed that timbre has a great effect on perception. I have some recordings of Tibetan bells. The size of finger cymbals, or zills as they are sometimes referred to. The pairs are always out of tune. I think this may be on-purpose to create the "beat" of the binaural tone. The ringing of the brass has more affect on me than synthetically created tones. I can't explain why though.

[MNSignalProcessing]

This is a good idea Fritz. I use binaural tones to de-stress and to help with practicing meditation.
I have noticed that timbre has a great effect on perception. I have some recordings of Tibetan bells. The size of finger cymbals, or zills as they are sometimes referred to. The pairs are always out of tune. I think this may be on-purpose to create the "beat" of the binaural tone. The ringing of the brass has more affect on me than synthetically created tones. I can't explain why though.

Thanks!

Interesting statement in the last sentence. But makes sense though. I mean, it's also more stimulating to walk through a forest than through a corridor with concrete walls, isn't it..? But of course there are also rather uninteresting or even unpleasant natural sounds and really nice synthetic ones, as there are boring landscapes and really nice buildings.

However, the binaural audio you're mentioning is a completely different one than the one I'm working with. In fact, I made considerable efforts *not* to change the pitch of the music (which would actually happen due to the Doppler effect).