A binaural recording of the annual German christmas market that is situated at Victoria square in Birminghams city center

sonicpostcards@

Christmas Market

Hello Stereo!- A brief Introduction
Background
Its late 2010 and im contemplating which is the best way to document my impending gap year. Since i come from a audio background it seems sensible that i should aim to deliver a sonic experience to those who wish to know of my movements and experiences
It is through the use of biaural recordings i propose to do this.

What is a stereo postcard?
My stereo postcards shall take the form of a one high quality photograph depicting the scene as i saw it when the binaural recording was taken.
The audio recording itself will be delivered via soundcloud as uncompressed, uneddited, unprocessed audio.
The basic premmis is that the by wearing a pair of decent headphones and by contemplating the image the listener should be able to visualise the scene as it appeared to me at the time of recording. The main difference being that they have no biased visual cues so the audio can be interpreted on an individual basis much like the experience of reading a book  

What is a Binaural recording?
Basic audio theory is needed to understand this.
Any stereo recording when played back aims to replicate the sound captured by the ears in real life, since we hear in stereo, recordings that are delivering information on direction must be recorded with two microphones one to deliver information to the left ear and one to deliver information to the right ear. Just as it must be dispersed with at least two speakers. What makes binaural recording different is the placement of a mass between the microphones thus recreating the effect a human head being in the way has on the received soundwaves.
The main point being that you will hear EXACTLY the same thing i did when i heard it as if you WERE me. 

Sounds cool what else?

Each audio file will be hosted as a public (and therefor downloadable) file licensed under creative commons. Meaning that as long as i am cited as the original source any part of the audio file can be dissected and used for anything from personal use, public consumption or even foley work for film FREE OF CHARGE. 
There are two main limitations of this type of guerilla field recording:
1.I will not have any audio editing software- It would be great to filter out some of the low end information on the audio files for clarity but as i may be in a internet cafe in vietnam its doubtful they will have protools 9. I suggest listeners download the freeware Audacity (for mac and P.C) if they need to do this to make it audibly pleasing.
The same goes for tail ins and tail outs on the beginning of the tracks…..sorry. 
2. Uploads may have to happen in batches- As much as i’d like to update the world instantly it may work out that due to limited internet access i only do it in large chunks
What gear will you be using?
I will most likely be using a hard disk or flash based recorder like the yammha pocketrak G2  and the soundman OKM binaural microphone set. Recordings will be at as high a bit rate and resoloution as possible certainly no lower than 4100Hz, 16 bit.

I hope you enjoy

stereopostcards