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Get Your Virtual Haircut and Other Auditory Illusions

John P.

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Holophonic RecordingMy buddy Hrafn over at Think Artificial found this fantastic audio recording that sounds exactly like you’re getting a haircut. I thought it was so cool that I had to do some research.

These are called Holophonic sounds and are made to be listened to with headphones. They are recorded with a dummy head that has two microphones, one in each ear. The shape of the head and ears must be similar to a human head.

Select the PLAY button to listen

The Virtual Haircut (Download Zip):
Virtual Haircut

The Holophonic Matchbox (Download Zip):
Holophonic Matchbox

A Woman’s Voice (Download Zip):
Woman’s Voice

Blow Drying (Download Zip):
Hairdryer

Tuning Fork (Download Zip):
Tuning Fork

Shears (Download Zip):
Shears

Dogs Running (Download Zip):
Dogs Running

Dogs Barking (Download Zip):
Dogs Barking

Loud Frogs (Download Zip):
Loud Frogs

Sexy Woman’s Invitation (Download Zip):
Sexy Woman’s Invitation

Jazz Band (Download Zip):
Jazz Band

Flutes in Singapore (Download Zip):
Flutes in Singapore

Digital Vivaldi (Download Zip):
Digital Vivaldi

Crumpling Bag (Download Zip):
Crumpling Bag

By the way, I was contacted by the guys who actually made the Virtual Haircut, and they have a new 3D Audio game coming that uses the same technology here: www.EarGames.com Check it out!

Comments

  1. I can see it now….the next big wave in downloads from a huge pay site. I personally would record something really scary so I can slip the headphones onto a pair of my drunk buddy, and then capture on video his response. I am sure it would be a viral hit.

    *All suggestions here are owned solely by the owner, me* ;)

  3. Try The Holophonic Matchbox, and listen to it a couple of times. First I heard the shaked box always behind me then after repeated listening I started to hear it properly in front of me.

  5. This was done 40 years ago by German audio engineers. They made a dummy head out of plastic and embedded microphones where the eardrums would be. It was called “Kunstkopf”.

  7. The only thing I missed was the feeling that the sound was passing in front of me. I had the feeling of right and left side and up and over my head. I simply did not perceive the sound as coming from in front of me. When it passed from one side to the other it had the distinct feeling it was passing behind me not in front. Even the sounds of the truck were like they were behind me, not passing in front of me. Did anyone else perceive the sounds in this way? Thanks it was very interesting.

  9. Hahahah! i’ve been trawling your archives and come across this collection. I’ve got the virtual barbershop on my pc, and it makes the hair on my neck stand up every time I hear that last whisper….urrgh. The others are new, so I’m going to download them now.

  11. It’s not just two microphones that make this happen. The microphones need to be using the Cetera algorithm for the sound to be “3D” and negate the presence of the headphones in your ear.

    They use the same technology in hearing aids to more accurately reproduce the human ear.

  12. Hey, we studied this at Uni, did some recordings and put them in our music. Love Binaural Check out Tunnel Vision at our website to hear a journey between London Victoria and Oxford Circus, embedded in a musical context. enjoy

    Chris

  14. You need two mikes and a recorder, thats it.
    My friend and I used to make these recordings about 25 years ago after school for kicks.
    There was no Internet back then, so we just had to share them with each other.
    You can get some pretty amazing effects if you place the mikes very far apart (like a room, house, or back yard). You lose the effect if you place them too close together.
    The quality of the mikes and the sample rate make a difference as well.
    Once you make about 2 simple ones, you will get the feel for it, and then you make what ever custom ones you like.

    • What’s the name of the song by Vivaldi that is the one labeled on here as “Digital Vivaldi”? I love that song!

  19. the virtual hair cut was the best i feel like i was going bald! and the match box thing OMG that was so creepy especially the womans voice feel like shes praying or something :)) this is so cool especially when youre all alone … when youre all alone and listening to the matchbox ekkkkkk so scary !! :)) everyone should try this .. this is so cool … now im done

  20. These works are exciting. Very good.
    I liked the “The Virtual Haircut” the most.
    The part “A Woman’s Voice” is very hard to listening. :)
    At the “The Holophonic Matchbox”, when the matchbox sliding from the shoulder to the back… It’s not easy to explain. ;)

    Congratulations….

    Do you know are there more illusion sound anywere?

  22. They don’t use special software. They use a dummy head on which are placed two microphones (where its ears would be) and they are recorded simultaneously, and played back giving the illusion of 3D sound.

  24. omg that was so cool. but in “a womans voice” what is she saying? can someone please tell me?

    thanks

  27. This was awesome. I loved the Vivaldi, it made me feel that the music was all around me.

    Please keep me updated if you make any more!

    Peace.

  28. It is done by having a head the size of a normal head and there is microphones in each of the dolls ears which records the sound eczacley how you would here them in real life.. :)

  30. this is awsome it really feals like they are there talking to you doing the haircut! how do you do this??

  36. this method can be used to films and teledramas. then it’ll more creative than earlier. great invention. any more ideas?

  39. We used to do this as kids, kind of, two hands, fingers extended, drug lightly down the sides of a friends head to simulate an egg dripping over your head. try it, use a cluck to simmlulate the egg crack with a tap on the head first.

  41. i think the virtual haircut is mint but can you do more virtual things to do with the body cause it is better than the matchbox and all the others

  42. Wow. I winced, I flinched, I yelped twice.
    Now let’s see someone make a more commercial use of this! Porn (sadly) comes to mind. Live concert as well? Video games would be a natural. Maybe some atmospheric horror audio? That would be effective!

  43. he tells you how its done in the hair cut one. there is a model of a head with 2 microphone pick ups where the ears should be. then they actually just re enact the scene

  46. This is a cool site. easy to down load and problem free. i loved ur auditory illusions. they r sooooo real !!!!!!!!!

  47. this is so cool!!!!!! i didnt even kno that it was possible to make such a thing,=!!! the part where the barber puts the bag over your head sounds so cool!!! it feels like it is really happening!

  50. Is there any where you can download these as MP3s? It’s just so i can put it on my mobile and get the atmosphere through the earphones! I think it’s much better that through earphones!!

  52. Thanks for posting these! My students came across your site and it served for unique classroom experience. =)

  54. it is great ….
    please listen ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’…..instrumental track from the 1970 Pink Floyd album Atom Heart Mother….
    they did a great virtual space in it….anybody want this track please mail me i will send to you
    girishav_2000@yahoo.com

  55. The woman was saying “I’m getting closer, I’m getting closer” and, upon reaching your ear, she said “I’m really close”

  56. Sorry about that Aaron. You may be seeing pass through traffic from this page because it’s been getting a lot of play in the last few days. Yesterday the article was read over 2,600 times and over 1,000 already today. Sorry if this has been pushing your bandwidth over the edge, but the good news is that means that lots of people are enjoying your work! :-)

    I still have a rediculous amount of bandwidth available (I’m at like 3% of my monthly alotted bandwidth on this box) so when I get a chance I’ll put them here on my server to take the strain off. In the meantime I’ve disabled the embedded player so hopefully that stops the pass-through load.

    If there are a few of your smaller recordings which you would like featured on this page please let me know which ones you think are most appropriate (given the holophonic nature of the page). I have listened to some of them but I certainly didn’t have time to go through many. You have such an extensive collection! ;-)

    John

  57. Hi John,

    Urp, I just checked and saw that I’m at over 90% of my monthly b/w at the moment, for some reason there was a huge spike today about 10x my normal traffic — since I last checked in I’ve been riding a wave of about 3-4x normal, but this is going to push me over the edge… :/

    With that in mind, could I take you up on your kind offer for local hosting and/or temporarily disabling those links (or linking to much smaller files on my site)?

    (Glad this didn’t happen next week, I’ll be at Burning Man all week and wouldn’t have known my site was down until I returned!)

    Best,
    Aaron

  58. Yes, the tricks our mind can play on us are quite interesting. It sometimes makes me wonder how much we can trust our own senses when it comes to how we perceive reality. It also makes it easy to see why a disease like Schizophrenia can do this to you.

    John

  59. Wow, that’s freaky! The woman’s voice track is so real. I could almost feel her breath on my neck as she whispered in my ear. Same for the haircut. It made me feel physical sensations as if I were actually in a barber’s chair getting the haircut. That is utterly fantastic!! Thanks for the find.

  60. Aaron,

    Thanks for stopping by and clearing that matter up. I’m glad to hear that you’ve gotten some good exposure for these recordings in the past. I think they are quite interesting myself.

    If you get to the point where the downloads are becoming a burden on bandwidth just let me know and I’ll either remove them or put copies on this server. One of the good things about the embedded player is that you don’t need to wait for them to completely download to begin playing. This also means that if someone stops the playback the download ceases as well.

    Thanks also for explaining the difference between how your recordings are made and true binaural. Either way, they do sound cool through a set of headphones. :-)

    Take care,

    John

  61. @ John,

    Aaron here from quietamerican.org…

    Fwiw the tracks you link to *are* the album, they total about two hours. Almost all of the work I do is available under Creative Commons on my site, the CC license is on the contact page. I do sell people CDs but that’s usually because they want full-fidelity versions, they want an object to hold with cover art, they want to support me, to give as gifts, or because they don’t have the bandwidth to download the tracks.

    I don’t mind people linking with credit, though I usually do prefer a link to the page instead of “deep linking” it’s not a big deal. I understand that flash players are more convenient. In this case people might be interested to know how that album was made — it documents a series of sound sculpture that randomly mix several layers of selected source sounds to create a never-repeating soundscape; the point being, I recorded the sounds and built libraries of them, but I didn’t ‘compose’ those tracks… chance did…

    Fwiw I get a lot of traffic already, thanks ;) — much of it is going to the one-minute vacation project. I have gotten hit by BoingBoing and digg a few times, but until I go overbandwidth my host is pretty stout.

    Final comment ~ my recordings aren’t holophonic or true binaural recording (though I do have mics to do that, which are small enough to stick in your ear canals…); they’re made with mics that compromise between true binaural more conventional stereo. True binaural can sound noticeably odd over normal speakers.

  62. Wow. I can’t believe someone just lectured me about hotlinking.

    1. Boing, Boing isn’t going to link to this article. But it does get a lot of traffic on it’s own thank you.
    2. This is not some sneaky hotlinking to take advantage of bandwidth. I clearly labeled where they came from and provided a link to the site (which incidentally has TONS of other recordings). I’m guessing he would rather me do this than potentially violate copyright (which is not clearly stated anywhere) by hosting them on my site.
    3. The author has provided them as samples from a CD he sells. I’m guessing that this page will generate more exposure for him than anything he’s ever seen in the past. For that reason I’m guessing he’d rather keep the recordings available to people to hear.
    4. If he contacts me and notifys me that he doesn’t want the exposure I’ll happily remove them.

    In the future it would probably be better not to accuse someone of being unethical until you’ve clearly thought through the logic. But of course, it’s always easy to take pot-shots without thinking when you are being anonymous, isn’t it.

    John P.

  64. Hotlinking to other people’s files is considered poor netiquette. It is much preferable to link to the person’s site instead. Otherwise you are using their bandwidth, without them getting the benefit of visitors (e.g. if you get linked on boingboing, his bandwidth will go through the roof). Unless you have asked permission from the owner of quietamerican.org, I’d recommend you remove those particular files.

  69. There is an audio cassette tape from the 1990’s that employs this in a holophonic radio-style drama except you can hear the people walking around you as if you’re right there. Look it up, it’s Steven Kings, “The Mist” It’s not scary per se, but very enveloping.

  72. I’ve now uploaded the files. They are Zipped because if I put MP3s up they automatically convert into players. This should allow people to download them and listen to them on an iPod or whatever.

    John

  74. ok that womens voice gave me a chill..and then the virtual haircut…wow those are amazing and i would never think of doing such an awesome thing..wow great job! (:

  76. I’ve heard the virtual haircut. I think its really cool. Can someone please tell me how and where i can download the other holophonic sounds. I can see it on the site but seems impossible to download it.

  77. omg!! dat was soooooo cool!!! it realy felt weired you could imagine in ur head the ppl walkin round you it was sooo creepy but really really cool!!!

  81. Lee,

    I’ve currently got it so that any MP3 I post automatically turns into the little embedded player. When I get a chance I’ll upload ZIP files of the recordings so they can be more easily downloaded, but for now if you know how to read source code for HTML you can see the file names in my HTML and just type them directly into your Web browser to download.

    John

  82. Hi, a friend sent me ”the vitual haircut” to my mobile, i was impressed when i listened to it, so i did a search on google to find others and came across these othe 5 on your blog. Is there anyway i can download them to my PC to put on my moblie?

    Cheers

  83. Thanks Tyler. I’m glad you enjoyed it so much! :-)

    The real thanks needs to go to Hrafn for having found the original recording. I just took it a little further by finding a few more and providing an embedded player for them…

    Take care,

    John

  84. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! HANDS DOWN THE COOLEST THING I’VE SEEN ON THE INTERNET. I’M EVEN TYPING IN ALL CAPS, WHICH RARELY HAPPENS!

  86. Actually the Virtual Barbershop is some kind of commercial, at least the name “Starkey Cetera” has a meaning. Starkey is a company producing hearing aids and their latest product is named – correct – Cetera… :)

  87. I seem to remember something along these lines at Disney World in Orlando. You went into booths and they had headphones lining the walls, hanging just above wooden benches. I was very young at the time and I don’t remember exactly what it was that played but I do remember taking the headphones off a few times as I got creeped out by it.

    Thanks for making me feel creeped out again! :P

  88. About 20 years ago Radio 4 did an experimental audio play in binaural stereo. It used 11 actors and no words. It featured a man escaping from a chain gang/prison. You were him. Men and dogs pursued him, he went through water to lose the dogs, he found shelter,and then the guy that put him inside. It was called The Revenge. It lasted about 15 mins. The most remarkable thing is it was done by Andrew Sachs, or Manuel to most. It won an award in Barcelona I think.

  90. It’s a technique called binaural recording and it’s commonly practised with on-location sound sampling. For example, if I wanted to sample a train station for a TV show I might go to King’s Cross and stand there for a few minutes with microphones in my ears. As a recording technique it’s been around for years.

  92. Outstanding audio quality… you need to have more locales with lots of varying audio sources; my bet would be for Grand Central Station, NYC.

    The woman’s voice… I could swear I felt her hot breath, and was expecting a tongue in my ear!

  95. Nice one, I already had the haircut and searched for more but couldn’t find any, all brilliant.

  97. Great, Now I wont sleep…That womans voice has put ugly scary thoughts in my head…

  100. hehe nice, was wondering if they have one which does the drilling sound of the dentist =0P this way people can practise before going to the dentist!