Immersive music refers to songs by which listeners feel some fantastic sound experience around them in a three-dimensional manner. Immersive music has a natural structure, and the listener feels surrounded by musical instruments, the singer, and the effects. If the immersive songs are combined with a suitable video, the listener imagines that different events are happening right before his eyes. If you are interested in Immersive music, do not miss the following article.
What is immersive music, and how does it affect the listener?
The speed of advancement in technology and various technologies has become so great that sometimes many people may not be aware of the latest developments. New listening technologies are clear examples of the impact of scientific advances on human entertainment. Over the past decade, the music industry has grown rapidly, just like video games and filmmaking. Perhaps it can be said that different boundaries need to be moved to keep people entertained.
Artists in audio entertainment and the music industry have pushed the boundaries with the invention of immersive music. The source of immersive sounds is not just a single source. When listening to a 3D song, the sound is not heard from the left or right, or even both sides. Instead, the immersive music listener receives sounds from unlimited points in space.
What role does sound play in Immersive music?
Immersive sound is a new approach in which sound is performed from several different dimensions. It can be said that the listener of the immersive sound is located in the centre of a wide sound field, which acts more comprehensively than the surround sound. Placing the listener in a multidimensional sound field has an extraordinary effect on him. Surround sound is played on a horizontal surface around the listener. However, immersive sound is designed to create an immersive experience for the user.
While listening to immersive music, the perceptual system of the human body acts as if the sound is emitted from all the space around the person. At the annual Grammy Awards in 2019, the Music Academy changed the category of surround sound awards to Immersive sound. This renaming may seem like a simple branding trick, but the truth is something else. The change that has taken place in music has more to do with technology than with the name.
Simply put, sound production technology has changed. Sound waves are no longer just pervasive and are not transmitted only from superficial positions around the listener (left, right, front, and back). Immersive sound means that the sound can now be heard from anywhere above, below, and around, creating a dynamic sound field around the listener. The term “immersive” is used to describe better how sound is transmitted in 3D music.
Surround sound, the basis of Immersive music
Contrary to appearances, Immersive music is by no means a new and modern concept. Disney tested surround sound in some of its television shows, including Fantasia, in the early 1940s. Disney, at the time, was trying to completely simulate the sound of a bee flying inside a room. However, it took decades to successfully implement the idea of acting the sound of a bee flying in the environment and using such a trick in the entertainment industry.
It can be said that the original date of birth of surround sound dates back to 1957. A musician and artist, named Henry Jacobs, performed audio-visual concerts at the Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco. For the first time, surround sound was used in Jacobs concerts. After that, it took 20 years for Dolby Stereo Surround tech to be used in movies like Apocalypse Now and Blade Runner. The popularity of surround sound was just the beginning of Immersive music fame.
Immersive music evolution; From the twentieth century to the present
The evolution of the number of audio channels available to viewers and listeners of multimedia works is also fascinating. Audio technologies are highly dependent on sound recording technology as well as engineering. In the 1950s and early 1960s, many songs and soundtracks were recorded mono. Mono sound means that the sound was played through only one channel, meaning that even if there were two speakers in the room, they would both play the same sound.
There was no ability to distinguish broadcast sound between the left and right channels. In the mid-twentieth century, stereo sound became popular. The stereo was a larger audio field, and audio engineers made the most of it. If you share a stereo headphone with someone else and only use one side of it, you will probably find that you do not hear certain sounds, such as the guitar or the singer.
Do not hear sounds when using one side of the headphones because stereo technology is used to adjust the volume of modern music. Some sounds are assigned to the right channel in stereo sound, transmitted only from the left channel. In recent years, 5.1 or 7.1 channel speakers have become popular. There are also various settings for the speakers to make the best immersion of the user in the audio field. For example, you can select sound effects from your sound effects library of choice and then assign it to a channel to be heard only from a specific direction.
In the world, immersive music has added another feature to the soundtrack: pitch. In immersive music, the sound is not only heard from the left, right, front, or back but also from above and below. Dolby Atmos is one of the most popular immersive audio playback formats. The song recorded and produced using Dolby Atmos technology can be played through 34 different speakers.
The sound of immersive music
360-degree sound opens the door to a dream world for musicians and even sound engineers. What was a fascinating science-fiction subject about 50 years ago is now in the realm of reality. In the Immersive music section of the Grammy Festival, great and famous artists can be seen as winners. Immersive sound technology works like a new and exciting canvas for artists. Even ordinary people can tell their life stories to others most realistically and uniquely.
Various methods are used to record surround sound and create an immersive experience. Making immersive music is not easy, but engineers and composers can overcome challenges. Every year, several immersive songs are released, indicating the growth of this supply. Watching a movie or listening to music becomes a beautiful experience when you can feel the clarity of the sound 360 degrees. With this in mind, many homes are expected to use the Immersive audio system.
Founder Dinis Guarda
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