Otokinoko Binaural Mic creeps us out in stereo
By Paul Miller 
posted Jun 15th 2008 10:10AM
posted Jun 15th 2008 10:10AM
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Kinda reminds me of the Grand Nagus' sceptre.
Why the hell did I get that reference?
Hold it out and ask a hot chick for oomocs.
"Ignatius @ Jun 15th 2008 11:32AM
Why the hell did I get that reference?"
Because we're nerds.
I don't know what I'd think if I found one of those in the drawer.
For that price i want someone to come to my house, sit down and explain to me fully where my money went.
It went into molding those ears.
For that kinda money I want my own ears moulded on to it!
and I thought there was no highest ranked anymore.. Good job, maty!
At that price, I made some "natural sounding" noises of my own.
That price seems to be right in the ball park. Before, we had to use the Neumann KU 100 Head just to get realistic representation of what the human ear picks up. Remember now, this mic is geared towards professionals not consumers.
http://www.neumann.com/?lang=en&id=current_microphones&cid=ku100_description
It doesn't look like the ears are far enough apart to give an accurate representation of what a human would hear.
...Unless we're talking about something even more advanced: simulating the hearing experience of comically large-eared little monkeys.
"The resulting playback in omnidirectional 3D sound is more realistic than normal stereo because of the subtle shifts in feeling"
...riiight. Fantastic technical explanation of the device there, really gonna reel in the customers with that, and a $4k price tag.
I'm more convinced by the stereo sound provided by the First-person-view RC Car with video headset, and dual-mics.
"Unique and compact Japanese design"
Are they trying to tell us something about the size of Japanese people's heads?
I'm not sure how accurately sounding this thing is, it looks like a cheap knock off from more of the high end binaural recording devices. Yes, a Neumann KU 100 is upwards of $8000, but this looks like a nerf mallet and does not have the characteristics of a human head at all. Unless they modeled it after a fetus of course..
Wooa ha ha!
Why the camera lens doesn't look as an eye?
It reminds me, I have these "Sound Professional" binaural in-ear mics for sound recording. They're cheap, say shitty but with a good portable preamp they're good enough.
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-TFB-2
One of my friends who is also an audio engineer owns these mics, also. They're very good, and i can't fathom why a pre-modeled ear and mounting device could possibly cost more than $1000....what kind of mics are they using?!
You're right Chris, the Sound Professional one are fine but only if you use them with their "Mini Battery Module" to provide enough voltage.
You also touch the point here: "what kind of mics are they (Otokinoko) using?!" The circumference of the mic holder here doesn't represent the size of a "normal" human head so the audio focal is not correct with the size of those ears - IMO.
I guess we will be holding up human heads on sticks eventually.
Maybe they've already been inspired by jivaros reduced heads?
They're using gold plated mics for best possible sound reception, because as you all know, gold plated mic's pick up sound so much better.
I've always wondered why no one has ever made a mic like this. It only make too much sense.
Neumann has been making a mic like this (actually better) for many years now.
And AKG (methinks, don't hold me to it). Neumann is obviously better though ;P
That made my day im still laughing XD
This only really makes sense if you are only going to play back on headphones. Otherwise the stereo will be all wrong, since you are applying the "function of the ears" twice.
Exactly. Without headphones, this won't be very good sounding stereo.
I think this is for more scientific applications. As a professional in film/video production, we work our asses off to isolate sounds as to record only what we want.
I don't see anywhere in the specs that this mic comes with a predictive computer that can filter out unwanted sounds, adjust the ear angles automatically and ever-so-subtly for optimal listening, and the amazing ability to fill-in missed sounds through adaptive guesswork and imagination. (aka, the human brain).
This seems to have limited uses for sure.
In order to fully realize the true quality of this mic though, you'll need to play back the resulting recording over a set of Wisdom Audio speakers connected by a set of Pear cables, otherwise you're a philistine in no position to judge.
I see what you're trying to do there, but Binaural recordings are actually widely available online and the quality with any pair of headphones is pretty unreal.
To actually make your comment work, try this:
In order to fully realize the true quality of this mike though, you'll need to play back the resulting recording over a set of Sony R10 headphones connected by a set of Pear Cables to a Melos Amplifier, otherwise you're a philistine and in no position to judge.
Sony R10, eh? That's pretty extravagant. What kind of bionic super hearing would you need to have in order to truly appreciate those headphones?
Flawed as it has the wrong head size. Binaural audio is also based an transit time around your head for sound reaching the opposite ear. So you really need to go all the way and model a more realistic sized head as well.
Ptsss... Blue brother listening!
Is it just me or does it seem kinda stupid that the gap between the ears is highly inaccurate in order to capture a sound that recreates how a human hears.
I've done Binaural recordings before and the closest way I studied in college is in order to have the gap in the middle as close to that of a humans head.
I don't think the distance truly matters to replicate the HRTF (Head related transfer functions) as long as the proportion is correct.
BTW Otokinoko means sound mushroom in Japanese.
Just shape it like Stewie Griffin's head and place it on top of the camera. Problem solved.
I'm surprised by the camera they chose to attach it to in the press shots. It's an ancient Sony VX3, 15 years old at this point. It even shoots Hi8, tape!
Shows backwards compatability.
If you were joking about the compatability, ignore me. But if not, I don't think that anybody doing Binaural recording, would lack the money to buy a decent/new-er camera.
That's silly. Who has a 4 inch diameter head? Send your $3,800 to me instead. I'll buy you a great set of Neumann mics and tape them to your head.
Just think. If wwwwwwdc2008 had been this weekend we would have never have heard about this. I agree with the first comment.
I'd be here, you'd just be too busy complaining about all the WWDC08 posts to notice :)
OMG! IT'S SPOCK'S EARS!
"The only problem is that your subject, be they human, inanimate or a strange hybrid, is going to be so busy being freaked out by this set of blue ears that they'll forget to make any sort of "natural sounding" noise."
I think you are underestimating people. When movies first had sound, actors were nervous that they would make a noise that wasn't meant to be on the track, and the acting suffered. But people got over it. If this catches on, people will figure it out.
I think you're taking the post a little too seriously...
What's up with the low flow of news on all tech/mobile websites? Is everyone busy playing MSG4?
*mgs4
@Nak
Not Nagus but NEGUS, "Negus Negesti" actually.
Your blasphemy just offended a few millions godfearing rastafarians.
You obviously missed the joke...
http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Grand_Nagus
At that price it better have genuine human ears from dead people hooked up to it...
Explain to me why you can't just wire up some hearing aid style microphones in your ears and record it that way?
And does this actually produce holophonic recordings?
Why didn't they encase the ears in foam, too? That way it wouldn't look so creepy, and the surrounding foam wouldn't change the binaural effect.
These should work fairly well, as the sound from the rear will be changed by the shape of he ear around the mic.
The price doesn't sound that bad for a high end mic for professional applications (You won't hear the benefits unless you listen through headphones - And they don't have to be very high end).
It would probably sound better if the ears were flesh replicas, accurate in color, texture, and imperfections. Maybe some little hairs and a few freckles - perhaps a diamond stud.
I want these things to be the ears of Bruce Dickinson.
The problem with binaural mics like these and the Neumann ones are that when you use them to try and record a live band in a club, drunks keep trying to talk to them.
Would I be wrong in saying this device is all ears?
"My, what big ears you have!"
"The better to hear you with, my dear."
an extra $20 gets you the Vulcan edition
worse would be some dummy as a head mic
like say the dummy that thought of this!
That is one of the ugliest accessories for anything I have ever seen,
I think I will design a 3D camera to go with this. It would be able to change its viewpoint within its own unit, and it can adjust to different lighting.
Now I wonder what the design of this camera should look like?
Does it come with q-tips for easy cleaning?
For binaural recording, I've just used large headphones, with the earpieces turned outwards.
The results are pretty good!
Had a dream last night that someone was beating me to death with one of these, except the thing had eyes and a mouth also. very weird indeed. stay outta my dreams engadget. It was very frightening.
Put your headphones on and listen to this...
http://www.break.com/index/amazing-digital-surround-sound.html
I don't like gadgets that look like people.... freaks me out
@Tobias:
The Neumann has a setting that compensates for the problem you described - to make binaural recordings sound better on a stereo speaker playback system. Maybe they've integrated something like that.
For that money I'd want something better than 1/8 minijack as an output though. And a wooden presentation box with spare rubber ears.