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Headphones Required – Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’s Binaural Audio Is Like Nothing You’ve Ever Heard

Orbital2060

Member
I asked copilot: what is binaural sound?

Binaural sound is an intriguing phenomenon that enhances our auditory experience. When you listen to two tones with slightly different frequencies simultaneously, your brain creates an illusion called a binaural beat. Here’s how it works:
  1. The Illusion: Imagine you’re wearing headphones. The left ear receives one tone, and the right ear receives another. Your brain interprets these tones as a beat of its own, aligning with your brain waves. This beat has a frequency equal to the difference between the two tones.
  2. Frequency-Following Effect: Listening to binaural beats can entrain your mind to specific mental states. For instance, if you hear a 440 Hz tone in your left ear and a 444 Hz tone in your right ear, your brain activity synchronizes with the resulting 4 Hz beat. This phenomenon is known as the frequency-following effect.
  3. Brain Waves and Mental States:
    • Delta (1-4 Hz): Associated with deep sleep, healing, pain relief, and accessing the unconscious mind.
    • Theta (4-8 Hz): Benefits include meditation, deep relaxation, and creativity.
    • Alpha (8-14 Hz): Helps you relax, focus, reduce stress, and maintain positive thinking.
Remember, binaural beats can be a powerful tool for altering mental states, but their effects vary from person to person. If you’re curious, try listening with headphones and explore this fascinating auditory experience! 🎧🧠12
It sounds like the game should do the mixing. And to use headphones for the correct binaural frequency.

edit Copilot is pulling up some stuff about brain waves and mental states, and I dont know if any of that is genuine science or some crackpot bs. But you do need headphones to hear binaural sound properly.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording

Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3D stereo sound sensation for the listener of actually being in the room with the performers or instruments. This effect is often created using a technique known as dummy head recording, wherein a mannequin head is fitted with a microphone in each ear. Binaural recording is intended for replay using headphones and will not translate properly over stereo speakers. This idea of a three-dimensional or "internal" form of sound has also translated into useful advancement of technology in many things such as stethoscopes creating "in-head" acoustics and IMAX movies being able to create a three-dimensional acoustic experience.
 
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Crayon

Member
beats_fuked_7ef11415-5a87-4428-8620-ab918c3d6510_large.jpg



I'm fucking ready

fcd49489-1156-4af5-806f-316c85fb06a1.__CR0,0,800,600_PT0_SX600_V1___.jpg


I'm fucking ready.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member
That was the case with the first one as well imo. They’re really good at sound design over at Ninja Theory.
Do you really think designing something for incredibly narrow sound stage and drivers of headphones is “good sound design”?

It’s physics, you cannot cheat physics.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Do you really think designing something for incredibly narrow sound stage and drivers of headphones is “good sound design”?

It’s physics, you cannot cheat physics.
I’ve never played anything like it before. I don’t really know what they do on a technical level, but whatever it is, it’s fantastic. So I’d call that great design.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I asked copilot: what is binaural sound?


It sounds like the game should do the mixing. And to use headphones for the correct binaural frequency.

edit Copilot is pulling up some stuff about brain waves and mental states, and I dont know if any of that is genuine science or some crackpot bs. But you do need headphones to hear binaural sound properly.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording

RE2 Remake also uses binaural audio IIRC and is available on both PS+ and GP for anyone who wants to get a feel for it.
 

DaGwaphics

Member
The first one did have great audio effects. Not surprising that they've leaned into this further with the new game.
 
I asked copilot: what is binaural sound?


It sounds like the game should do the mixing. And to use headphones for the correct binaural frequency.

edit Copilot is pulling up some stuff about brain waves and mental states, and I dont know if any of that is genuine science or some crackpot bs. But you do need headphones to hear binaural sound properly.

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording

You definitely need hps.

Do you really think designing something for incredibly narrow sound stage and drivers of headphones is “good sound design”?

It’s physics, you cannot cheat physics.

Binaural audio emulates speaker type sound on headphones. Thats the whole point of it.

Recording is done so that each ear can hear both channels at the same time. Just like how you would on a stereo speakers.
 

Filben

Member
edit Copilot is pulling up some stuff about brain waves and mental states, and I dont know if any of that is genuine science or some crackpot bs. But you do need headphones to hear binaural sound properly.
The moment I've read "brain waves" I rolley my eyes. And then they go on to talk about "mental states" and throw around some frequencies. You don't have to get esotheric about binaural audio.

Binaural audio is basically a HRFT (head-related transfer function; means no traditional distribution to channels like left rear or right rear). There are different approaches for this and some HRFT work on a system level. If the game uses HRFT natively, like Hellblade, I'd recommend to turn of your system level HRFT (like Dolby Atmos for Headphones, DTS: Headphone X, etc.) and let the game do the mixing. All you need then is a good pair of stereo headphones.
 

Orbital2060

Member
The moment I've read "brain waves" I rolley my eyes. And then they go on to talk about "mental states" and throw around some frequencies. You don't have to get esotheric about binaural audio.

Binaural audio is basically a HRFT (head-related transfer function; means no traditional distribution to channels like left rear or right rear). There are different approaches for this and some HRFT work on a system level. If the game uses HRFT natively, like Hellblade, I'd recommend to turn of your system level HRFT (like Dolby Atmos for Headphones, DTS: Headphone X, etc.) and let the game do the mixing. All you need then is a good pair of stereo headphones.
Ideally, the game should detect whether you have any of those running and disable them, because I guess a lot of people wont really think about going into settings and turning them off.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Reminds me when 25 years ago they tried to sell you expensive sound cards to highlight sound quality. Let’s see how that worked out…

Surprised GIF by ION


CPU and Motherboards got good enough to handle sound processing to a "reasonable" level.

But those sound cards were and actually still are quite valuable.
Depending on what motherboard youve got even now, going back to one of those sound cards will actually benefit you.

As for Binaural Audio it does work and you can demo it yourself with your headphone just search for any good Binarual Audio demo on you tube.....put your headphones on and enjoy.


^The audio engineer is using the exact same headphone I use best purchase ever.








It isnt some scam new tech that people need to go and buy or whatever.
Its just how the audio is recorded.
The Binaural guy on Youtube doesnt even do it "best" because of his microphone setup.
I beleive Ninja Theory atleast for the last game were using 3DiO which does a hell of a job.....I wonder if they are using something even better for this game.


431644.jpg
 
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Soodanim

Gold Member

It's nice that there's a push to make more use of the two stereo channels instead of most things being joint stereo, but from what little I remember of the first game (I should return to that) it's exactly what that game was doing because binaural audio was a big(ger) deal.
 
A ton of people gave a shit about the audio for the first game, and in the GAF OT for the game. It won multiple awards for Audio, including at TGA 2017

but you already knew that.
I didn’t know that, because I couldn’t care less.

Get bought out for tens of millions, and your USP is binaural audio? Cry more. This is the way all industry works.
 

SaintALia

Member
Don't have headphones at all.

Can't decide which to buy - Beyer 770 Pro 80/250 Oms or 900 Pro X open back. Both (and especially 900 Pro X) are insane in terms of price here. I've pretty decent audio reciever to drive them so there's no problem here.
Go Chifi. Cheaper and you'll get just about the same audio quality in a lot of cases.....build quality and other amenities are umm...well you know.
 

PanzerCute

Member
CPU and Motherboards got good enough to handle sound processing to a "reasonable" level.

But those sound cards were and actually still are quite valuable.
Depending on what motherboard youve got even now, going back to one of those sound cards will actually benefit you.

As for Binaural Audio it does work and you can demo it yourself with your headphone just search for any good Binarual Audio demo on you tube.....put your headphones on and enjoy.


^The audio engineer is using the exact same headphone I use best purchase ever.








It isnt some scam new tech that people need to go and buy or whatever.
Its just how the audio is recorded.
The Binaural guy on Youtube doesnt even do it "best" because of his microphone setup.
I beleive Ninja Theory atleast for the last game were using 3DiO which does a hell of a job.....I wonder if they are using something even better for this game.

I have been playing Hunt Showdown for 5 years, and this game also uses Binaural audio.
The 3D audio spatial accuracy is so insanely good, that the best definition I can give is "you can see with your ears"

Definitely not a scam or even a gimmick.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Goddamnit I dont have headphones for my Xbox

Any decent pair with a 3.5mm jack will do.

Hell, I'd recommend playing this with a headphone over a standard TV setup even with shitty headphones, unless you have a good dedicated audio setup connected to your TV.
 

nikos

Member
Hard pass on this. I couldn't take more than 10 minutes of that psychotic character in the first game.
 
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Three

Member
Using ear shaped microphones make absolutely no sense in games unless the audio is coming from a fixed position relative to your head. Unlike movies you can move/look around in a game so it's practically useless to have that for accurate positional/environmental sounds. Only fixed position relative to your head sounds would work and there are very few cases of that in games (fixed voices in your head is an example).
 
Using ear shaped microphones make absolutely no sense in games unless the audio is coming from a fixed position relative to your head. Unlike movies you can move/look around in a game so it's practically useless to have that for accurate positional/environmental sounds. Only fixed position relative to your head sounds would work and there are very few cases of that in games (fixed voices in your head is an example).

Hä, the audio is always coming from a fixed position relative to your head.

There's absolutely no problem.
 

Three

Member
Hä, the audio is always coming from a fixed position relative to your head. There's absolutely no problem.
What do you mean? Games need to simulate binaural audio. They can't really use binaural recordings unless it's fixed camera cutscenes or other fixed position (relative to head) audio (which are rare or nonexistent in most games).
 
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Using ear shaped microphones make absolutely no sense in games unless the audio is coming from a fixed position relative to your head. Unlike movies you can move/look around in a game so it's practically useless to have that for accurate positional/environmental sounds. Only fixed position relative to your head sounds would work and there are very few cases of that in games (fixed voices in your head is an example).
Binaural is not for accurate positional sounds.

On good hps you will get benefit of that, but binaural is mostly to , for lack of better word, “immerse” you in soundscape.
 
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