8-Dimensional Sound: What 8D Music Is and How It's Made
A knock at the door and different songs playing in both ears at once.
You can periodically stumble upon 3D and 4D audio online, but today recordings labelled "8D" exist as well. Is it really possible to give songs depth, and what feelings do they evoke? The DeTalks team set out to find out.
What Is 8-Dimensional Audio
In fact, sound has no dimensions at all. 8D music, just like 3D and 4D, is processed stereo that creates the feeling of audio echoing from different sides.
The 8D effect makes you feel like you are in a more spacious environment, but this music must be listened to in headphones; otherwise the effect will be lost. Yes, the sounds will move from one speaker to another, but both ears will perceive them simultaneously. The case where the brain cannot separate the audio into individual sounds is also known as the crossover effect.
8D music, in turn, is created using binaural sound — you can read about its use in another DeTalks article. This audio recording technology adds depth to sound and delivers it to the right and left ear at almost identical frequencies simultaneously.
So, if you feed a tone of, for example, 130 Hz into the right ear and 120 Hz into the left, their difference will create a phantom third sound of 10 Hz, adding an illusion of depth to what you hear.
8D music can sound as if a voice is "walking" around the listener, heard alternately in the right and the left headphone. This can be achieved with muted sounds and their processing — the tones themselves will create the effect of distance and depth.
The playing of two different instruments can also be heard separately at the same time — with binaural audio, you can listen to one track in the right headphone and another in the left. It is also possible to process, for example, the sound of a knock at the door and enhance it by adding a 360-degree effect. This kind of processing is called ambisonic audio, and the sound seems to come from all directions.
To achieve the 8D result, technologies such as equalisation and panning, as well as adding the desired effects, are used. Equalisation is a change of frequencies in the audio, as a result of which the brain creates the aforementioned phantom sound. Panning, in turn, is the distribution of sound across different audio channels to create the illusion of the audio moving.
Songs can be converted to 8D format even with apps on your phone. However, to create such a track yourself, you need to record the instruments playing separately and mix them individually for each ear.
Is 8D Music Good for You
Research by the National Library of Medicine showed, that listening to binaural beats improves concentration and reduces stress. As for the harm of 8D music — any loud sounds can damage your hearing over time.
There are no dimensions for music, but there is sound frequency processing. Any song can be given depth, and headphones and available binaural sound on platforms can help you focus and relax.