• Binaural Mixing of Popular Music – P. Abehsera Morell, and H. Lee (2021)

This AES e-Brief is based on my dissertation at the University of Huddersfield, “Defining Salient Parameters That Affect Immersion in Binaural Music Production”.

In this project, we investigated which kinds of sources could benefit the most from binaural rendering in a popular music context. A range of different mixes was created for an EDM song, a Pop song and a Rock song, with combinations of different instruments and vocals being binaurally rendered in the mix or not.

A listening test was conducted online, where participants had to listen to the different mixes of each song and rate them in terms of perceived spatial qualities, timbral qualities and overall immersive experience. The full binaural mixes were rated lowest in general, whereas the mixes closest to a full stereo mix tended to be rated highest for Pop and Rock, but less so for EDM.

The results suggest that (i) simply panning all sources in binaural would not necessarily lead to a more immersive experience compared to a traditional stereo mix, (ii) a spatial contrast between binauralised and non-binauralised sources might help improve immersiveness, and (iii) optimal binaural mixing techniques would tend to depend on the genre of music.