14 DAY TRIAL // Tourism is a great way to spend your vacation, but it's not really cheap, and you could live your whole life without getting to experience lots of places even if you do manage to travel far and wide every year.
That's why you might be pleased to know that you won't need to do it anymore thanks to the project started by a man named David Vale.
And we don't say that because of all the virtual reality craze, although we're sure that the new project could definitely help create some awesome experiences on the Oculus Rift.
No, what David Vale did was create a device with the ability to record the sounds of the big city. Sounds which are being integrated into the Sound City Project, which allows you to close your eyes and imagine you're really where the din says you are.
The 3D printed four-ear device
This is what makes the Sound City Project possible, and why we see it continuing for a good long while. After all, six cities aren't enough. Currently, the cities you can visit include New York, Florence, Bergen, Oslo, Stockholm and San Francisco.
The device records a 360-degree “stereoscopic experience” of the land, each positioned at a 90-degree angle, while the diameter is of 215 mm / 8.46 inches.
David Vale and Rick Van Mook worked on the design, while Caco Teixeira made sure the sound recording part went on without a hitch, since he is a sound designer from Sonoplastico.
The device is connected to recording equipment that captures audio from all ears at the same time by means of a Zoom H6 recorder which receives the feeds of four Countryman B3 omnidirectional microphones. Initially, the device was made of Styrofoam, but now it is made of black plastic, with a white circle in the middle.
And yes, the three really did base the recorder on the anatomy of the human head, primarily when determining the distance between the ears, otherwise the head-related transfer function wouldn't have been possible.
And that's the whole point: when you put your headphones on and engage the Sound City Project, you hear exactly what the system recorded, making it seem like you're right there, in that exact spot.
Unfortunately for the team, it wasn't easy at all to mix the sounds, match them up to the visuals they recorded and figure out the whole multi-channel mess. They managed it though.
The Sound City Project is already online
We only hope that a way to extend it to an Oculus Rift or other virtual reality device will become available soon. After that, the three experts can move on to the next challenge, assuming they ever do: scents.
