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Comment by Geee | Hacker News Reader

Yes, Papa Sangre uses real-time binaural 3D sound, www.papasangre.com. I'm not aware of any other real-time binaural solutions. I'd like to know too if there's more. OpenAL and other out of box 3D sound engines are stereo, not binaural.

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Yes, I've tried Papa Sangre. Unfortunately, it uses a general purpose HRTF, which limits the immersion potential.

What do you mean by general purpose HRTF? Do you mean that the HRTF should match the player's head somehow? I haven't played Papa Sangre so I don't really know how well it works.

Yes. A custom HRTF makes all the difference between "hey this is kinda cool" and "holy guacamole I can locate everything down to a tee".

Sorry for the late responses. Yes, I'd imagine it should work better. In my case I don't tend to hear frontal direction in most binaural recordings. How would you create such a custom HRTF? Measuring somehow or should it be manually calibrated? Seems like a pretty interesting problem, I might do some experiments with this some day.

Exactly, many people cannot differentiate front/back and up/down with general purpose HRTF, something that is much better with a custom HRTF.

For basic experiments, put 2 small microphones into your ear canals, hit record, then go for a walk. The result will blow you away :-)

To record your custom HRTF, get an anechoic chamber, put 2 small microphones into your ear canals, then record impulse responses from all directions. Not quite as simple.

Good luck! Post your results here!

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