In this installment of Critical Hit – A Major Spoilers Podcast: Dr. Bradley Will takes Rob, DnDBrian, Stephen, and Amanda on an adventure through the world of 1926 Los Angeles in this Call of Cthulhu adventure.
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Building a Binaural Microphone – Part 1
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19 Comments
OOoooh! The new show is released! I’m ready for the unspeakable, Lovecraftian horrors to be unleashed upon the masses!
So interesting! Would it be possible for us to see the maps over LA? So we can follow along?
Love it! I really like the new audio effect. Excited to listen since I love Call of Cthulhu already.
Being a fan of both binaural audio *AND* Call of Cthulhu, this basically checked all the boxes. I loved the effect and am looking forward to further episodes. This is fantastic, and I’m glad you made the decision to share it with us, so thanks! The only small comment I’d add is – granted, this being only Episode 1, and knowing you mention the quality improves as episodes go on – is that your intro / outro (where I assume you were nearer the microphones?) created a *far* more immersive effect than during the game session. If it all sounded more like that? HOLY hell. But that’s a tiny little critique – loved the fact you were trying this out. Love your work!
I’m in the middle of writing Part 2 of my article on binaural sound, but to quickly answer your question, the intro/outro were recorded with a completely different binaural setup, and seeing the differences between the two is both a surprise and not.
Yog-Sothoth has been doing Call of Cthulhu and binaural since 2006. It’s a good technique.
I wasn’t aware :) Good to see others doing this in a RPG environment instead of just audio dramas.
The’ve since moved on to Ambisonic sound. That’s a whole different ball game again.
Oddly enough I just over the holidays stumbled on Chaosium and was listening to the Miskatonic live play recordings (my favorites are Lonely Point Lighthouse, Uncle Timothy’s Will, and Devil’s Cave in that order) and was checking out the Cthulhu audio dramas like Wormwood.
Anyway…pleasantly shocked to hear that Chaosium was the system and really like the use of more cutting edge techniques that Stephen has a penchant for.
Literally the moment Stephen said “If the cat decides it wants to be part of the show…” one of my cats suddenly decided to climb off the back of my chair and onto my bare neck, with her claws out for stability. Grabbing for her, I smacked my noise-cancelling headphones off my head, shattering the cradle that holds one of the earpieces on. So… no binaural experiments for me for a while, I guess. That was a REALLY immersive effect, though!
I love the first episode! I really enjoyed the binaural audio, I’m really looking forward to future episodes. I’m very interested in this Lovecraftian universe and I loved the Flying Grayson’s reference!
Thank you for the first Critical Hit of 2017! While I miss our main story, this Cthulu game sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Thanks to Dr.Brad, Stephen, Amanda, Brian, and Rob for bringing us this new adventure.
I am not getting much out of the audio and i am using headphones. It just sounds like a voice to the left, one to the right, one in the center, and two in between the other three. All of which could be done with a mixer. Yes, more work, but i was expecting a forward “stage.” Not getting aay sense of 3d out of this. Am i supposed to? I am not sure how a surround sound experience is possible with a linear distribution of just two speakers. Do i need $200 headphones or something?
Ooh, I disagree. Five mics panned out to different positions sounds entirely different and nowhere near as “present” as this – phasing issues etc mean that those five voices would not be as palpably around-the-table. Love the incidental noises and shufflings etc, that’s part of the experience. A shame you couldn’t use this technique for the Critical Hit main game, but the long-distance players probably put the kibosh on that.
“A shame you couldn’t use this technique for the Critical Hit main game, but the long-distance players probably put the kibosh on that.” Exactly. Everyone has to be around the table/microphone.
Oh, sure. I get blamed for everything…
Hello everybody
I’ve been playing D&D since I was child, now I’m at my 30s.
This is the first time I actually have contact with CoC universe, as well as with listening podcasts. I already become addicted for the references, either the CoC RPG or Lovecraft stories.
I simply loved the adventure, the story behind it, the mixture of king in yellow universe and Cthulhu (dreams) is wonderful.
Guys, I have to say that I am really anxoius and eager to know more about the story – background – and I was wondering if this campaign is based on any adventure’s book, or the DM just made it up
I’m looking forward to the next Podcast on 18th of February!
Read The King in Yellow and Cool Air by Lovecraft. Also, look at the show notes for other CoC episodes, and you will see photo references to actual locations described in the game.
Gustav Grayson?!?! That’s my son’s NAME! And here I thought I’d given him a unique name…