Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/757053
56 F A L L 2 0 1 6 C A S Q U A R T E R L Y binaural—but with head tracking. Mixing for headphones can be, obviously, somewhat restrictive given their typi- cally limited dynamic range. Some stated that they mix listening on speakers and then adjust while wearing head- phones and running the mix through a binaural encoder. Others swore by mixing with goggles and headphones on only, though this can cause fatigue. Consistency of playback is also a concern. Tim Gedemer recalled how it took years to implement cinema monitor- ing standards so a dub stage mix translated to larger theaters. With VR and headphones, some of the EQ suggest that it would be great if you were able to monitor in binaural—but realizes that, with transmitter delays and encoding, there'd be a significant delay between sound and picture. Another insightful tutorial featured Chris Pike from the BBC as a panelist. Chris discussed some of the cap- turing approaches they're working on relative to music at the BBC. There's an interesting article on the BBC Proms orchestral series that discusses capturing the performance with the end result being a binaural encode. The article, titled "Binaural Audio at the BBC Proms" is available at www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2016-09-binaural-proms Post Production Post had its fair share of insightful events as well. I found the workshop "Object-Based Audio Mixing for AR/ VR Applications," moderated by Dolby's Glenn Kiser, of particular interest. Panelist Tim Gedemer (Source Sound Inc.) made an interesting observation that we are used to getting our information from rectangles; televi- sions, cinema, iPhones, iPads—and now we're shifting to spheres. As mixers, we would focus our energy and the energy of the content to that rectangle, and now we'll have to also consider "negative space"—where a user may decide not to even look. Tim also pondered how our mix- ing approaches may change as people become more expe- rienced users of VR. Panelist Nathaniel Kunkel (Dolby) stated that the discussions on how to approach mixing in an object-based VR environment are reminiscent to what mixers spoke about when mixing in 5.1 for the first time. One panelist made the observation that since the end medium is a pair of headphones, VR/AR mixes are like Facebook's 360 Spatial Workstation toolset in REAPER.