The Impact of a Prototype Acoustically Transparent Headphone System on the Recording Studio Performances of Professional Trumpet Players

Binaural Headphone Monitoring to Enhance Musicians’ Immersion in Performance

“…Moreover, Éliézer Oubda, a music producer and sound engineer who owns Hope Muziks Studio in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, trains his assistants in explaining to Western African musicians how to perceive the downbeat in the click track in the same way Europeans and North Americans do. 1,2 To minimize "the straightjacket feeling" [14] induced by click tracks, composers, performers, and studio professionals can collaborate on developing alternative cue tracks and monitoring systems. For instance, customized tracks may combine pre-recorded fragments from the parts to be performed with vocal instructions or relevant pitches.…”

“…4 Primarily used as hearing aids devices, microphone-hear-through monitoring systems consist of mounted microphones on the users' headset that capture what they would hear without headphones [23]. Cooper and Martin [2] designed a microphone-hear-through monitoring system named Acoustically Transparent System (ATH) that combines the binaural rendering of the signal captured from two headset-mounted microphones with the synchronization cues. In performance situations, they observed that the ATH has "a notable impact on both quality of tone production and the confidence of the [trumpetist]" [2].…”

“…Cooper and Martin [2] designed a microphone-hear-through monitoring system named Acoustically Transparent System (ATH) that combines the binaural rendering of the signal captured from two headset-mounted microphones with the synchronization cues. In performance situations, they observed that the ATH has "a notable impact on both quality of tone production and the confidence of the [trumpetist]" [2]. Their findings confirm the relevance of designing binaural technologies to improve musicians' experience while performing with headphone monitoring.…”

“…Only a few collaborative AAR experiences have been tested [35], for example, a four-player interactive audio experience [36]; a twoplayer audio game called eidola multiplayer [37]; and creative artworks dedicated to multi-users, such as Listen for museum visits [38] or SoundDelta devoted to large public outdoor events [39]. Also, to our knowledge, very few AAR musical applications besides Copper and Martin's ATH [2] have been designed. For instance, a Master thesis showed that members of a rock band preferred performing with AAR dynamic setups compared to mono and stereo headphones [40]; a study with methodological shortcomings tested AAR dynamic in-ear monitors for members of an acoustic ensemble [41]; and the Architexture Series brought new music composers, sound engineers, and architects to collaborate on site reconstruction [42,43].…”

“…For instance, singers "suffer the most from the dislocation of sound that headphones engender […] because the sound is produced in their bodies, resonating in the chest cavity and sinuses" [1]. As another example, the absence of direct auditory feedback compromises "the production of high-quality trumpet tone [that] is achieved by a combination of the correct vocal tract position, the lip-reed mechanism, and the player's breath control" [2]. Moreover, headphone monitoring obstructs collective soundscapes and established ways of listening and playing music together.…”