Pan Macmillan has commissioned sound designer Nick Ryan to create a series of short, intensely detailed and evocative soundtracks to accompany scenes from Ken Follett’s new novel The Fall of Giants. The scenes have been created using innovative ‘binaural’ recording and post-production techniques based on the perceptual and physical characteristics of human hearing; listened to on headphones binaural audio create an audio world which feels 3-dimensional. The soundtracks accompany scenes in a World War I trench, a Welsh mine, an East London factory and a dinner party in a palace.
The clips and excerpts from the novel they accompany are available free online at www.fallofgiants.co.uk, come embedded in the iPad/iPhone ebook available from the iBookstore and can be listened to in a dedicated listening booth, which tours the country, starting off at Waterstone’s in Picadilly London from 5 October to November 2010.
The games industry is beginning to play with 3D audio, and the film and TV companies are investing heavily in 3D visuals. The publisher’s aim is to use the evocative qualities of 3D binaural audio, produced as a soundtrack which can be listened to without interrupting reading, to enhance the imaginative experience of reading the text.