What’s Up With 8D and 9D Audio Tracks on YouTube?
This recent trend has generated millions of views, but is it just a gimmick?
You’ve probably heard of 3D and 4D, but what the heck is 8D?
Recently, videos have been popping up on YouTube purporting to be “8D Audio” versions of popular hit songs. The most popular videos, which are edits of huge hits like “Sicko Mode” and “Lucid Dreams,” are racking up millions of views. What even is “8D Audio?” Is it a legitimate concept or just some meaningless label added to the video to increase its appeal?
The basic idea behind 8D Audio seems to be that additional effects are added to the music in order to give the sensation that the music is moving around the listener. This is done primarily through adding reverb, which creates the illusion that the sound is transmitted through a large space, and stereo panning, which makes music move left-to-right. In order for the effects of 8D to be more noticeable, it’s recommended to wear headphones.
Aside from including these couple of effects, there’s not much else to 8D audio. According to this article from MEL Magazine: “there’s no actual new recording with 8D mixes of pre-existing songs. Instead, 8D music creators are using software that can manipulate a song’s various stereo parts, placing and moving them within a virtual 360-degree space.” While 8D Audio may take advantage of panning capabilities of your headphones, it’s not nearly as groundbreaking as the name would have you believe. Essentially, “8D audio” is a meaningless term that’s been created because it has clickbait value.
Even more perplexing, the original 8D model has been built upon to create 9D audio. The distinction between 8D and 9D appears to be that with 9D audio, the vocal and instrumental are isolated and pan independently of each other. This creates an additional layer of sensation.
Even though the idea to split up the instrumental and vocal tracks to create additional variation seems intriguing, it’s hard to see past this thing is a gimmick. Producers create instrumentals that take advantage of the panning effect that these 8D/9D audio videos utilize. So essentially, these videos aren’t creating anything that special. In fact, by listening to a song in this 8D/9D format, you lose the panning effects the instrumentation already has built-in. Making this whole thing even more confusing is that 10D and even 16D audio videos have been popping up. This only further illustrates how this terminology of using “dimensions” is arbitrary and doesn’t have any real grounding in math or science.
The concept of 8D audio is based on the use of two very simple recording effects and it drastically overplays the extent to which it's manipulating the music. Additionally, the amount of reverb used in most of these videos makes the music much different than the original. It sounds like I’m listening to this song in the middle of a huge room or stadium and it’s revolving around me. To some, 8D/9D audio might be an entertaining departure from how music normally sounds. I would much rather listen to the original.
