To launch A Royal Vow of Convenience, the new book from romantic fiction publisher Mills and Boon – a first-of-its-kind immersive 3D audio chapter of the title was recorded in Binaural sound that enabled the listener to be dropped right within a scene from the book.

Using omnidirectional microphones placed in both the ears of actors for scenes delivered from a character’s perspective and in the ears of a Binaural ‘head’ placed in between the actors to deliver scenes from the narrators point of view, the microphones captured the sound of the scenes as a person would naturally hear it.

This meant listeners heard everything as though they were actually there with the action taking place around them, coming from all directions and distances. The resulting audio was designed to have listeners looking around them and behind them as they responded (often an involuntary reaction) to what they have heard.

Recorded on location, and perfectly capturing the sounds and atmosphere of a hot, sultry night, the lead characters from the novel were brought to life to deliver a highly charged, intimate listening experience. The 8-minute piece of 3D audio was recorded over two days using a KU 100 dummy head – a binaural stereo microphone- and 2 actors that could record the audio (and swim!) in clean takes.

Recording in a swimming pool presented a challenge to us as we needed to record from the female leads perspective as she swam in the pool. To do this we taped a microphone to binaural headphones on the actor’s head while she moved carefully to avoid getting the microphones wet. Recording in this way was essential to achieving the intimacy the scene required.

The 3D audio chapter of the book was hosted on a number of platforms (including Soundcloud and the websites of both the publisher and a number of high profile media partners), with a radio campaign across the UK’s biggest commercial radio network driving audiences online to hear the full chapter.

This audio execution caught the imagination of both audiences (who headed to social media to applaud the ‘seriously sexy’ audio and demand the full book be made available in binaural sound) the mainstream media with PR coverage for the 3D content generated across some of the UK’s biggest National Press titles and digital sites.