Earfish is an interesting project for anyone learning or researching spatial audio, binaural sound, HRTF, and immersive mixing. Developed by the Active Perception Lab at the University of Antwerp, Earfish focuses on personalised 3D audio through headphones.
In spatial audio, HRTF, or Head-Related Transfer Function, plays an important role because every person hears direction and distance slightly differently due to the unique shape of their ears, head, and body. Earfish provides a measurement-kit approach that allows users to measure their own HRTF and generate a personal SOFA file.
The system uses a head tracker, small microphones placed in the ears, a loudspeaker, and a guided laptop application. During the process, the user rotates their head while sound is played from a loudspeaker. The collected data is then processed to create a personalised HRTF.
Earfish also explains how the measured HRTF can be used with REAPER and spatial audio plugins to create a personalised head-tracked virtual 3D mixing studio. This can be useful for researchers, sound designers, immersive media creators, audio engineers, and students exploring binaural and 3D audio production.
How to apply / details: The official website also provides manuals, audio files, and app-related resources for HRTF measurement, head tracking, and 3D mixing studio setup.