The Hooke Audio Verse is a pair of Bluetooth® in-ear headphones with built-in binaural microphones designed to capture 3D audio. Binaural recording has been around for a long time but relied on a dummy (life size human) head with omni-directional microphones placed in the ear canals.
The Hooke Verse (pronounced "hook") mounts the mics within the left and right in-ear headphones and allows both playback and binaural recording over Bluetooth to either an iPhone, Android, SLR GoPro™ cameras using two audio tracks. So in addition to just cool wireless in-ear listening and hands-free phone calls (Android phones only), you'll have a great way to record live music and video at any public event in hyper-realistic stereo sound straight to your phone.
The left and right microphones are positioned just on top of the left and right in-ear buds with just the right length of cord connecting them together. This short cord goes behind your head and neck and does not dangle out in the way. The Verse comes with sets of small, medium, and large memory foam and silicone ear tips--although they were all too small for my goliath ear canals. These should fit tight so that you can monitor what you are recording and block out outside sound as much as possible.
The kit comes with a USB charging cable and a recording cable that terminates in both a 1/8-inch plug for direct analog recording without Bluetooth and a USB-C connector for GoPro cameras.
I received a Hooke Verse for review and tried it with my iPhone 6s and was impressed on how fast it paired and how easy it was to use. I downloaded the Hooke Audio App (free) and set out to walk around the neighborhood to check it out.
There are record level faders in the app and you can record sound only (48-kHz .mp3 files) or sound and video (.mp4 files) if you allow the Hooke Verse access you allow access to the phone's camera. You then export these files by e-mail (depending on total file size) or just syncing your phone to your computer.
I imported the downloaded files to Pro Tools HDX and normalized them and I was set to hear remarkable lifelike recording of my friends--some played guitar and sang. It was great fun. I would add the Hooke Verse is a great way to build your own personal 3D. stereo sound effects and background sound library for use in video and music productions.
The complete Hooke Audio Verse kit sells for $239.99 MSRP with free shipping.
Barry Rudolph is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contributing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com
