(Ambisonics) Monitoring on a custom speaker setup

Thank you Benoit! I completely forgot about IRCAM’s solutions… indeed I’ll look into it in detail next week. I would be equally interested in anyone’s experience having used these.

Cheers

hi Rasoul,

you could also pass audio from NU to max-msp & spat5 (and then to your DA’s) via loopback. i haven’t tried that with a larger number of channels yet, but i think that it might work fine too. a possible routing with a 5.1 stream (well, it’s not a 5.1-layout in spat5 anymore, just for the exemple here) in the attached screenshot.

cheers,
b.

In the spirit of keeping things simple, for an Ambisonics project in Nuendo.

The largest output bus is the 22.2. Let’s use it as a 24 channels output bus feeding the loudspeakers. Image 1.

Build the project using Nuendo’s native VST MultiPanner for the mono and stereo sources. Route all these tracks to an Ambisonics 3rd order group channel with the Surround - MixConverter selected in the group’s panner window. Route the group to the 22.2 output bus with the Standard Panner selected in the output’s panner window. Since Nuendo’s metering is not really helpful in this situation, validate the integrity of the signal with Matthias Kronlachner mcfx_meter16 in the 3rd order Ambisonics group channel and mcfx_meter24 in the output bus. Image 2.

Setup a custom speaker array with the IEM AllRADecoder. This decoder assume that the loudspeakers are equidistant (vertices on a sphere): if the speakers are not equidistant, correct this with an instance of the IEM DistanceCompensator inserted after the decoder. Note that the IEM AllRADecoder feature a pink noise burst generator to validate the loudspeakers connections. Once the decoder is setup, let the plug-in calculate the actual decoding solution. Toggle the weighting to choose a preferred “flavour”. Image 3.

You can see the decoder is working with mcfx_meter24 in the output bus.



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Hi Ben!

Thanks again, I had the opportunity to try SPAT Revolution a little bit but not too much in detail. I hope I’ll be able to test everything by mid-december… Anyways the large number of presets is really welcome! I even saw presets from some halls right here in Montreal. At the end of the day I have to compare all of these solutions resource-wise for film/video game music applications. I wonder, what was the reason behind designing SPAT to work in standalone?

Awesome, thanks! (Frankly Steinberg should have you write a few pages in their manual…) It’s pretty much what I had figured out, except instead of 22.2 I can use the 16 outs provided by a 3OA bus since I don’t have more channels (well 2 extra subs but I don’t think I’ll be using those…)

Forgetting all of this, for the purposes of monitoring on headphones, how do you folks find Immerse? I’ll try the trial soon, but isn’t it anthropometrics based as it works with the capture of one ear only? The SOFA provided by Genelec looks tempting as well.

Cheers,
RM

Hi Guys!

I recently started a topic about this…

I’m starting to learn about 3D with Ambisonics. So far only on headphones (doesn’t really work, I won’t go now with the details but I tried a lot of things and the best solution ended being DearVrPro as insert an using their built in Binaural Output on every channel and going to a stereo bus… Going to a 3OA Bus (made Main) and the decoding didn’t work not with the Nuendo ambidecoder nor the DearVr one… weird… I tried it on CR and also on the ·OA Bus both as panner and as insert… weird things happened… I did realized though that putting a nice Psy Trance Kick inside your head helped a lot to localisated other sources… the problem is DearVrPro is only mono… so… I had to split everything… But what I want is to do something similar like the guy who started this topic but with an 8 Cube speaker array (I don’t have much money so I will probably go for some middle range edifiers but I gratefully accept recommendations on what speakers would be better - and of course position… is it a cube nice? maybe a square on the bottom and like a shifted square above with front-back-sides? I’ve seen on some IEM pictures they used a 6 speaker array with bottom-top and ear level cuadraphonic -seems speakers forming triangles work best?. Last question… If I use any kind of Ambisonics Bus and then the IEM plugin for speakear array… how does IEM handle the physical output of your soundcard… does it decode a 3OA to a 8 channel? Or Nuendo still answers to the Bus-type output channels… So, the true last question… I should use a 2nd Order Ambisonics… but it has 9 channels… not 8… What should I do here? Also I have to change my sound card since I have a 6i6 scarlett… Ideas?
Basically, to make it simple… I need the minimun hardware and speakers possible but to have the best accurate 3D “experience”, and of course possible in Nuendo… So any insight super welcomed!

Thanks a lot!!!

P.D: Sorry the long post…