Using third-party ambisonic plugins - bypassing the VST Multipanner??

Hi, I’m trying to use third-party ambisonic plugins in cubase 10, but am struggling to figure out the routing. So far:

  1. Created a third-order ambisonic output bus, set it as the main mix, and assigned the first two ports to outputs 1 & 2 (my monitoring headphones).
  2. Created a stereo audio track (with a stereo audio file), set the output to the TOA output bus, and placed the Noise Makers AmbiPan (the channel’s meter shows the correct output of 16 channels)
  3. Insert the Noise Makers Ambi Head on the TOA output bus. When disabled, the meter shows 16 tracks, when enabled it shows two (binaural).

So, that all seems correct, but when panning in the AmbiPan, the sound doesn’t correlate as I pan during binaural monitoring. I’ve very confused as to whether the stereo channel’s VST Multipanner is causing a problem. I can’t seem to disable it. If I bypass it, the channel suddenly outputs only mono! If, however, I disable the AmbiHead and instead use the VST Multipanner and reduce the “width” parameter to 0, then the panning sounds correct during binaural monitoring.

Is there a way to have a channel routed to an ambisonic output bus that can avoid having the sound affected by the channel’s VST multipanner?

Hi There, ambisonics workflow in Cubendo is not that straightforward. In order to listen to your ambisonic mix via headphones you need to binauralize it. For doing that you do following steps:
1 Create Ambisonic TOA Bus in Audio Connections Tab.
2. Make sure that device ports of the Ambisonic Bus are NOT CONNECTED! to any physical outputs of you audio interface
3. Set Ambisonic Bus as the Main Bus with Right Click
4. Activate Control Room and create Headphone Bus.
5. Route the Outs of Headphone Bus in the Control Room to the physical headphone outs of your Audio Interface
6. By doing so the Ambi-Encoder Module will be created automatically in the Control Room Section. There you can switch beween Stereo and Binaural

Cheers

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Oh and one more thing. In Cubendo you don’t insert the panner but switch the panner when you right click on the panner itself. Not every panner works within Cubendo Ambisonic Environement. Ambix or SSA Ambisonic Panners for instance don’t. Facebook Spatial Workstation- , Audioease 360 pan Suite-, Dear VR- Ambisonic Panners do. I don’t know if AmbiPan works

Thanks so much, this was really helpful. I think I’ve got a handle on it now.