

Sonarworks, which knows a thing or two about headphone listening, was excited to meet with Martin to discuss his approach to this project and his thoughts on Ambisonic audio and headphone listening.
#3d binaural headphones series#
Rieger, a veteran recordist and re-recording mixer boasts strong backgrounds in audio production, composition, video production, and programming, making him the ideal candidate to produce this series of videos that incorporate point-of-view video production with immersive 3D audio content.

While ostensibly promotional material to promote travel to these German cities, the videos highlight the history, culture, and modern life of these vibrant locales. To mark Beethoven’s 250th birthday, the German National Tourist Board hired Martin Rieger to produce an immersive video series that showcases Germany and its cities Berlin, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, and Leipzig. You don’t simply watch a story- you are in the story. This 3-D audio provides a more visceral feel to 360° and VR video, where the audio helps guide the audience through the experience. Sound mixers and producers, like Martin Rieger, have embraced Ambisonics as a way to embed immersive, 3-dimensional soundtracks into multimedia content that every consumer can enjoy.
#3d binaural headphones software#
Software plugins are used to manipulate the audio during mixdown. Sennheiser’s Ambeo VR microphone (pictured) captures 360° spherical Ambisonic sound using four discrete capsules. So traditional surround requires 6 or more speakers in a room, while Ambisonics works with headphones. The Ambisonic signal can then be encoded as a binaural signal, which plays back properly on headphones.

Ambisonic audio can be recorded with Ambisonic microphone arrays or created with multiple busses during mixing. Ambisonics, on the other hand, produces a seamless 360° sphere of sound. Traditional surround playback requires several speakers to be placed around the room so that sounds can be panned to various physical, but discrete, locations. Those who have been paying attention to the world of VR, gaming, and 360° videos, recognize that Ambisonics has replaced traditional surround sound implementation and this audio works well with headphones. Very few homes have proper 5.1, 7.1, or Atmos listening rooms, so content producers have been slow to adopt surround mixes to their content. Unfortunately, surround sound typically requires a certain amount of equipment and proper setup to provide a consistent experience to the listeners. You can use envelopes to control the angle, just like with volume or panning.We have all experienced surround sound in one way or another movies, theme park rides, and video games all use surround audio to heighten the sense of action and emotion. Here’s some cardboard box sounds I ran through the plugin: Heres a concrete piece I wrote and mixed using this plugin: Note: The beta version of Audacity is supposed to support VST plugins, but I’ve been having trouble getting this to work properly inside Audacity. There are instructions and other info in the README file. Also, this effect only works with headphones. It uses head related transfer functions to process the audio, allowing the user to choose an angle in the horizontal plane between 0° and 360°.
#3d binaural headphones mac#
The 3-D Binaural Spatializer is a VST plugin for Windows and Mac that gives the listener the illusion that the sound sources are actually in 3-dimensional space.
