[Sursound] Re Re Soncam

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Interesting alright, although yeah with 64 mics I'd be a little worried
about the high frequency reconstruction and noise alright. I'm not
surprised it outputs Ambisonics though, as that really is pretty standard
now in the 360 video domain and most realise that 3rd order will be the
standard soon (ish!).

I have heard from a few different people who are shooting lots of 360
video/audio professionally that although having the mics built into the
camera sounds like a great idea, there are actually often lots of good
reasons to do it with a dedicated mic, especially for pro work.

Btw I meet the people behind this mic (http://www.zylia.co) at AES last
weekend and they inform me a software update is coming which will allow for
up to 3rd order Ambisonics. The original idea of the mic was not really
aimed at Ambisonics, but a 3rd order mic for about €1000 is definitely
interesting. I believe it has 19 capsules.
enda

-- 

Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching / Research Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Stack B, Custom House Quay, I.F.S.C., Dublin 1, Ireland, D01 V1F3.

+353 1 896 1434
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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[Sursound] summary of everything (in the guise of a Sennheiser Ambeo mic critical/comparative review)

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi David,
  we'll be publishing a study comparing a number of ambisonic mics at AES
Berlin next month. We had an Ambeo, TetraMic, Soundfield MKV, Zoom H2n and
an Eigenmike, and we assessed them using an objective directional study,
and a subjective listening test on low and high frequency timbre.

http://aesberlin17.mapyourshow.com/7_0/sessions/session-details.cfm?scheduleid=48=12317637=9af0c5cec1328578-53E79605-D6D9-4F64-946982050973C724

The full paper should be out soon, but in terms of the Ambeo, we found it
to be very good in terms of directional accuracy, and pretty good in terms
of timbre although rather bright sounding if the optional Ambisonics
Correction Filter in the A-to-B-format Conversion plugin is used.

We didnt find any significant improvement in directional accuracy with that
filter applied, and in my own personal experience, I've found the timbre of
the Ambeo to be far, far better without it.
Enda







-- 

Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching / Research Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Stack B, Custom House Quay, I.F.S.C., Dublin 1, Ireland, D01 V1F3.

+353 1 896 1434
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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Re: [Sursound] Going from 3rd order to 1st order. (Fons Adriaensen)

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

"A different matter is e.g. using a higher order decoder with only a
first order signal, or mixing a first order signal into a higher
order one. Then for best results you need to modify the first order
signals. This may be what you remember."

That is exactly what I was trying to remember, many thanks Fons.

Which is good, as the specific workflow question I had here is actually on
the encoding side, i.e just using a single 3rd order encoder plugin to
generate both 1st or 3rd order material as needed, so the above issue
doesn't arise.

Although, as more platforms like YouTube start to support HOA, I can see
the above potentially becoming a problem when combining b-format recordings
with HOA encoded material within a single mix. In that scenario I guess
upmixing the B-format material using something like Harpex, or HOA
microphones would be the solution?

Thanks everyone,
enda

-- 

Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching / Research Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Stack B, IFSC, Dublin 1, Ireland.

+353 1 896 1434
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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[Sursound] Going from 3rd order to 1st order.

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi everyone,
  so it seems to be very common practice now to convert from 3rd order to
1st order by simply using the first 4 channels of the 3rd order stream.
However, I have this very vague recollection of that not being quite right
and that there are some differences between the WXYZ channels in different
orders? But I cant seem to pinpoint the reference or source for that, so
perhaps my memory is just wrong?
Any one have any ideas on this? Could this be an issue with Furse-Malham,
rather than Ambi-X, or am I just completely wrong about that?

It's quite a relevant question as you often need to prepare both 1st and
3rd order mixes these days for 360 videos.
Thanks all,
enda




-- 

Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching / Research Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Stack B, IFSC, Dublin 1, Ireland.

+353 1 896 1434
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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Re: [Sursound] Spatial audio concert and workshops (Matthew Palmer)

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi all,
  I will be over in the UK in the spring (in Liverpool, and possibly also
Huddersfield) so there's a possibility we could do one of the workshops
again at that point somewhere?

The Spatial Music Collective also have yet to do a concert across the water
which is something we really need to correct very soon! :)
All the best,
enda

Dr. Enda Bates

Teaching Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Printing House, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Dublin 2, Ireland.

+353 1 896 2503
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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Re: [Sursound] Sursound Digest, Vol 97, Issue 3

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Personally I dont think it makes a huge difference. There are quite a few
free converter plugins available now so when working in a DAW it's fairly
trivial to insert one of those and convert between FuMa and ACN as needed.
One possible solution would be to have an extra parameter in the plugin to
allow you to switch between formats,,, best of both worlds perhaps?
enda

>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 11:53:33 +0100
> From: "Richard Furse" 
> To: "'Surround Sound discussion group'" 
> Subject: [Sursound] Blue Ripple Sound & SN3D?
> Message-ID: <010f01d1f2f5$70f74e60$52e5eb20$@muse440.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi there!
>
>
>
> Blue Ripple Sound are wondering about changing their TOA plugins from FuMa
> to SN3D (ACN), see http://www.blueripplesound.com/story/consultation-sn3d.
> Does anyone have strong feelings on this?
>
>
>
> Opinions, rants and raves appreciated, but I'd like to avoid kicking off
> another format debate on this list - perhaps any interested folk could
> respond using the email link on the page?
>
>
>
> Many thanks,
>
>
>
> --Richard
>
> Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Dublin 2, Ireland.

+353 1 896 2503
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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Re: [Sursound] Sursound Digest, Vol 93, Issue 19

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi Trond,
  we actually did some informal tests on this last year, converting
B-format recordings to both mp3 and AAC, then decoding and comparing these
to the decode from the original wav files.
It was a pretty quick test but we didn't notice any big differences in
terms of the spatial imaging at high bit rates. Using lower bit rates
resulted in the general sort of audio quality degradation you'd expect, but
spatially it didn't seem to change too much.

As someone else pointed out, I suspect they're using PCM here to avoid any
issues with AAC and certain mobile devices, rather than anything related to
spatial imaging.
e


--

Message: 10
Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2016 09:14:43 +0200
From: Trond Lossius 
To: mailing list sursound 
Subject: Re: [Sursound] YouTube now supports Ambisonics
(warningpartadvertisement..)
Message-ID: <3f5fad98-ce7c-4d05-a2ac-96de998f5...@bek.no>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> On 20 Apr 2016, at 21:16, Marc Lavallee  wrote:
>
> I wonder why using uncompressed PCM instead of compressed AAC...

Is there a risk of compressed audio altering the phase between the
channels, affecting the spatial image?

Cheers,
Trond
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Re: [Sursound] Dialogue in center channel,,, not always

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

>>And which director takes care about stereo compatible picture editing?

Alfonso Cuaron is possibly one such director. Both Children of Men and
Gravity often panned the dialogue to match the position of the actor on
screen. It's very noticeable right at the start of Gravity; first you hear
George Clooney's voice coming from far right and as the shot zooms in and
you start to see him appear on the far right of the screen, his dialogue
moves across to match.
Of course that film was 95% CGI which is a help for this type of thing! :)
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/10/4822482/the-sound-design-of-gravity-glenn-freemantle-skip-lievsay
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Re: [Sursound] Soundfield MKV callibration question

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hey everyone,
  Jörn I was thinking that too, but I would have assumed that the test
tones, which are intended to be used to calibrate the inputs on the
recorder, wouldn't have included this -3dB reduction on the W channel, even
if the actual b-format signal coming from the microphone did?

John: I've emailed TSL myself last week but havnt heard anything back as of
yet.
enda
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[Sursound] Soundfield MKV callibration question

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi everyone,
  I have a quick question about calibrating a Soundfield MKV. At the moment
the test tone oscillators are coming in with the W channel about 3.5 dB
lower than X,Y, or Z (these three channels are within about 0.5 dB of each
other).

So obviously the best thing would be to return the unit to get it
calibrated as it's probably due for one; and this has been noted before on
this list;
http://sursound.music.vt.narkive.com/UtLGYHeC/sursound-level-alignment-of-soundfield-microphones

However, my question is, if we know what the gain mismatches are based on
the test tone output, is it sufficient to just apply gain adjustments to
the b-format recordings based upon these Test Tone signal levels? Or is
there a possibility that the test tone channel levels, and microphone
channel levels could differ?

I would have imagined that both signal paths run through the same circuitry
so any gain differences would be present in both (and so can be compensated
for), but any thoughts or prior experience with this issue would be much
appreciated.
Many thanks,
enda



-- 

Dr. Enda Bates
Teaching Fellow
Music & Media Technologies / School of Engineering
Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin
Dublin 2, Ireland.

+353 1 000 
bate...@tcd.ie
www.endabates.netwww.tcd.ie
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Re: [Sursound] Ambisonics and Binaural in Reaper

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi Matthias,
   yeah there are a number of things I want to improve in those videos,
some of which you've pointed out, and that's the main reason why the videos
are still unlisted on YouTube. I wasnt actually planning on showing them to
anyone yet, but a few people on the list were asking about how to do this
so I thought I'd just share them to the list now (but not to the public at
large yet!).
I do indeed plan on redoing these before I make them fully available to the
pubic though so I'll certainly run it by you first before I do that.

- I did actually spot the multichannel send however there's a small bug in
Reaper which threw me a little (basically the multichannel option on the
receiving end doesn't appear as an option until you close the i/o window
and reopen it, which I just realized). That is definitely a far more
efficient way of doing it though.
- I have the presets setup correctly on my PC but I only realized that
wasn't the case on my Mac while I was in the middle of recording the
video!  :)
- Yeah a definite indication of the intended order of all the presets would
be good, as of course you could decode b-format to a ring of 24, although
that's not whats implemented here.

Will be in touch once I redo these anyway.
Thanks,
e




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[Sursound] Ambisonics and Binaural in Reaper

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Hi Jake/Martin, here are those videos I mentioned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ5sdldXo-Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cDAVFWMiEw

They're somewhat rough and ready, but they should give you the basic idea
of  how to setup ambisonics encoding and decoding to binaural in Reaper.
The AmbiX suite have a number of really useful plugins (thanks Matthias!)
including a binaural decoder. There's also a very handy converter plugin to
shift between different formulations of ambisonics (Furse-Malham, SN3, etc)
and the video shows how you can use this to mix and match different
encoders and decoders (the Wigware and Ambi-X plugins are used in the
video).

So, if you have a piece encoded using the WigWare plugins, you don't need
to replace all of the encoders with the AmbiX plugins (or do some math!) in
order to use the AmbiX decoder.

The second video shows how to decode a soundfield mic recording
specifically, and if I get a chance, I'll try to put together some template
Reaper projects too.
All the best,
Enda

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Re: [Sursound] ambisonic.xyz

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

   I'd like to make a binaural version
  available to the players in addition to the stereo version. Is
  there a freeware version out there for windows (don't have mac)? I

The Ambi-X plugins include a binaural decoder which should do this for you,
on either Windows or OSX. All you need to do is import your b-format
recordings into Reaper, play them through the Ambi-X binaural decoder and
record the output.

I have a little video demonstrating how to do this which I can make
available if you'd like?
e



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[Sursound] Re. Boids for Ambisonic Panning

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

I think most of the important points have been covered already but in
general I would say that when simulating distance effects, plausibility is
usually more relevant than absolute realism.
Also, the more cues, the better!
enda

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Re: [Sursound] Recording B-Format (Enda Bates)

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Native B-format would be the way to do it alright, although depending on
your decoding/loudspeaker array requirements, the Double MS technique could
be worth a look also.
http://www.schoeps.de/en/products/categories/dms-tool
e

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[Sursound] Home Dolby Atmos: Overhead audio without the overhead loudspeaker?

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

So Dolby Atmos for the home will have overhead audio, without overhead
loudspeakers? Will be interesting to see how that is attempted. Some kind
of transaural processing maybe?
http://blog.dolby.com/2014/06/dolby-atmos-coming-soon-living-room-near/
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[Sursound] PhD Listening Test

[James Anthony Enda Bates]

Yeah, example 13 fails to load for me also. I've saved my progress so let
the list know when you get that link fixed and I'll finish off the survey
then.
enda
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