VR Audio Wormhole

I have become obsessed by immersive audio for VR…(that’s not me in the picture by the way)

I’ve fallen for the hype and assault of every soothsayer and taste-maker’s claim that VR, /AR etc will have a big impact on ‘the way we see the world’…Zuckerman, who bought Occulus for a hefty multi-billion $ deal claims that

“VR is the next major computing platform that will come after mobile.” 

So, as an audio engineer, mixer, producer I’m very interested to see the impact this will have on my world.

I am promised by many that the future of audio is immersive. This means that sound will need to be mixed with the considerations of headphones and most interestingly, head tracking.

Most engineers (or audio students) worth their salt will understand the way that the ear perceives directionality of a sound. Through the clues of inter-aural time and level differences as well as the subtle Head Related Transfer Function of an individuals head and pinna. As mix engineers working in stereo, this hasn’t been a factor worth fussing over. But now…

There are many many audio plugin, software and hardware manufactures rushing out new products that allow the music creator or mix engineer to create a realistic 3D environment in headphones, that reacts to the head movement of the listener to mimc a true acoustic space. It’s bonkers and witchcraft.

(Perhaps, the mix engineer of the future will mix stereo as an afterthought in the same why I might check mono compatibility.)

If you are keen to discover what I’ve been looking at, I recommend:

• Joining the Spatial Audio VR/AR/MR Facebook group
• Downloading some plugins – FB360 is free and constantly improving
• Try out the Waves NX plugin (I bought the head tracker – you can mix 7.1 using headphones!!!!!)
• If you want to go down a never ending worm-hole, check out this list of resources. Holy crap!

The main conclusion I get from this foray into VR world is, everyone seems to be making it up as they go along… there are no standardised work flows, no easy implementation across all platforms or browsers. It’s still the wild west…but that’s today. Tomorrow something else will be released which will be better. And next week, something else.

Get in quick.