DAWs and Ambisonics
From Ambisonia
Information on Digital Audio Workstations that offer support for Ambisonics.
Most DAWs will have support for VST plugins, but the extent of their support for multi-channel audio will be limited. That said, here is a short list of DAWs that are known to be able to handle B-Format material (recorded or created artificially).
DAWs listed here should have the minimum B-Format Capabilities:
- import
- mix
- monitor
- export
The ability to export directly to .AMB files or current or future Ambisonics-carrying Formats is not necessarily a requirement.
Contents |
[edit] Steinberg Nuendo
Daniel Courville has a good set of tutorials for working with ambisonics in Nuendo
[edit] Steinberg Cubase
Cubase has successfully been used in a similar fashion to Nuendo. Please see the Nuendo tutorial for a more in-depth look.
[edit] One approach to Ambisonics in Cubase
This section describes one method of using Cubase to work with B-Format Ambisonics.
Generally, using Ambisonics in Cubase involves a 5.1 Output bus, a direct "pass-thru" to the Output Bus for B-Format material, or a Mono-or-Stereo->5.1-Group Channel->5.1->Output Bus progression for synthesized or non-B-Format sound sources.
- Mono or Stereo channel strips are routed to 5.1 Group Channels
- 5.1 Group Channels have an Ambisonics panner insert, which encodes the mono/stereo signal int B-Format.
- 5.1 Output Bus receives B-Format (to be "safe", exclusively send B-Format to the Output Bus) from all other channels. To monitor, use a decoder insert VST. To export, deactivate the decoder which will stream B-Format audio to disk.
[edit] Steinberg WaveLab
WaveLab does not read or write multichannel wave files (except it can import a 6-channel file into a 5.1 format montage), nor does it handle VSTs with different numbers of inputs and outputs. However, it does have reasonably comprehensive facilities for simple editing of multiple tracks in parallel which make it practical for trimming, fading, simple cross-fade edits and the like with sample-accurate alignment; and it can render the results as up to eight outputs in separate mono files or paired in stereo files.
[edit] Audacity
Audacity is an exception to the rule. Audacity is a Free/Open-Source general-purpose "audio file editor".
As of version 1.3.2beta, Audacity has fair support for multi-channel audio files, with both import and export capabilities. It is known to successfully import .AMB files and save multi-channel .WAVs which can easily be converted to the AMB format.
It currently is not known to be able to mix or monitor B-Format material well, or at all. (Confirmation needed. VSTs? Decode to hardware .AMB rig? DirectShow filters on Windows?)
Work is being done to Audacity and libsndfile (which Audacity uses) in order to make them both truly B-Format capable.
