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Old 05-28-2018, 02:02 AM   #1
Pashkuli
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Default JS FX plugins, Ambisonic ATK for Reaper

Hello, guys
As you probably have no idea, I am one of those idiots who think that stereo mixes sound... well, uncomfortable... especially nowadays when most people listen to music on their headphones.

Not a big deal, of course. 99% of the listeners would not be able to tell the difference... unless it has been advertised to them mostly regarding gaming, movies (and music after all).

A few months ago I found this collection of web-sites which dig deeply into the capabilities of Reaper, free VST, and JS FX plugins.

.: It is about Binaural sound :.


ambiX

Multi-channel for ambiX

JS fx plugin:
ATK for Reaper

VST plugin:
Sonarworks Reference 4 headphone match and correction simulator
~you'll need this if you listen and mix on a set of the listed headphones in that plugin!

The subject is huge. No need for me to try and explain to you what it is all about. Only those interested in it will find it suitable.

I listen and mix 99% of the time on headphones. I use Foobar as an audio player. Please, do yourselves a favour and use it as well. For the standard stereo mixes I use the Dolby Headphone plugin in Foobar and it makes my brain feel comfortable:

Foobar

Dolby Headphone Wrapper

Dolby's dolbyhph library file


-------------------------------


Why is all this so important?
Well, it is not if you have no idea about what is the difference between headphone channel separation and binaural audio (which tries to emulate cross-feed between those channels in order to feel like there are no headphones on your ears... roughly said)

Recently I bought Tesseract's new album "Sonder". It came with a second disc that has been mastered as a 'KLANG 3D' in-ear mixing.

KLANG 3D demo

I wasn't very satisfied with the difference between that and the normal Stereo-mix of the album. Not a big deal. Just wanted to share with you.

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Old 05-28-2018, 03:07 AM   #2
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Impressive demo
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Old 05-28-2018, 04:11 AM   #3
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This is totally what I'm into these days adXok. I'm mixing everything in third order 3D Ambisonics now. I'm also using the studio edition of Sonarworks Reference 4 and would not want to work without it.

I'm planning to do a major overhaul of the Ambisonic section of my website soon too. That section is at www.AmbisonicMusic.com
There's only one Ambisonic mix on there at the moment but my new double length album is nearing completion and I will have mixes available there in third order Ambisonic format (SN3D, AmbiX, ACN), Binaural, 5.1 and stereo.

One of the tracks on the new album has a short section simulating world war three and I created a military chopper sound using my MU modular (which had grown considerably since I filmed this), Roland System 100 synth, System 700 sequencer and Moog Voyager. I've uploaded a Binaural version of that to my YouTube channel which you'll find here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxXqCsD5GfE

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Old 05-28-2018, 04:35 AM   #4
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adXok, I'll have to check out your Dolby links for Foobar too. I'll have to wait to next week though because I'm running REALLY low on Internet data right now.

I'm by no means an expert in JSFX code but I do have enough general programming experience to hack my way through some mods on existing plugins and I've been working on some third order Ambisonic bread and butter plugins (EQ, level and a few other things) and will be sharing them soon.
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Old 05-28-2018, 05:37 AM   #5
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ReaDave,
this is insane. I thought the military were coming to get me in my house like bin Laden.
I love that type of mixing. It is so immersive and rich.

Here are some of the best introduction tutorials about "ATK for Reaper":

Trond Lossius - Encoding with ATK for Reaper

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Old 05-28-2018, 07:24 AM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
ReaDave,
this is insane. I thought the military were coming to get me in my house like bin Laden.
I love that type of mixing. It is so immersive and rich.

Here are some of the best introduction tutorials about "ATK for Reaper":

Trond Lossius - Encoding with ATK for Reaper
Cheers for the thumbs up on the mix adXok.
I had a lot of fun making it. The album has been a work in progress now for a year and a half and is my most ambitious project in 35 years.

I have all of those videos from Trond and have been in touch with him regarding some of the things in the ATK beta releases.
I'm not using the ATK at present mainly because I am now working in third order Ambisonics and the ATK is first order at present. I am considering contacting Trond again to see if he's interested (and has time) to work on third order AmbiX SN3D versions of the ATK. It would probably be quite a big undertaking but I'd be willing to help out wherever possible and hopefully learn a lot more about JSFX coding along the way.

My primary Ambisonic tools right now are from Blue Ripple Sound. I have their upmixers and decoders and also the free core plugins. The Blue Ripple plugins are by far the most effective, efficient and reliable Ambisonic tools I've used and I've tried pretty much everything I can run on Windows in REAPER.

There is one BIG thing I don't like about the Blue Ripple plugins though and that is the requirement to connect to their license server every few weeks to keep the licenses running. I've been in touch with Richard Furse (Blue Ripple plugin creator) about this issue but he seems very reluctant to change this. I've even mentioned to him that I'd prefer iLok to the current scheme and I have so far avoided iLok like the plague!

The Blue Ripple plugins are first class quality wise and the paid suites are quite expensive, especially given British pounds to Aussie dollar conversion.
The only reasons I am still using these plugins is because they are so good and also because I've invested well over AU$1K in them.

I REALLY hope enough people can convince Richard to do something that will allow us to keep using his plugins without the Internet dependency. It is a big sore point for me.
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Old 05-28-2018, 08:01 AM   #7
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I have to admit that for now I am quite lost in the terminology like Format-A, Format-B, first order 1o, second order 2o, UHJ stereo, HOA > High Order Ambisonic

It has to do with how the recordings were made and the special microphones to capture "spherical" information on the incoming sound,, direct plane, reflections (rear), polar (up-down), etc. it is huge!

I also am trying these little free open source gems:

Ambisonic VST Plugin suite for Reaper
Latest Version v1.3.1, 17th May 2018
quite recent update


Interesting stuff and very knowledgeable!

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Old 05-28-2018, 08:22 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
I have to admit that for now I am quite lost in the terminology like Format-A, Format-B, first order 1o, second order 2o, UHJ stereo, HOA > High Order Ambisonic

It has to do with how the recordings were made and the special microphones to capture "spherical" information on the incoming sound,, direct plane, reflections (rear), polar (up-down), etc. it is huge!

I also am trying these little free open source gems:

Ambisonic VST Plugin suite for Reaper
Latest Version v1.3.1, 17th May 2018
quite recent update


Interesting stuff and very knowledgeable!
Glad you bought up these plugins. I've been testing the previous versions and have been in touch with Daniel Rudrich too. He replied to my first email extremely quickly and sent me the code for a first order cube array decoder. He mentioned they would be releasing a decoder designer soon and I see that is included in the last update so I should now be able to set up and test a third order cube decoder for my setup.
I must get back to Daniel. I have noticed a couple of serious problems with these plugins which I am sure would just be a debugging thing. Something about them disagrees with my system and I had one occasion where they caused a blue screen on my rig which is otherwise rock solid (i7 7700K @ 4.3GHz, 32GB RAM, Win 10 Pro, 3 x Samsung 850 500GB SSD).
I also noticed some serious level issues with these but I see they have changed all the normalization in the latest release so this may fix things.

I'll download the latest versions and get back in touch with Daniel again with my previous findings.
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Old 05-28-2018, 10:26 AM   #9
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I've installed the free plugin bundle from Blue Ripple and the bundle from ATK.

ReaDave,
I see you've mentioned about ATK working with an old format and Blue Ripple updating to another one. I really do not know much about the difference. Can you elaborate on that, please?
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Old 05-28-2018, 10:39 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
I've installed the free plugin bundle from Blue Ripple and the bundle from ATK.

ReaDave,
I see you've mentioned about ATK working with an old format and Blue Ripple updating to another one. I really do not know much about the difference. Can you elaborate on that, please?
There's actually some really good background information about Ambisonics and the various formats on the Blue Ripple site. About half way down the page HERE there's specific information on the differences I mentioned relating to FuMa (which the ATK currently uses) and SN3D which Blue Ripple, YouTube and Facebook use.

There's a ton of very good general information on Ambisonics in the technical notes section of their site HERE.
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Old 05-28-2018, 10:53 AM   #11
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Thanks, this is huge for me, but I am also very interested in those types of mixings, especially decoded into Binaural.

Usually with mono sources like vocal mic signal, amp signals or both those processed through some stereo-output plugins (impulse response loaders, mic impulses, etc.).

Stereo mixes are so flat. I am speaking about listening on headphones.
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Old 05-29-2018, 02:53 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
Thanks, this is huge for me, but I am also very interested in those types of mixings, especially decoded into Binaural.

Usually with mono sources like vocal mic signal, amp signals or both those processed through some stereo-output plugins (impulse response loaders, mic impulses, etc.).

Stereo mixes are so flat. I am speaking about listening on headphones.
Yeah. I agree regarding stereo over headphones. I've been using the Blue Ripple Binaural decoder for my Binaural releases (including the YouTube video I posted earlier) from 3rd order Ambi mixes.

I've downloaded the latest versions of the IEM plugins though and noticed they've added more Binaural models to their decoder so I'm pretty keen to check those out. I'll be heading into my studio shortly to install the updates and see what they've added and improved since the last version I used (1.1.0 I think from memory).
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Old 05-30-2018, 07:03 AM   #13
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Could never ever get that space with traditional stereo mixing:

QUEEN - Bohemian Rhapsody
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Old 05-31-2018, 05:47 AM   #14
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The difference between regular stereo mixes and binaural mixes is basically the difference between lateralization and localization.

Lateralization happens every time you listen to a stereo track via headphones: the sources within that mix are all in your head, between your left ear and the right ear. The singers most of the time directly in the middle.

When you listen to stereo via loudspeakers, all of the sources are out of your head (as the loudspeakers are), we call that localization.

A binaural mix tries to recreate the sound at the entry of your ear which you would get by listening to any source outside your head. Such a mix can quite simply be created by putting microphones in your ears, and record any sound source (for example a stereo mix played back via loudspeakers in a room), and then listen to the recorded signals. But it can also be achieved by using HRTFs (head related transfer functions - without room) or BRIRs (binaural room impulse response - with room), they basically describe how a sound changes from it's source being in a certain direction until arriving at your ear. With that information you can create a virtual source being wherever you want

There are different approaches to do that, one of them: Ambisonics with binaural rendering.
Most important thing to remember:
Without externalization there is no localization but only lateralization. And externalization can only happen with a room, may it be natural (within the BRIRs) or synthetic (simulated).

Last week I uploaded two youtube videos, which demonstrate the effect of room on binaural renderings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj19qdHcZ8Y
and a whole mix, which loses the power of being outside your head, once I dial down the number of reflections to zero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTNe4P6sYTg (e.g. at 0:10)
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Old 05-31-2018, 11:57 AM   #15
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That is the point, RDan.
Stereo mixes rely on reverb to try and simulate "space" and "openness".
It is well known in recording to record in stereo (with two mics) in various configurations including binaural recording with microphones inside a dummy head, dummy ears, etc.

The other prime point of my post is that there should be and there is a difference (quite significant) when you listen to stereo mixes on phones.
Usually recently some headphone manufacturers have adopted some Dolby Atmos or whatever it is called to simulate binaural virtual environment. That is something of necessity for Virtual Reality gaming and experience.

Ambisonic is a step into great number of microphones >2 (which would be stereo or binaural). Usually 4 mics in a tetrahedron configuration pointing "away" from each other (Ambeo Mic by Sennheiser whic costss £1500). Then this 4-ambisonic (also know as B-format) usually gets "mixed" (decoded) into either 4.1 (for loud speakers + subwoofer) or binaural (normal headphones).

It is not just about reverb and simulated multiple-reflections.

Quite similar to surround mixing but for headphones.
There are even some headphones with multiple speaker-drivers inside each of the channels (Left, Right), which is insane and overdoing things.

I wonder if reaper has such plugins for binaural, like it has for surround?!

At the moment I am using:
Ambeo Orbit (free): Ambeo Orbit
FreeAudio 3DAudio (not free): 3DAudio
dearVR 3D (very expensive and crashes Reaper for some reason, so I had to return it): dearVR 3D

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Old 05-31-2018, 12:05 PM   #16
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Hello guys,

Nice to see the interest. We do some music mixes in 3rd Order Ambisonics as well, despite the main focus being VR.
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Old 05-31-2018, 12:48 PM   #17
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The main goal for this thread is that no matter what you do, at the end your mixes will be heard on headphones and not on stereo loud-speakers (nor on 5.1 surround loudspeakers). Forget about surround.

Headphones are what many people use to listen to music nowadays.

Then the question is, how is Reaper going to implement such "standards" especially with VR (virtual reality) knocking on the door?
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Old 06-03-2018, 07:53 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RDan View Post
The difference between regular stereo mixes and binaural mixes is basically the difference between lateralization and localization.
.....

.....
There are different approaches to do that, one of them: Ambisonics with binaural rendering.
Most important thing to remember:
Without externalization there is no localization but only lateralization. And externalization can only happen with a room, may it be natural (within the BRIRs) or synthetic (simulated).

Last week I uploaded two youtube videos, which demonstrate the effect of room on binaural renderings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj19qdHcZ8Y
and a whole mix, which loses the power of being outside your head, once I dial down the number of reflections to zero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTNe4P6sYTg (e.g. at 0:10)
Daniel, it is great to see you here! I didn't know you are already a member here.
I've been meaning to get back to you now since our last email exchange (where you sent me the config file for a first order cube decoder) but I have been extremely busy and haven't had a chance to do further tests and reply.

My apologies for that, especially considering how quickly you replied to me. I truly am enthusiastic about your work!

I have the latest updates of your plugins now and will be installing and testing a few things later today.

Great demo by the way! I actually really like your room plugin and have used it on one of the tracks on the new album I'm working on.
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Old 06-03-2018, 07:59 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
At the moment I am using:
Ambeo Orbit (free): Ambeo Orbit
FreeAudio 3DAudio (not free): 3DAudio
dearVR 3D (very expensive and crashes Reaper for some reason, so I had to return it): dearVR 3D
I have a PA account and have many of their plugins but I have to say, I wasn't that impressed with Dear VR. I found it to be somewhat slow in responding to quicker automation and it tends to mess about with spectral information in a sloppy manner when doing its calculations.
I believe it has potential but not worth the money for me at this stage.
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Old 06-03-2018, 02:22 PM   #20
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I know what your talking about -- I spent a good few month setuping a workflow to mix in Amibsonic, 3-D, etc.

It sure was interesting and fun.

However, as fun as it was, I concluded that as long I don't actually have a 3d listening environment (i.e. speakers all around me, including below and above) I was getting caught up in something bigger than my capacities. Distracting?

I also used Foobar and setup ReaDave's headphone mixing protocol - which I still use here and there.

I may come back to it, but in the end I concluded that it was keeping me back as far learning the basic mixing skills - especially taking full advantage of the spacial elements of normal stereo mixing (e.g. reverb, delay, EQ, panning, etc.).

Also, while I know that Pink Floyd were experimenting with quadraphonic and other 3d elements in their lives shows, I can't help but remind myself of all the friggin awesome listening experiences I've had throughout the years listening to their songs using normal regular everyday headphones. I sure wish I could mix my songs to recreate the Pink Floyd sonic experience...
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Old 06-07-2018, 12:28 AM   #21
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Hey there!

I'm a newbie when it comes to ambisonic. I know there's ATK but that is "only" 1st Order Ambi, right?

There's so many options/philosophies out there that I got a little unsecure about which to learn to use.

Does anybody have experiences with that plugin suite that I've discovered just yesterday?

https://plugins.iem.at/
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Old 06-07-2018, 03:01 AM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
Then the question is, how is Reaper going to implement such "standards" especially with VR (virtual reality) knocking on the door?
I don't think Reaper has to implement any of it. There are so many great tools out there from Companies, Institutes/Universities, and 3D Audio dudes, with a lot of knowledge of spatial audio. Reaper already is one of the most famous DAWs when it comes to 3D audio, as it supports up to 64 channels per bus. In contrast, Logic only supports up to 8 (afaik) which is not even second order Ambisonics (which needs 9).

However, one thing which would be nice is playback of 360° video, combined with VR headsets. Not sure if its already supported in Reaper?


Quote:
Originally Posted by ReaDave View Post
My apologies for that, especially considering how quickly you replied to me. I truly am enthusiastic about your work!

I have the latest updates of your plugins now and will be installing and testing a few things later today.

Great demo by the way! I actually really like your room plugin and have used it on one of the tracks on the new album I'm working on.
No worries, take your time! By the way with the AllRADecoder you can now create your own Decoder very easily Looking forward to getting your feedback! And of course to listening to your new album

Quote:
Originally Posted by skippertag View Post
Does anybody have experiences with that plugin suite that I've discovered just yesterday?

https://plugins.iem.at/
Actually, I have a lot of experience with it ;-)
It's free, supports up to 7th order, and you can combine it with every plug-in which also uses the AmbiX convention (e.g. Blue Ripple plugins, Facebook FB360 suite, AmbiX suite obviously, Peter Stitt's plugins, and many many more).

If you have any specific questions, please, feel free to ask
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Old 06-08-2018, 03:21 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ReaDave View Post
I have a PA account and have many of their plugins but I have to say, I wasn't that impressed with Dear VR. I found it to be somewhat slow in responding to quicker automation and it tends to mess about with spectral information in a sloppy manner when doing its calculations.
I believe it has potential but not worth the money for me at this stage.
Hey adXok and ReaDave,


I just stumbled upon your thread and would love to hear what dearVR could improve in your opinion.
adXok, I’m sorry to hear that you had to return the plugin. Can you supply any specific trigger which caused the plugin to crash Reaper so we can reproduce the issue?
ReaDave, the delay in automation response is due to the elaborate processing and we are working on that.
Of course this also depends on the buffer size of your system. The smaller the buffer size, the more responsive it is.
Also, could you specify in detail what you mean by the spectral information issue?


Cheers,
Simon
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Old 06-09-2018, 08:55 AM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RDan View Post
I don't think Reaper has to implement any of it. There are so many great tools out there from Companies, Institutes/Universities, and 3D Audio dudes, with a lot of knowledge of spatial audio. Reaper already is one of the most famous DAWs when it comes to 3D audio, as it supports up to 64 channels per bus. In contrast, Logic only supports up to 8 (afaik) which is not even second order Ambisonics (which needs 9).

However, one thing which would be nice is playback of 360° video, combined with VR headsets. Not sure if its already supported in Reaper?
Not sure about 360 video myself. Regarding the Ambisonic capabilities of REAPER, given that it is so well suited to that, I have suggested a few times setting up an Ambisonic sub section on this forum. I sent Justin an email about that a while ago but not sure if he got it. I didn't receive a reply but didn't push the matter.
I'd still love to see that happen though, particularly now that a number of Ambisonic developers (yourself included) have joined in the discussions here.

I've been doing some code hacking of some of the REAPER JS plugins that come stock with REAPER and converting them to 16 i/o versions for third order Ambisonics. I've only done a couple so far and they are parametric EQs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RDan View Post
No worries, take your time! By the way with the AllRADecoder you can now create your own Decoder very easily Looking forward to getting your feedback! And of course to listening to your new album
I'm really liking the AllRADecoder and have used it to create a decoder for my cube array in third order. It works well but the Blue Ripple 3rd order cube decoder still has an edge. I'm happy to send you some audio files decoded with both for you to analyse.
I really like what you've done with your encoders and other Ambisonic creation and manipulation tools in the latest update. The normalisation now works perfectly with the Blue Ripple decoders.

The visualiser caused a blue screen on my rig last time I ran it and I haven't tried it again since the updates though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dear Reality View Post
Hey adXok and ReaDave,


I just stumbled upon your thread and would love to hear what dearVR could improve in your opinion.
adXok, I’m sorry to hear that you had to return the plugin. Can you supply any specific trigger which caused the plugin to crash Reaper so we can reproduce the issue?
ReaDave, the delay in automation response is due to the elaborate processing and we are working on that.
Of course this also depends on the buffer size of your system. The smaller the buffer size, the more responsive it is.
Also, could you specify in detail what you mean by the spectral information issue?


Cheers,
Simon
Great to see you here too Simon!
Unfortunately, I can't be more specific about the spectral issues because my demo expired some time ago and I can't run it any longer. I demoed it pretty much as soon as it came out. I do remember liking some of what it did but I have already sunk more than $1K into Blue Ripple suites and have pretty much everything I need covered in that.
Also, with Daniel's IEM tools and particularly his room encoder, I haven't really looked into DearVR again at this stage. It is good to hear that you are working on the responsiveness though. I usually run my system at very low latencies given that it is a fast rig (i7 7700K) with a good interface (RME Fireface UFX).

Please keep us updated on any developments though. I'd certainly be open to having another look.
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Old 06-09-2018, 08:59 AM   #25
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Hey adXok and ReaDave,
......
Cheers,
Simon
One thing I forgot to mention is that I have a particular fondness for German engineering. I'm half German by blood but my memory of the German language is VERY limited to what I learned in the 80s in high school... and I've forgotten most of that!!
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Old 06-10-2018, 05:04 AM   #26
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Hi, Dear Reality
Thank you for your post here.

Fisrt I would like to say that I really like the DearVR plugin. It does what it has to do with plenty of features and output formats (binaural, YouTube360°, etc.).

I will try and reproduce the crash right now...

*
With the new Reaper 5.91 i couldn't make dearVR to crash Reaper. I tried everything I did before (switching on/off the Reflection toggle) when I managed to crash Reaper and now I couldn't succeed.
*

I have to say the plugin is stable with Reaper.

For the sake of the experiment, please find the link to a metal style composition (composed and performed by the band Feared with Ola Englund on guitars; stem and DI tracks courtesy of Ola Englund).

DearVR in action with Reaper - Binaural Output
~ you may need to download the file, top right button


On all instruments and sends: dearVR plugin + reaEQ + reaComp
nothing else. Limiter is with -0.3dbFS ceiling and Treshold of -1dBFS, almost nothing really.
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Old 06-12-2018, 12:20 AM   #27
skippertag
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RDan View Post


Actually, I have a lot of experience with it ;-)
It's free, supports up to 7th order, and you can combine it with every plug-in which also uses the AmbiX convention (e.g. Blue Ripple plugins, Facebook FB360 suite, AmbiX suite obviously, Peter Stitt's plugins, and many many more).

If you have any specific questions, please, feel free to ask
:-) That's good to know. Thank you very much for that kind offer! It may take a while as we're in the middle of trying to find an apartment in a bigger city and all that stuff that belongs to it...but I will come back to that topic without a doubt :-)
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Old 06-15-2018, 12:05 PM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dear Reality View Post
I just stumbled upon your thread and would love to hear what dearVR could improve in your opinion.
Hi Simon,

I am glad that a representative from Dear Reality has joined this forum!

DearVR's manual does not mention HRTFs, so I was wondering whether it is possible to load new HRTFs?

If not, has dearVR's default HRTF been carefully selected to be optimally balanced for all head and ear types?

Which setting gives the best positioning quality: Realtime ON or OFF?

Over at the VI-Control forum, someone wrote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdkb
but my only issue is probably due to the context I want to use it: When the plugin is on an audio signal it strips a lot of the sound out of it therefore making it of little use for me in creating 3D space for my song tracks to exist in since the sound gets pretty thin.
There is a bass boost button but that kind of thing is going to compromise the sound quality since it is all then going through the plugin and then getting reboosted which defeats the object. maybe I am asking too much of this.
Could you perhaps comment on this?
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Old 06-15-2018, 05:20 PM   #29
Pashkuli
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Another thing I have noticed with dearVR is that it seems to support only mono-source signals.
I had to "explode" (separate) a test stereo-file into two mono signals (left and right separately) an then to place an instance of dearVR to each of those new mono-files.

I expected it to react more like the DolbyHeadphone (dolbyhph.dll) in Foobar, which deals with stereo-files correctly and actually quite pleasant to my ears, thus simulating binaural environment.

I hope dearVR can do that at some point in the future with stereo-file sources. Maybe it supports it but I couldn't manage to do and use it.
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Old 06-17-2018, 01:33 AM   #30
RDan
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Originally Posted by adXok View Post
Another thing I have noticed with dearVR is that it seems to support only mono-source signals.
I had to "explode" (separate) a test stereo-file into two mono signals (left and right separately) an then to place an instance of dearVR to each of those new mono-files.

I expected it to react more like the DolbyHeadphone (dolbyhph.dll) in Foobar, which deals with stereo-files correctly and actually quite pleasant to my ears, thus simulating binaural environment.

I hope dearVR can do that at some point in the future with stereo-file sources. Maybe it supports it but I couldn't manage to do and use it.
Well, VR (I address virtual reality, not dearVR) is all about sound objects, which are mono. On the other hand, stereo is not an object-based format, it's channel-based, best listened to via loudspeakers. Which then again can be modeled as separat sound objects in a virtual environment. There's not really a standard way of putting 'stereo loudspeaker setups' into virtual environments. Also the concept of phantom sources which are produced by a stereo mix does not really make sense in VR, as in general you want to pan every source of your mix/environment to it's specific location within the room.
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Old 06-26-2018, 09:35 AM   #31
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Hey y’all,



Sorry for being late and thanks for taking the time to reply.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ReaDave View Post
Great to see you here too Simon!
Unfortunately, I can't be more specific about the spectral issues because my demo expired some time ago and I can't run it any longer. I demoed it pretty much as soon as it came out. I do remember liking some of what it did but I have already sunk more than $1K into Blue Ripple suites and have pretty much everything I need covered in that.
Also, with Daniel's IEM tools and particularly his room encoder, I haven't really looked into DearVR again at this stage. It is good to hear that you are working on the responsiveness though. I usually run my system at very low latencies given that it is a fast rig (i7 7700K) with a good interface (RME Fireface UFX).

Please keep us updated on any developments though. I'd certainly be open to having another look.
I’m glad to hear that you’re still open for dearVR and we will keep this thread updated for our future updates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
Hi, Dear Reality
Thank you for your post here.

Fisrt I would like to say that I really like the DearVR plugin. It does what it has to do with plenty of features and output formats (binaural, YouTube360°, etc.).

I will try and reproduce the crash right now...

*
With the new Reaper 5.91 i couldn't make dearVR to crash Reaper. I tried everything I did before (switching on/off the Reflection toggle) when I managed to crash Reaper and now I couldn't succeed.
*

I have to say the plugin is stable with Reaper.

For the sake of the experiment, please find the link to a metal style composition (composed and performed by the band Feared with Ola Englund on guitars; stem and DI tracks courtesy of Ola Englund).
I'm happy to hear that, as we couldn’t reproduce the error either. Just enjoying your kickass metal with some great spatialised tom fills!

Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
Another thing I have noticed with dearVR is that it seems to support only mono-source signals.
I had to "explode" (separate) a test stereo-file into two mono signals (left and right separately) an then to place an instance of dearVR to each of those new mono-files.

I expected it to react more like the DolbyHeadphone (dolbyhph.dll) in Foobar, which deals with stereo-files correctly and actually quite pleasant to my ears, thus simulating binaural environment.

I hope dearVR can do that at some point in the future with stereo-file sources. Maybe it supports it but I couldn't manage to do and use it.
As RDan stated correctly, we have to make the transformation from a channel-based signal to an object based signal, if we want to experience true 3D Sound.
If you still want to use stereo tracks and convert them to single 3D audio sources using dearVR, you can use the input channel fader in the master section of the dearVR plugin to specify exactly how much of the left and right channel you want to use for that audio source.

Quote:
Originally Posted by juliansader View Post
Hi Simon,

I am glad that a representative from Dear Reality has joined this forum!

DearVR's manual does not mention HRTFs, so I was wondering whether it is possible to load new HRTFs?

If not, has dearVR's default HRTF been carefully selected to be optimally balanced for all head and ear types?
At the moment the loading of new HRTFs is not possible but a feature which will support the upcoming SOFA format is on our roadmap.
However, we did choose our HRTFs very carefully to achieve the best possible generalisation across a wide range of ear, head and shoulder anatomy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by juliansader View Post
Which setting gives the best positioning quality: Realtime ON or OFF?
The Realtime toggle is related to the early reflections of the audio signals according to the customisable wall distances. When “realtime” is activated, the dearVR engine updates those reflections in realtime when the position of the audio source is modified. This requires a bit more CPU but provides considerably better localisation quality.

Quote:
Originally Posted by juliansader View Post

Over at the VI-Control forum, someone wrote:
its pretty good and gets close to creating the sound of Binaural miking in the way I want to use it in my DAW. but my only issue is probably due to the context I want to use it: When the plugin is on an audio signal it strips a lot of the sound out of it therefore making it of little use for me in creating 3D space for my song tracks to exist in since the sound gets pretty thin.
There is a bass boost button but that kind of thing is going to compromise the sound quality since it is all then going through the plugin and then getting reboosted which defeats the object. maybe I am asking too much of this.


Could you perhaps comment on this?
It’s true that dearVR applies spectral modification to the audio signal, but this is part of the binaural synthesis and makes 3D Sound possible. We added the bass boost to compensate this a little bit for low frequencies.
However, It is very important to keep in mind that the binaural output is listened to on headphones only and ambisonics output is listened to on the fitting ambisonics loudspeaker layout only. When you try to listen to a binaural signal through loudspeakers for example, the audio quality is compromised and purpose of dearVR is defeated, resulting in a thin sound indeed.


I hope I could provide some answers and I’ll be here for any more questions/suggestions.
You can also reach me at support@dear-reality.com.



all the best,
Simon
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