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Old 01-26-2021, 02:20 PM   #1
timothys_monster
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Default Free plugins to monitor surround via headphones?

The title says it all.

I would like to tinker around with the new ReaSurround2 and wanted to know if there are any free alternatives to things like this: https://newaudiotechnology.com/produ...al-sound-card/

Basically, I don't have a 7.1 setup at home and would love to emulate it in my headphones.
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Old 01-26-2021, 03:28 PM   #2
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For a one-stop shop in this regard you should try Sparta Binauraliser. It's free and uses high order ambisonics to virtualize many standard speaker arrays via binaural models. You can load your own SOFA standard HRIR if you have one that works well for you.
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Old 01-27-2021, 07:31 AM   #3
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I forget the name but there's a cheap $35 dollar (or around there) head tracker that means you can also have head rotation which I would argue is key to hearing surround properly as we need this tiny head movements we do to help locate where those speakers are in virtual space rather than having the whole room move around when you move your head

Waves nx is sometimes on sale and I think has a mode that tracks head movements via a webcam.. worth looking into
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Old 01-27-2021, 08:45 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by musicbynumbers View Post
I forget the name but there's a cheap $35 dollar (or around there) head tracker that means you can also have head rotation which I would argue is key to hearing surround properly as we need this tiny head movements we do to help locate where those speakers are in virtual space rather than having the whole room move around when you move your head
If you think of the name of that $35 head tracker please let me know.
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Old 01-29-2021, 11:07 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by plush2 View Post
If you think of the name of that $35 head tracker please let me know.
I had a quick look and can't find it yet but if I do I'll post again sorry!

I think it was on here somewhere though in this forum area.

Oh, I checked on waves NX too and it does seem to have a face tracking via normal camera mode so that might be viable too.
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Old 01-29-2021, 11:09 AM   #6
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Found it. There's two suggested in here and I think one of them will be the cheap one

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=235763
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Old 01-30-2021, 05:03 AM   #7
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Two free ones:

GRM-Tools SpaceVR, up to 64 input to binaural (every speakers arrangements)
https://inagrm.com/en/showcase/news/598/nouveaux-spaces

MyBino, up to 48 inputs (sphere based)
http://www.cmap.polytechnique.fr/xaudio/mybino/

Both work with a direct multichannel input, so you don't have to use ambisonics.
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Old 02-01-2021, 05:53 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by plush2 View Post
For a one-stop shop in this regard you should try Sparta Binauraliser. It's free and uses high order ambisonics to virtualize many standard speaker arrays via binaural models. You can load your own SOFA standard HRIR if you have one that works well for you.
I've been struggling with ReaSurround for a couple of years. Could not get the multichannel thing working. This trick with Sparta works great! Thank you!
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Old 02-03-2021, 02:36 PM   #9
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Thanks to everyone for the super helpful links!

Will look into getting a head tracker. It's a shame that hedrot is not available anymore. But there must be good alternatives. It seems right, that without a head tracker it doesn't make much sense to do surround mixes on headphones.
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Old 02-03-2021, 03:20 PM   #10
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If you're an AES member, you might be able to get Reference 4 from Sonarwerks for a good price (or free). I've been using it during the pandemic to mix from home, and I've been really happy with my mixes.


https://storeus.sonarworks.com/produ...dphone-edition
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Old 02-04-2021, 09:05 PM   #11
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Related to nx, have any of you looked into Slate Audio VSX headphones? It's basically nx on steroids and designed for mixing in virtual rooms.

Two issues I have: 1) it's expensive (to my pocket anyway) and 2) it probably uses iLok for the software component.
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Old 02-04-2021, 10:00 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by leroik View Post
Related to nx, have any of you looked into Slate Audio VSX headphones? It's basically nx on steroids and designed for mixing in virtual rooms.

Two issues I have: 1) it's expensive (to my pocket anyway) and 2) it probably uses iLok for the software component.
Does Slate VSX do surround speaker virtualization? It doesn't appear to based on what the site says.
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Old 10-29-2021, 03:17 AM   #13
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Mixing on headphones has three main concerns:

1. the freq. response of your headphones (most have bumpy EQ)

2. freq. EQ compensation (correction) from specification

3. binaural simulation (done through software based on measurement)
- something like a "crosstalk" between the cups\drivers of your headphones to simulate set of stereo speakers in front of you

- simulated\measured speakers and capturing binaural headphones: as scientific as possible to get the "flat" response

- individual EQ correction (your ears sensitivity!)

Measurement Dataset include:
- headphone freq. response specifications by manufacture: RARELY supplied as info!!!

- setup with binaural head such as Neumann KU100 (microphones inside a dummy head such as B&K Type
4100)... in front of a set of stereo speakers (usually scientific)

- studio\room environment (acoustics and treatment)

- speaker's azimuth (horizontal angle setups: for different configs such as 2.0, surround 5.1, 7.1), thought the end result is two (binaural) single channel .wav files as IR (Impulse responses) from the Head (with the microphones, which also have their freq. response)

So, by far we have these contributors to the freq. response:
- binaural head (microphones) to capture the sound impulse

- monitors\loudspeakers used to produce the sound impulse

- rooms acoustic (also related to azimuth angle + distance between speakers); usually recorded in several environments (recording studio, mixing room, acoustically treated rooms, etc.)

- HpCFs (your headphones freq. response correction: list of brands\models) + separate type of: over-ear, in-ear, on-ear compensation of freq.

- last but not least: your individual ears and their sensitivity to sound freq.\pressure, thus you apply final EQ tilt\bump by taste


All this, if done with care and correctly, will allow you to use your headphones (hopefully supported by the measurement Dataset described above) to listen to your stereo recordings (using Foobar of course), movies (PotPlayer of course), mixes in your DAW (Reaper, of course; ASIO sound stream)... using EqualizerAPO + Voicemeeter, without the need to load MonitoringFX plugins for the above explained corrections.

Of course you will need a decent audio-interface (if you'd like to work in a DAW, Reaper of course).

I will try to write a forum entry on how to setup EqualizerAPO (with the related ASH-IR-Dataset) + Voicemeeter. But a video tutorial would be much more explanatory.

At last: my biggest concern is the added latency using all those routings and processing on the fly (real time), especially for recording\tracking.

I wish this could have been implemented by the hardware manufacturers (of audio interfaces or rather headphones) by now.
The other solution is to make a binaural rendering of mixes... but that would have to be done for music, movies, internet stream... which is impossible.
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Old 10-30-2021, 05:15 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by plush2 View Post
For a one-stop shop in this regard you should try Sparta Binauraliser. It's free and uses high order ambisonics to virtualize many standard speaker arrays via binaural models. You can load your own SOFA standard HRIR if you have one that works well for you.
From my trials, I found unexpectedly that going through ambisonics (sparta_ambiENC -> sparta_ambiBIN) sounds more natural, less coloured, than the direct way (sparta_binauralizer or DearVR Pro).
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Old 10-30-2021, 07:22 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by sguyader View Post
From my trials, I found unexpectedly that going through ambisonics (sparta_ambiENC -> sparta_ambiBIN) sounds more natural, less coloured, than the direct way (sparta_binauralizer or DearVR Pro).
I agree that other methods might sound more natural. At the same time the original request was for a free plugin to monitor standard speaker arrays binaurally. These other options require certain knowledge of ambisonics including encoding to the correct type (fuma/ambix) and decoding to binaural. The thing about sparta binauralizer is it takes the speaker array input signal and binauralizes it directly in one plugin. For a comparable DearVR product one would need to purchase their Monitor plugin.
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Old 10-31-2021, 09:15 AM   #16
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Originally Posted by plush2 View Post
I agree that other methods might sound more natural. At the same time the original request was for a free plugin to monitor standard speaker arrays binaurally. These other options require certain knowledge of ambisonics including encoding to the correct type (fuma/ambix) and decoding to binaural. The thing about sparta binauralizer is it takes the speaker array input signal and binauralizes it directly in one plugin. For a comparable DearVR product one would need to purchase their Monitor plugin.
Actually the sparta_ambiENC has pretty much the same presets speaker array input as sparta_binauraliser, so the only thing you have to do is:
- slam 1 sparta_ambiENC instance on audio each track
- choose the ambisonics order (7th order ideally)
- set the number of I/O channels on your audio tracks to that required by the ambisonics order (64 channels for 7th order)
- route those tracks to a 64-channel wide parent track (or simply a folder) with sparta_ambiBIN set to 7th order, and that's all

It's easy to just create and share a project template with the basic setup.
The jump in sound fidelity is worth those extra steps in my opinion.
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Old 04-16-2022, 12:08 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sguyader View Post
From my trials, I found unexpectedly that going through ambisonics (sparta_ambiENC -> sparta_ambiBIN) sounds more natural, less coloured, than the direct way (sparta_binauralizer or DearVR Pro).
If I had to guess, I would say, that this probably has more to do with the way these plugins binauralize sounds. If you measure HRTFs from a dummy head, you inevitably end up with a finite number of directions, and unless you just snap to the nearest one, you are going to have to come up with some way of interpolating between them. If my memory serves me right, Sparta Binauralizer uses normalized VBAP gains to achive this (no idea about Dear VR Pro), whereas it's Ambisonics equivalent lets you select from a couple of different options, all of which operate in the spherical harmonics domain directly. So even though we might instinctively presume the "direct" binauralizer to be cleaner, because we are not degrading the signal by encoding it in the spherical harmonics domain, the method used for synthesizing the speaker positions in the direct one might actually change the sound more (for example because of phase issues).
That would be my initial idea, but it might be nonsense. Maybe someone with mor knowledge about this sort of thing can chime in, as this is actually really interesting.
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Old 02-03-2023, 11:07 PM   #18
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Default RE - Free plugins to monitor surround via headphones?

Here are some free plugins that you can use to monitor surround sound through headphones:

Waves Nx: Waves Nx is a surround sound emulation plugin that allows you to experience surround sound through headphones. It uses head-tracking technology to provide a realistic surround sound experience.

HOFA CD-Burn & Dongle: HOFA CD-Burn & Dongle is a bundle that includes plugins for surround sound monitoring through headphones, including a surround panner and a headphone correction plugin.

Sennheiser AMBEO Orbit: Sennheiser AMBEO Orbit is a free binaural panning plugin that allows you to monitor surround sound in your headphones. It uses advanced algorithms to simulate the spatial impression of surround sound.

Nugen Audio Halo Upmix: Nugen Audio Halo Upmix is a surround sound upmixing plugin that allows you to monitor 5.1, 7.1, and other surround sound formats through headphones. It uses advanced algorithms to create a realistic surround sound experience.

Note that while these plugins can help you monitor surround sound through headphones, the experience may not be the same as listening to surround sound on speakers. It's always a good idea to check your mix on speakers as well to make sure it sounds good in all environments.
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