XR Bavaria Meetup: Immersive 3D Audio

About VR, AR, 360° Video Meetup Munich by Extended Reality Bavaria e.V.

Here you can experience Virtual and Augmented Reality for yourself and we offer platform for exchange of opinions and networking for experts, creatives and enthusiasts.

The events are organized by Extended Reality Bavaria e.V., the Bavarian association for virtual reality, augmented reality and 360° video. The MeetUps are free of charge for members and those who want to become members.

https://www.meetup.com/Munich-VR-360-Video-Meetup/events/276927658

3d immersive audio

3D audio is currently experiencing a boom in many different areas. The Sony PS5 is setting new standards in game experience with Tempest 3D, so-called 8D music videos are getting billions of views on YouTube, and Samsung, along with Apple, has just launched headphones that support head tracking for spatial audio.

Of course, the XR world also benefits from this. But what exactly do the terms around spatial audio mean and where is its added value anyway?

Speakers

Host Martin Rieger specializes in content for immersive media and wants to shed light on the anechoic chamber. Therefore, he has invited other experts from industry, science, and the user sector to show how versatile the possibilities are. http://vrtonung.de/en

Jacqueline Bošnjak is one of Advertising Age’s Creativity50 most influential creative figures and co-founder of Mach1. It is a sound technology company focused on unifying multi-channel and spatial audio for emerging technologies https://www.mach1.tech

Giorgio Koppehele uses 4K 3D relaxation videos and interactive training in VR combined with binaural audio. Magic Horizons is a global, holistic platform for stress reduction, calming and mental health promotion with virtual reality. https://magic-horizons.com/en/

Maria Schween is a freelance media artist with a focus on music and sound design for film and games. In addition to her work as a composer and sound designer, she gives lectures and is a member of the Games Association and XR Mitteldeutschland. https://www.mariaschween.com

What’s the plan?

Thanks to Zoom, it is now possible to broadcast hi-fi audio for all participants. Therefore, be sure to use the app on the desktop and activate professional audio in the settings. Of course, we will point this out again when the time comes. We are looking forward to it!

So grab your headphones, listen in and register now. https://www.meetup.com/Munich-VR-360-Video-Meetup/events/276927658

Recap – this is what you missed

Martin Rieger

Martin shared an overview of possibilities within spatial audio and gave us a demo of binaural recording. We walked through the fundamentals of spatial audio and discussed how to leverage specific characteristics of sound such as our inability to stop listening. Our ability to hear across 360 degrees (as opposed to sight, for example). As well as the necessity for silence. With these principles, Martin showed us how sound could guide a virtual reality experience without overwhelming the viewer.

We also got to auditorily be in the same studio room as Martin, as he gave a live demo of binaural recording. By speaking and moving around a dummy head that had a microphone in each ear. When we reverted to standard mono or stereo, the whole sound field collapsed. Truly illustrating the importance of spatial sound for speech and natural conversation (more can be found in Martin’s article here).

Jacqueline Bosnjak

Jacqueline, the CEO of Mach 1 discussed how the legendary music house Q Department gave rise to a revolutionary tool(s) for creators and developers.

When object and ambisonics didn’t meet Q Departments needs for audio spatialization, they built an in-house tool that preserves audio production’s best practices and craftsmanship. These tools allow artists to bring creativity into and future proof their mixes without worrying about processing and filtering.

The simple and transparent framework unifies spatial and multichannel audio while staying format and platform agnostic, ensuring that a spatial mix can be deployed on any platform. In layman’s terms, “the creative mix is the technical mix”

They currently feature two products, with many more available at their github page. Their main products are Mach1 spatial system for creators which includes transcoder for deploying to other formats, as well as a developer SDK to plug in their API and play back Mach 1 spatial format. As Airpods Pro have increased in accessibility, they also create apps that allow creators to use the head-tracking in Airpods Pro. For a demo or more information, email whatsup at mach1.tech.

Giorgio Koppehele

Magic Horizons – my better life is a holistic platform for stress reduction, patient calming and mental health and training in VR. Giorgio’s presentation is a must-watch, inspiring so many helpful use cases of spatial audio and how to integrate audio into a holistic VR experience.

Collaborating with institutions like Hamburg University and Fraunhofer Institute, Magic Horizons provides those staying at hospitals with relaxing worlds in 4K, where 3D binaural audio envelops them. They create so many different experiences, including interactive experiences in environments like a zen garden, guided meditations, and binaural beats that aid relaxation via delta, theta and alpha waves.

Participants can even layer the sounds as they wish, or use default settings. In the future, they are looking into AI for “flow state experience”, Cloud 5G VR platforms and a B2C platform (Magic Horizons is currently B2B).

Maria Schween

Maria is a super innovative media artist and composer, creating music for VR experiences. Coming from an electro-acoustic background, she came into XR composing quite naturally. In this talk, she discusses many of her influences, like French composer Pierre Schaeffer, who created objets sonores in the 1950’s.

Maria takes us on the journey of developing adaptive music in VR. What is adaptive music? Maria explains how she uses elements of virtual environments for compositional material, which later informs the resulting soundscape in later game levels.

This talk is an in-depth view into the creative process of XR audio from a contemporary and artistic perspective. She shows us, for example, how acoustics are divided into synthetic and organic sound. This idiosyncratic auditory world is an integral part of the VR piece and gives it an overwhelmingly unique quality.

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