Some of you, who came across the term ‘3D sound’, probably are wondering what it actually is?
Intuitively, we may understand it by analogy to 3D space, which as we know is made up of three dimensions: width, depth, and height. In real life, any position in space is characterized by these dimensions.
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Now imagine, that you are outside, for example in a park, full of various sounds. You can hear children laughing on the playground behind you; a dog is barking on your left, a couple of people are talking while sitting on a bench in front of you – you can hear their voices more and more clearly when you move towards them. We may say that you are in the 3-dimensional sound space. When you move, the sound you hear changes as well, corresponding to the position of your ears (its intensity, direction, height and even timbre).

Reproducing this natural human way of hearing in the recording isn’t easy, however, we already have the technology which allows us to do it – it is binaural and Ambisonics sound.

​The most common type of recordings – which you hear while listening to the music on your computer or watching TV –is stereo. You may also come across mono recordings but these have been outdated with the introduction of stereo mixing. Stereo sound basically allows you only to hear if the sound comes from left or right which is the main advantage over the mono-type of audio.
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Bellow, you may find some great recordings that will allow you to hear the difference between these different formats. We have also summarized their characteristics in the bullet points, to present the information most clearly.

New ZYLIA Streaming Application allows you to set up binaural and Ambisonics audio streaming on your Mac computer with no need off using Digital Audio Workstation.
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It’s FREE for all current ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter owners. So available for users of the ZYLIA PRO Ambisonics and ZYLIA PRO Have it all! sets. ​

To set up binaural and Ambisonics audio streaming you will need the following prerequisites:
 

• ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone
• ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter plugin (product key)
• IEM Binaural Decoder plugin (free)
• BlackHole or Soundflower (free)
• Live stream software such as OBS, Zoom or other

In the video we cover:

• What is ZYLIA Streaming Application?
• Which additional software you might need?
• How to install the application?
• How to use the application?
• How to setup ZYLIA Streaming App for binaural streaming with OBS? (skip to 3:18)
• How to setup ZYLIA Streaming App for binaural streaming in Zoom? (skip to 4:03)

We are happy to announce the new release of the ZYLIA Streaming Application (v1.0.1).
With this version, we fixed the problem with streaming via the OBS plugin, when OBS is in stereo mode.

We are happy to announce the very first release of ZYLIA Streaming Application v1.0 for macOS. This is our new solution for quick and easy setting-up live streaming of your music performance in the Ambisonics format. The core of this application is ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter that converts the ZM-1 multi-channel recordings into Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA).
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With this tool, you can stream your audio content directly in HOA format (1st, 2nd, and 3rd order) or Binaural format by using an additional binauralization plugin. It can be easily configured with streaming software like OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) that allows combining your audio stream with a video stream and transmitting directly to most of the well-known multimedia platforms (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, etc.). Also in addition to this application, we provide the beta OBS Plugin which is able to get direct output from ZYLIA Streaming Application, without using any virtual sound card. 

​ZYLIA Streaming Application will be available as an addition to all packages that contain the ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter plugin, eg. the ZYLIA PRO Ambisonics package.

#zylia #streaming #3Daudio #Ambisonics #binaural #live #music

We are happy to announce the new release of ZYLIA ZM-1 drivers for macOS. This driver supports the latest Apple computers with an M1 processor. As it is still kernel extension, you may need to Enable System Extension for M1 systems.  This instruction is available on the Apple webpage and also here. 

​Also, all other ZYLIA Software is able to run on this kind of machine in Intel compatibility mode with Rosetta 2. ( https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211861)

We are happy to announce the new release of ZYLIA Studio (v2.1).
 
With this version, we introduce the following features:

• Support for the most recent version of macOS 11 Big Sur.
• Additional support for the professional version of our microphone - ZYLIA ZM-1S.
• To make your work pipeline faster we added an option of export of separated tracks directly into the DAW session file - currently, this feature supports Reaper, Ableton, and Audacity,
• Bug fixes of minor issues.

​We are happy to announce the release of ZYLIA 6DoF HOA Renderer for Max MSP v2.0. (macOS, Windows).

​This software is a key element of ZYLIA 6DoF Navigable Audio system. It allows you to reproduce the sound field in a given location based on Ambisonics signals recorded with ZM-1S microphones. The plugin works in Max/MSP environment so you can use this tool directly in your project. Please refer to the provided example project with our plugin and the manual for ZYLIA 6DoF HOA Renderer.

The newest ZYLIA 6DoF HOA Renderer for Max/MSP has a lot of improvements.

The new User Interface can be accessed in a separate window – it allows you to set up the whole configuration directly in the plugin, without using the message mechanism of Max/MSP. The UI allows you also to lock the microphones’ positions, preventing the ​unintentional change of the scene configuration.  

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The next thing is an increased number of supported signals, right now you can pass up to 30 HOA signals to the plugin, and create a 6DoF experience on much larger scenes.
 
If you would like to test this plugin, you can also use a 7-day free trial, and play around with our 6DoF audio rendering algorithm. The test recording data for the plugin can be found on our webpage. 

​We are happy to announce the new release of ZYLIA ZM-1 drivers for macOS (v2.9.1). This driver supports the latest release of macOS 11.1 Big Sur.

We are happy to announce the new release of ZYLIA ZM-1 drivers for macOS and Linux.
 
MacOS driver v2.9.0

• Support for the latest release of macOS 11 Big Sur.

by Pedro Firmino

In this adaptation, we will show you how to create a 360 video with 3rd Order Ambisonics audio using:

• MacOS
• ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone
• ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter plugin
• IEM Binaural Decoder
• Reaper
• Modifed version of Google Spatial Media Metadata injector created by professor Angelo Farina.

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This tutorial consists in 2 parts:
A: Preparing the 360 content with 16 channels
B: Injecting metadata using Spatial Media Injector version, modified by Angelo Farina.

At the moment, only HOAST library ( https://hoast.iem.at/ ) is the only platform which allows online video playback of 3rd Order Ambisonics and therefore the content created from this tutorial is meant to be watched locally using VLC player.

For this tutorial, basic Python knowledge is advised.

For preparing a 360 video with 1st order Ambisonics, visit the link:
https://www.zylia.co/blog/how-to-prepare-a-360-video-with-spatial-audio

1. As usual, start by recording your 360 video with the ZYLIA ZM-1 microphone and remember to have the front of the ZM-1 aligned with the front of the 360 camera.

2. After recording, import the 360 video and the 19 Multichannel audio file into Reaper.
Syncronize the audio and video.

​3. On the ZM-1 audio track, insert ZYLIA Ambisonics Converter and select 3rd Order Ambisonics. This will decode your 19 multichannel track into 16 channels (3rd Order Ambisonics).

​4. On the Master track, click on the Route button, On the track channels, select 16. Now you are receiving the signal from the 16 channels from the audio track.

​5. Once the video is ready for exporting, click File – Render.

As for the settings:
Sample rate: 48000
Channels: 16 (click on the space and manually type 16)
Output format: Video (ffmpeg/libav encoder)
Size: 3840 x 1920 (or Get width/height/framerate from current video item
Format: QT/Mov/MP4
Video Codec: H.264
Audio Codec: 24 bit PCM

Render the video.

After having the 360 video with 16 channels, it is necessary to inject metadata for Spatial Audio.

In order to do this, Python is required. Python is preinstalled in macOS but
you can download Python 2.7 version here: https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.7/

Afterward, download Angelo Farina’s modified version of Spatial Media Metadata Injector, located at:
http://www.angelofarina.it/Ambix+HL.htm

​The next part:

1. With the downloaded file located in your Desktop, run macOS Terminal application.
2. Using “cd” command, go to folder where you have Spatial Media Injector (eg. “cd ~/Desktop/spatial-media-2/”)

3. Run Python script “sudo python setup.py install”. Type your password.

​After the build is complete, type command: “cd build/lib/spatialmedia”

6. Enter python gui.py and the application should run.

​With the Spatial Media Metadata Injector opened, simply open the created 360 video file, and check the boxes for the 360 format and spatial audio. Inject metadata and your video will be ready for playback using 3rd Order Ambisonics audio.