Immersive Audio

I've been experimenting with ways of demonstrating immersive soundscapes to people without having to have a large number of loudspeakers.

Introducing VR audio. Oh wow I wish everyone could agree on a nice way of representing a 3D sound field. Most people seem to be settling on ambisonics, but should it be 1st order or 2nd order? What order should the tracks be in (alphabetical order obviously - looking at you YouTube..)? What format should the content be in?

So here is what I tried. First I mixed an example in 3D and then uploaded it to YouTube only to discover that the soundfield doesn't move when you look around! Perhaps I did something wrong in the convoluted process of channel ordering and metadata. I'm not sure. Frankly the process is far too difficult to be of any use in the real world at the moment. You can listen to that failed experiment here if you should wish.

Then, using Bruce's convolutions and correction filter I did an example mixed in Ambisonics and uploaded it to soundcloud as binaural. You can find that example here. I have never been impressed with binaural audio. Even if it's a recording made on a dummy head with pinnae. I think perhaps it's linked to the art of foley. A realistic gun shot does not sound realistic when it's shown on screen. If you put yourself in an unrealistic situation everything must be exaggerated in order to be believed. I think it's the same with immersive audio - things that try to be too realistic loose their realism.

But that's a topic for a different day - "The path of academic research into immersive audio".