From First to Third Order: The Great Ambisonics Upscaling Shootout

[@AudioBrewers]

Update is out :) Fantastic video! Just to let you know, I have been working on an update for ab Imager that upscales +3 orders up... meaning 1OA is upscale to 4OA, 3OA goes all the way to 6OA... It's been a long journey but it's almost there, and all owners of the current 'ab Imager' will get their update 🙂... Now that Pro Tools supports up to 7OA and with VST3.7.8 coming up, with 7OA support, I've been focused on enhancing the algorithm... again, with my main focus of it being quick, easy and automatic!

[@michaelgwagner]

Very cool! Looking forward to checking that out!

[@toddvandeau5238]

Is this also able to upscale stereo to 5.1?

[@michaelgwagner]

There are special upscalers for channel based audio. Nugen Halo Upmix is a good one. Penteo 16 Pro also works quite well for that.

[@toddvandeau5238]

@@michaelgwagner Thank you sir!

[@brucesharp712]

Just got ab plugin after much deliberation so glad to see this video post purchase. Looking forward to in depth video on it

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, this is a good one. Audio Brewers have an excellent video about it as well. This is where I got the idea of using the energy visualization from.

[@paulf9814]

Perfect timing, I was just researching this, thanks!

[@michaelgwagner]

You‘re very welcome!

[@alvaromorello]

Michael, can you link to the video you referenced when you said you would explore the Audiobrewers plugin as it had some interesting tricks up its sleeve? I would like to learn about these features. Thank you.

[@daniel.courville]

If one wants the Harpex upsampler, the way to go is probably the original Harpex plug-in. Not cheap at 300 euros, but you get more bang for the bucks as it includes various decoders and also accepts A-Format from five different tetrahedral microphones. And it will work in Cubase and Nuendo...

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks for the tip!

[@pauljones9150]

What a great video

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks, much appreciated! 😊

[@gammasintesi4694]

Very interesting and instructive video 😉👍. Would it be possible to see your comparison between various "ambisonic to binaural" render plugins? Thanks! 😊

[@michaelgwagner]

Great suggestion!

[@LangElliott]

Michael: Does this essentially mean that an outdoor field recording made with a first order mic can be converted to a third order recording that will be nearly as good as a field recording made with a third order mic? In other words, why bother with third order field recording at all, given the supreme hassle of dealing with 16 input channels when recording outdoors? ALSO ... perhaps if you had used a non-reverberant "point source" test sound (such as a dry bird song) rather than a diffuse and reverberant one, the upscaling results would not look nearly so good in comparison to the original?

[@michaelgwagner]

If you have a good 3rd order recording it will be better, of course. Think of this as similar to image upscaling (before there was AI).

[@LangElliott]

@@michaelgwagner Thank you Michael!

[@JakobGille2]

Great idea to compare the upscalers with the visualization! The problem with upscaling lies primarily in the colourization though, this is why it would've been interesting to compare dense 1 order Field Recordings. I always upscale my recordings with the HODIRAC upscaler from the Sparta Suite. My impression is that the Compass Upscaler is simply not usable because of the strong colourization. But I also follow the HODIRAC one with an EQ to counter a bit the low frequency loss and boosted highs. Either way, upscaling is crucial with Ambisonics recordings, because 1 order is simply not really usable. With the Sparta Upscalers you then also get the possibility to change direct to diffus ratios, which adds another interesting layer to play with.

[@michaelgwagner]

Good points!

[@algol85]

@@michaelgwagner any reason why SPARTA HODIRAC was not part of the test? I am shortly before pulling the trigger with Imager AB... but SPARTA is free :)

[@michaelgwagner]

No particular reason, no. I chose Compass from SPARTA.

[@ben47g51]

Great video! I've wondered about the need for HOA (above 1st order) for the sense of "musical" audio localization. After all, for years, we've utilized sine - cosine "constant power" panning to distribute a convincing phantom image between L and R. That old technique is mathematically consistent (if you include an omni "pressure" component) with 1OA. So, why the need for HOA resolution? Regardless, I usually upscale my 1OA recordings to 3OA to get the most out of subsequent signal processing.

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks and great insights. Yes, the “need” question is something else alltogether.

[@AudioBrewers]

The 'need' is the big question - Ambisonics orders become counter-productive if you don't have enough speakers for a specific order, to the point that it starts creating problems (holes) in your audio... so yes, you should be aware of your sonic surroundings and always chose the Order you need most for a particular application... If you want something extremely defined, you could use 7OA, but if you are going to be moving that object, and monitoring with less than 64 speakers, the movement will be problematic... so, there's use for everything... lower orders will give you a tighter "embrace", higher orders will give you more definition... You must find the sweetspot per track and never, ever expect that because 7OA is higher, it's better... it's not!

[@anlcnar88]

Hi. İf ı want to 2th order sound design for Vr or 360 video (FB, Oculus) content without headphones with speaker, what is the true speaker placement? İs it like dolby atmos speaker placement which is recomended for spatia audio? Thanks

[@michaelgwagner]

Ambisonics is speaker agnostic. You can decode it to any speaker layout you like. If you have an Atmos setup, that would be a good choice.

[@anlcnar88]

@@michaelgwagner Thank you very much 🙏

[@paulf9814]

Do you have any recommendations for an alternative to Energy Visulizer that works in Pro Tools?

[@michaelgwagner]

I honestly don’t know if one exists tbh.

[@paulf9814]

​@@michaelgwagner I have not found any, it seems difficult to get stuff for Pro Tools, and I really do not like the Reaper workflow.

[@Not-Only-Reaper-Tutorials]

05:35 with HRTF the most difficult (to me) to get is the Top-Bottom. Quite good: front-rear but Top-Bottom mmmm ... DearVR was more convincing and the real great was Spatial Audio ... but t it's anaother level of course. 11:47 in Reaper you can rename the plugins so that when the windows are openend, and they are the same, you can easily identify what is what. Tu rename the plugin: hover it: right key and rename ... it's just a way ... :-) 12:17 please don't be offended (nothing personal) but: please do not talk while you are demonstrating. or we don't get what we are here for ... ;-) as producers, Audio Engineers and so on: we must-and-need to have our time to perceive and understand. Please can you re-make a video just leaving for a while only the plugins running and switching them? Not possible to understand here really. If you can, I will watch. If you can't ... ok ... 😕

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks! No offense taken. Great tips.

[@kingpossie]

Harpex was clearly the winner here for me.

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, that is a good one. It just would be nice if Blue Ripple would update their plugins to work with Cubase.