@jimwine said:

But for now, I have opted for the Dear VR Monitor solution which seems to be able to render MIR Prod 3D’s environment as intended. Thanks again for your thoroughness.

 

Oh that is interesting.  dearVR is handling binaural encoding differently then Dolby?  That kind of makes sense though...so something for me to investigate further.  

I was just reading an article yesterday about how Apple's Binaural encoder is different from Dolby's..  Apple uses theirs for their so called "Spatial Audio" feature on Apple Music.  A lot of people had problems though because Atmos productions did not translate well after having been produced and presumably monitored using Atmos system...or perhaps Dolby's monitoring...then on Apple Music as so called "Spatial audio" it would sound totally wrong...in particular it seems to do with how center channel is handled and Apple's version tends to make everything wider then life.....or something to that extent.  In any case, last year Apple added actual Dolby Atmos as also being playable from AppleMusic now...perhaps because of these binaural compatibility problems.  

So yea I'm curious how dearVR's binaural would differ from Dolby's.

Apple's also does not have near, mid far stuff.  But when I have listened to some test binaural recordings, everything sounded like it was just barely outside my skull.  I could hear things moving around in front and around the sides and the back of my head..just barely.  I think Dolby is adding, perhaps, some processing to get things to sound further away from our head.  But then, that is what MirPro3D is supposed to do...so I guess in LogicPro you would want to monitor MirPro3D with the Dolby renderer, and make sure to set the speakers to OFF (not near, mid or far).  That way it won't be interjecting any more distance related processing that might interfere with what MirPro3D is doing.

Well I'm the kind of person that when I listen to headphones it generally sounds like its inside my head....so having something put the sounds outside my head is a welcome improvement, but its not the same as listening to loudspeakers that are surrounding you

@Dietz said:

Very good question! This is where the so-called "coefficients" come into play, i.e. the data we we refer to and load in the lower half of the Output Format Editor. Call them "virtual speakers", if you like, which can, but don't have to relate to physical speakers.

-> https://plugins.iem.at/docs/allradecoder/

That is very interesting.  Imaginary loudspeakers eh.  Is there any way I can view the actual JSON for the factory presets that are using custom coefficients?  Are they found anywhere after install or just buried inside the MirPro3D binary?

So another thought/question I have is that in a real world situation, SOME of the sound coming "from below", would make it into the mics in a real recording scenario.  They wouldn't be spatially represented during playback as being from below; in a playback system that only has speakers at or above ear level...but still some of that reflected sound off the ground, etc..would go into the mics and be present in any kind of recording.  yea?

I notice that the factory preset output formats only include virtual loudspeakers (and their coefficient parameters), for the 3D presets.  The other presets don't seem to have them for some reason.  Why is that?  If nothing else, don't they also need to handle the "below head level" sounds in some way?

I also noticed in the iem.at docs a comment about 1st vs 3rd order ambisonics...and they made a comment that 1st order are smoother panning, while 3rd order are bumpier panning.  Which might explain what the "Ambisonics Order Blend" control is for?   There are only a couple of the factory presets that actually have that control set to anything other than 100% first order.  So I'm curious what the implications of that are, and when or why some of the presets have sometimes nudged it halfway towards 3rd order ambisonics?

You see the used coefficients in the left part of the lower half of the Output Format Editor. The list is a bit ugly (... waiting for a GUI update ;-) ...), but you see the speaker index and its coordinates (angles, actually).

Yes, an ideal Ambisonics reproduction system would be spherical, too, with the listener in the center. This is not easy to get in Real Life, that's why this genius IEM AllRADecoder offers so-called "imaginary speakers". They aren't visible in MIR 3D and serve no direct reproduction tasks, but they allow for balancing the geometry (and thus the energy dispersion) within an "imperfect" sphere. ... this topic is not my forte, I have to learn a lot myself in this field.

Re: Capsules in 3rd Order: Just try it yourself. Push the blender towards 100% 3rd order and watch the shape of a beautiful Fig-8 capsule derail completely. ;-D ... this is what the guys at IEM describe as "bumpy". There is no real-world equivalent for these shapes, and they are quite hard to handle. The Blender (invented by VSL's chief software developer, Martin Saleteg, IIRC) tries to offer workarounds, so we can have it all: Better imaging, embracing space _and_ smooth panning.

@Dietz said:

Re: Capsules in 3rd Order: Just try it yourself. Push the blender towards 100% 3rd order and watch the shape of a beautiful Fig-8 capsule derail completely. ;-D ... this is what the guys at IEM describe as "bumpy". There is no real-world equivalent for these shapes, and they are quite hard to handle. The Blender (invented by VSL's chief software developer, Martin Saleteg, IIRC) tries to offer workarounds, so we can have it all: Better imaging, embracing space _and_ smooth panning.

I guess 1st order is not as precise..the big bubble is somewhat ambiguous about the precise imaging of any given sound within that area...while 3rd order is more precise.....but 3rd order has some dead spaces...  So its only more precise for capturing the sound that is not in a dead spot.  The 1st order will not have so many dead spots...but then you lose exact spatialization...  something like that.  Obviously 7th order would hypothetically have even more precision and perhaps less dead spots, but would be unusable on my 2010 MacPro.  The blender lets us get a little in-between in some way, but when I drag it around I see the 3D photo distort in ways that don't make any sense to me to understand what it might be doing to the sound.  hehe.  

Well Aside from tweaking around with it and listening, I don't think I would be able to consciously do anything with that blender control or even the coefficients, to make my own user presets...  Maybe someday.  For now I will stick to using Factory presets...once I figure out which ones are the ones I prefer.

@jimwine said:

 But for now, I have opted for the Dear VR Monitor solution which seems to be able to render MIR Prod 3D’s environment as intended. Thanks again for your thoroughness.

 

I finally got some binaural working with Logic Pro and MirPro3D.  First thing I want to say is WOW!  The Binaural rendition most definitely improves the depth perception and imaging as I move a piano around the venue...  When I put the piano at the hot spot at the back of the hall...it definitely sounds like its in the back!!!  Bravo VSL, this sounds amazing.

Regarding which Binaural encoder to use.  I just downloaded and tried out the dearVRmonitor from Plugin Alliance, currently on sale for $150.  I will probably end up buying this.  

The built in binaural encoders in LogicPro are Apple's and Dolby's.  

The Apple one is optimized to represent their AppleMusic Spatial Audio format.  I personally don't see a point of using that at all for any reason now that AppleMusic support Dolby Atmos.

The Dolby Atmos one sounds better to me and has the ability to add some room acoustics in the NEAR, MID, FAR category.  More on that in a minute.  

But I definitely got better monitoring sound out of dearVRmonitor then Dolby's.  Partly that could be because of the ability to choose my headphone profile, partly it could be due to dearVR's clarity and ambience sliders which can dial in something like Dolby's NEAR, MID, FAR.  Also I really like that it has various room profiles in order to compare a mix in different virtual listening environments.

That being said, it starts to become a bit of a rabbit hole about what listening environment you would want to use while mixing for distribution.  Is it going to be listened to mainly on AppleMusic with AirPods?  Is it going to be mainly listened to on home theater Atmos systems?  Or will it be at a big live venue, etc.   I'm not sure right now whether it would be preferable to use Dolby's renderer, if you are going to distribute as Dolby Atmos...because its close to what you're actually going to hear...but maybe its not, dearVR is providing the headphone modeling which may actually be truer in that regard.  Also its not clear what Dolby's NEAR, MID, FAR exactly do.  But this is what every mix engineer faces every day, trying to make a mix that will translate to many playback systems and work reasonably well on all of them that matter.   DearVRmonitor definitely brings more options for trying different listening environments...and as well I was easily able to get a very nice sounding binaural monitoring environment....which may or may not translate to the best final mixes...but sure sounds good on my headphones while I'm here at home playing around...  So dearVRmonitor is definitely on my list now.  I'm also inspired to upgrade my studio to actual 5.1 monitoring at some point, but that is a few thousand dollars away, so dearVRmonitor will be it for the short term, I'm impressed.

And I'm extremely impressed by the 3D imaging I hear through binaural headphones with MirPro3D.  If I had known how good dearVRmonitor would improve that I probably would have gotten it a long time ago to use the old MirPro in 2D!  It really makes MirPro imaging much more clear to hear.  How all of that translates to stereo mix downs...I'm not 100% sure...but I can easily explore those differences by using a tool like dearVRmonitor and its just kind of enjoyable to hobby at home with VSL libraries using this.

that being said, all of the encoders I used hit the CPU quite hard for any time I was recording a live track.  Even with some significant latency and larger buffer.  So its probably mainly suitable for mix down only IMHO.

WOW indeed! When you get that binaural working MIR Pro 3D nearly overwhelms you with its clarity and precision. I see why (maybe that should be, I hear why) the folks at Vienna use the dear vr monitor. And I agree, wish I'd been using for some time. Those cathedral settings are simply awe inspiring. Well, can't say enough. But you are right, when it comes to sharing or delivery...can't imagine in this world we'd have a universal standard. But for now, hearing is believing.

@jimwine said:

Those cathedral settings are simply awe inspiring.

For actual mixing work I strongly suggest to stick to the scene "Analytic Dry" (or "Analytic Position), though, with Ambience and Focus left untouched at default center position. 😊

What hardware setup do people have to even try this out!?

Stereo headphones and a binaural encoding processor in your DAW (built-in or 3rd party).

Really? Just headphones?! I thought a 9.1 speaker system would be required!

Thanks! That's what I was picturing. Right after I win the lottery...

250 US-$ is not _that_ bad, is it?

Well, yes for the headphones. I was thinking of the physical speakers and 9.1 surround receiver :)

I see. But two active 5.1 speaker sets in "home recording (or even home theater) quality" won't cost you a fortune and will be still better than any headphone solution. ;-)

Thanks Dietz! Analytic Dry in dearVR it is for the purest MIR Pro 3D. I had no idea that the Pernegg, Strassengel & Steinhofkirche spaces could be so elegantly enriched by 3D. Talk about a higher dimension. Simply unreal.

@jimwine said:

Thanks Dietz! Analytic Dry in dearVR it is for the purest MIR Pro 3D. I had no idea that the Pernegg, Strassengel & Steinhofkirche spaces could be so elegantly enriched by 3D. Talk about a higher dimension. Simply unreal.

You're welcome!

And you're absolutely right: One you got acquainted to 3D audio, going back to stereo is much like watching a 4:3 black-and-white movie today. The music is there, no doubt, but .... 8-)

@jimwine said:

Those cathedral settings are simply awe inspiring.

For actual mixing work I strongly suggest to stick to the scene "Analytic Dry" (or "Analytic Position), though, with Ambience and Focus left untouched at default center position. 😊

My understand is/was that another other than "analytic Dry" or "analytic position" configurations in dearVRmonitor are meant mainly to attempt to recreate what would happen to our mix if were actually playing it back on a 7.1.2 loudspeaker system in that environment.  So my thoughts are that the dry analytic configurations give us the purest ability to position our instruments and really setup our mix exactly as we want it to sound..hearing very purely the MirPro3D imaging...  especially through headphones.  This would also be a pretty close estimate of what would be heard if streamed as Dolby Atmos from Apple Music (into headphones)..  

However, once we are getting to later stages it can also make sense to monitor through, for example, the home-theater configuration...or perhaps cinema configuration, etc.  such that we can still verify that it has not become too reverby when played back for real, in a room that has its own echos also happening.

Some of the other larger venues provided by dearVRmonitor are interesting and may sound nice, but have little usefulness in my mind.  I mean yes you could bounce a final binaural rendition that has dearVR's room ambiences burned into the binaural result, but how are you going to distribute that?  I think mainly the dearVR ambiences should be thought of as available "monitoring environments".  Its an attempt to emulate what would happen if your final mix were played back over loudspeakers in that environment...adding more acoustics.  

I think its unlikely that anyone will ever be playing my symphony #1 over a 7.1.2 loudspeaker system in the middle of a cathedral.  See what I mean?    Use MirPro3D and/or additional FX to make it sound as you want..using the analytic modes for setting up your stage and sounding great, use legitimate target playback environments in order to verify the mix, if its going to be played back in those environments, did not become too much reverb wash., and realistically consider which of those environments even make sense for that.  

Trick for getting dearVRmonitor for nice price, sign up for Plugin Alliance "Forever29" plan.  This charges you $29/month and each month you can buy any of their plugins for $1 that you want.  You can sign up and cancel at any time.  So basically you can sign up, pay the first month for $29 and you will immediately get $1 coupon to buy dearVRmonitor for $1 more.  Total =$30.  After that you can actually cancel the plan if you want and no worry about it again.  I plan to also stay on the plan a couple months to get a couple other things I have in mind, but anyway, $29 for dearVRmonitor is an absolute steal.  If you don't want to do that, PA is selling it on sale straight up right now for $149.

I feel that dearVRmonitor is also doing really nice things with hits headphone correction, using that with my current headphones smoothed out the sound incredibly...  Without that it sounds very similar as the the built in Dolby binaural renderer honestly, but with the headphone correction, its really really nice...I guess that correction is giving a linear response, if you have one of their supported models.

So Plugin Alliance run a "Father Christmas" business model now? Do please tell us more about your "trick" for picking up a DearVR Monitor so cheaply, Dewdman. Specifically, tell us how you get around clause 12 in PA's Terms of Service, i.e.:-

"... Upon cancellation of your Subscription, you will no longer be charged for additional Subscription Terms, and you may continue to use the Plugin for the remaining Subscription Term for which you were charged."

Seems to me that when your final month expires, so will DearVR Monitor's licence. Not such a "steal" after all, uh?

Plugin Alliance have been around a long time and I regard them as shrewd operators. You think they can be "gamed" that easily?