Spatial Mixing Resources:
Spatial Mixing is an art form. Bigger than just using a surround sound speaker array, spatial mixing allows you to create truly immersive sounding environments for sound and music, where the listener feels like they are within the sound itself. The following are some of my favorite tools:
https://plugins.iem.at/ (free tools for mixing in ambisonics - multichannel capable DAW needed)
https://leomccormack.github.io/sparta-site/ (SPARTA - by Leo McCormack - similar to IEM, but very slick visuals, excellent documentation)
https://www.dear-reality.com/ (try their free plugins before buying. DearVR is my favorite to use with Ableton or Logic Pro X. Take regular mono and stereo tracks and “spatialize” them into a beautiful spatial scene)
https://voyage.audio/spatialmic/ (one of my favorite brand partners, Voyage Audio. Affordable ambisonic microphone with plug and play capability. Records directly to your mobile device too. Excellent blog)
Spatial Audio Demos
In 2020, when the world shut down, I was brought on to record and mix and produce the Angel City Jazz Festival for Virtual Reality, for the first time ever. I used a combination of high end ambisonic microphones (eigenmike) and Dear VR Pro and IEM/SPARTA to do the mixing of 12 live concerts. I’ve compiled a longer form demo of great moments from artists such as Josef Leimberg, Vardan Ovespian, Gene Coye, Paul Cornish and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Please use headphones to hear the recordings as they were mixed for a 360 video and VR headsets. You’ll notice a natural sense of space in the recordings.
One of my favorite “tech demos” is this Sci Fi scene that I created for Sony Publishing, to demo the audionarrative possibilities of spatial audio without visuals. Please use headphones to experience a low-key alien ship invasion in a breezy farm somewhere in the American east coast…
Finally, an example of a narrative podcast with fully produced voice actors, sfx and musical score (all by Overworld) depicting a fantasy world by my friend Keith Silvas and his series the Path of Legends Podcast, Season One.