Sennheiser is joining the immersive audio fray with AMBEO 3D: Sennheiser - Headphones & Headsets - Microphones - Integrated Systems

It remains to be seen how effective the upmix tool, the "virtual reality" microphone and the Venue Modelling system are. I am guessing the microphone may be built on top of the MKH series allowing for a somewhat compact solution for live broadcast.

Dolby's Atmos, Auro3D, DTS:X, NHK's 22.2 system and now Sennheiser's AMBEO are all vying to be considered the "industry standard" in immersive audio.

It is very interesting times ahead...When they talk about the 4 quadrant mic, I wonder if they are referring to a 4.0 360 pickup, or heading down the ambisonics path.

I also wonder if anyone will ever be considered the "industry standard".. it is a very different world once things leave cinema landscape (I assume Sennheiser hear is talking about headphone applications if they are referring to games etc)

I've done some audience tests with these immersive concerts/venue's ... more impressive then I was expecting.

Well, all these new '3D audio' solutions aim mostly at a different thing than Atmos/Auro.

It's about VR. For that you need to be able to create dynamic mixes for which the soundfield then can be shifted/rotated in real time according to head-tracking / sensor data.

'3D mics' are a nice thing, but we all know that the sound of any experience is mostly created in post.
For that there's already interesting stuff out there from e.g. Oculus, Fraunhofer or Twobigears, but all is still proprietary.
Twobigears is the only company offering a ProTools-based post workflow at this point that is offering real time spatialization of the PT session according to sensor input from a Oculus Rift.

Probably the technology that Google and Facebook adopt for their 360/spherical video players is going to be the new standard, so right now is the time to evaluate and get up to speed in this super-interesting new audio technology.

Really? No, they are all aiming for the same thing. Object based audio for cinema and home theatre. They are all competing in the same markets for the same audiences.

And just in case you weren't aware, there are other competing object-based systems due to be released from Qualcomm, Technicolor, and Fraunhofer. All competing for the same markets, and for the same audiences.

The only one, so far, that may be slightly different is the NHK system which is live broadcast and home theatre focused. And, if you really want to get technical, you can denote NHK 22.2 as being "scene-based". And if you want to get even more technical, NHK is the only "industry standard" with the announcement of EMCA-407 with France Télévisions, Radio France, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and McGill University, ITU, EBU and SMPTE all having a hand in it.

So far, Sennheiser is releasing information as slowly as possible but have noted gaming and music as initial focus areas. They have not announced if AMBEO will be scene or object-based, but they are merely coming to market with a competing product, aimed at the same markets and the same audiences.

No, it has nothing to do with VR. Again, they are all aiming for pretty much the same thing. None of the immersive formats are aimed at VR. Not one. And I have spoken to multiple representatives from all of the names mentioned above on numerous occasions.

Really? That depends entirely on the content. "3D mics" are a fantastic solution for music for film, concerts, broadcast, and gaming. The immersive (or as you say any) experience is not just created in post. For SFX, ambience and the like, the "3D mic" system works quite well but it a little weird for some content and constrains what is possible in post, and so there, yes, creating the experience in post can be a better option.

I'm sorry, I could''t understand what you said here. Is it better or not? Can you give an example of SFX recorded with a "3D mic", whatever that (3D mic) means...

Music works wonderfully recorded using a 3D mic array. SFX and similar are best done in post as it does not always work when recording SFX using a mic array as it can often sound very unnatural.

I've been experimenting with 3D mic arrays for immersive audio since 2011 in a configuration where one microphone roughly simulates the position of a single speaker. Essentially two layers of microphones (sometimes with a VOG mic as a third layer) using the Sennheiser MKH series microphones.

In terms of examples, horse and carriage moving toward the character front to back, seagulls dispersing above the character, people walking in a space with the character dead center, ambience of wind and grass rustling around the character etc etc. some work, some don't.

Funny, the NDAs I have with some of the mentioned companies (Fraunhofer etc.) say something different. They are all concerning VR.

You might also want to explain why f.e. Fraunhofer is emphasizing why their Cingo technology is now featured in the Samsung Gear VR.
Or why the first thing Sennheiser mentiones in their press release is 'VR applications'. And their microphone they call 'VR microphone' probably also because it has nothing to do with VR. Not at all.

But then, you might know stuff I don't.

Interesting. Can the sound field recorded by your mic then be rotated/shifted/tilted in post?
Until now, I only can do that well is first-order ambisonics recordings. Fraunhofer have a proprietary mic that works well.
Looking forward to testing the one in the Nokia OZO spherical camera and the one from Sennheiser.
All for VR applications though.

I did specify "due to be released" as in not yet announced, as in not available in any currently available product. For all I know it's R&D that never sees the light of day. There are so many competing systems that you really need to pick your battles. A lot of money is spent on immersive audio R&D to get this right, which still pales in comparison to the R&D for 8K.

Notice I did not say they weren't interested in VR, merely that currently it's not a focal point. Currently, that is not their focus.

Use the current market to fund R&D of where the market is moving. VR is an unproven market. The Sennheiser VR microphone and the post system is still a way off anyway and at CES, the music application of AMBEO was the focus. The VR applications and Eden VR game were merely supplements to show what is in the pipeline and what is possible.

No, it is fixed as once you attempt to rotate or tilt, the sound field feels very unnatural due to a loss of channel separation where the imaging is affected. Therefore it is not the solution for everything.

Care to share?

I principle it revolves all around how to create a 3D sound field that is convincing and can be shifted / rotated in real-time according to gyroscope/sensor data provided by HMDs or mobile devices and the dynamic binaural rendering of that soundfield.
Creation of such a soundfield can not be done by a 'VR mic' alone, this can only be a part of the whole thing, there has to be a post production workflow possible.

Specifics of certain developers' solutions I cannot share due to NDAs in place, but there's quite a lot of info public on the net, f.e. here:

3Dception Spatial Workstation by Two Big Ears

If anyone on this forum is working on similar stuff professionally, I'd really love to get in touch.
It's all quite bleeding edge, and there's no standard whatsoever yet. The elephant in the room is that the technology to render the audio according to sensor input has to be implemented into the player, and the big platforms have not yet decided on what route to go. The big ones meaning Google and Facebook for their spherical/360 video players on FB and Youtube at this point.
It's all quite similar to audio in games with the difference that as a games developer you can decide what technology to use according to what game engine you're using. A lot is based on the Unreal or Unity engines, and there are a lot of solutions for these engines available, with support via FMOD or Wwise.

I'm curious what Sundance's New Frontiers will be like this year. Last year it was very heavy on VR, and honestly I was pretty blown away. I spent a lot of time in that part of the festival. Especially the audio aspect in terms of creating immersion (and especially in cueing the audience where to look in the more narrative-led 360 films and games). I imagine this year's crop will be equally as fascinating.

Also considering the Oculus Rift finally went on public sale this week, I can imagine VR and spacial audio applications going very hand in hand, even if everything is still in a relatively nascent birthing stage at the moment.

The capsule configuration looks similar to a Soundfield mic, I wonder if you record it as B Format in the same way.

Well, in this video the Sennheiser guy is saying 'ambisonics microphone', so if it is using first order ambisonics, the format would most probably be B-format I guess.

Another thing is that Pro Tools must really be go beyond its stupid 8-channel track/bus limitation to become a serious contender for VR workflows.
I really don't want to have to go to a different application just for the spherical/VR stuff.
I hope with their recent partnering with Dolby they see the writing on the wall, especially since Dolby is also working on VR solutions.
And while you're at it Avid, can I export polywavs > 8 channels, pretty please?

Believe me after dealing with Auro and DTS X for years, the biggest limitations on any system that uses Avid Pro Tools are:
Only 8 Buses and X/Y Panning with no "Z" panning.
If we are to get more "Immersive Content" out into the marketplace Avid needs to open up these limitations that allow all the major Immersive Formats the ability to function as easily as it is to mix a 7.1 in Pro Tools.
This includes Atmos, Auro, DTS X, Fraunhofer/ Technicolor etc

Exciting times ahead. Now lets get the tools we use to easily create our sound visions.

+1000 on everything you said.

There is an exciting new product that overcomes the limit of 8ch wide busses in Pro Tools. It's called DSpatial - and you can find some basic info HERE.
I'll start a new thread on that, cause I had an opportunity to test it.

Any users of Fairlight's 3DAW?

This seems to be the approach many are taking either using custom GPUs and CUDA or FPGAs for real time processing.

This is some of what Dolby has been thinking about

This mic will cost about 1500 Euro and will therefore compete directly with the Soundfield sps200. I am curious to find out how it will perform as an Ambisonics mic for music recordings. It seems to have an advantage in that the capsules are much closer to each other, but how is the quality of these capsules and the preamp section? Has anyone seen a test?

We beta-tested it.
It's in the same league as our Soundfield 450s soundwise. We didn't test it for music recording though.

Thanks Kosmokrator for the initial impression! Yes, I am very much interested in this mic. The SPS200 became a very usuable mic after having it calibrated by Coresound, and I hope this mic can further improve on it after having it calibrated.

Was its noise level very low? What about frequency response? Does it seem flat?