Plain-language guides to how immersive sound is captured, mixed, delivered and checked, with things you can play with instead of diagrams you squint at.
A whole sound field in four channels. None of them is a speaker.
Meet W, X, Y and Z as pickup patterns you can spin in 3D, drag a sound around a listener and hear it decoded to headphones, then see how four ordinary studio mics can record a whole first-order scene.
One guide is live today. The rest is the syllabus we are writing to, and each guide will stand on its own.
The ideas every format shares: direction, channels, objects and what a listener actually hears.
The files and streams that carry immersive audio, and what each one keeps or throws away.
Measuring and checking immersive masters before they go anywhere.
Every guide has something to drag, turn or listen to. Put on headphones.
See every ambisonic channel as a microphone, from the top, the side and in 3D.
From the Ambisonics guideDrag a source around the listener and hear it decoded to headphones, or watch the speaker feeds.
From the Ambisonics guideTurn a first-order rig in 3D and see why four ordinary studio mics make a sound field.
From the Ambisonics guideWritten by the people who make Orbit. The guides are free, and they stay free.
Orbit exists to check immersive masters. Most of what goes wrong in a master comes from a misunderstanding earlier in the chain, so the cheapest fix is a clear explanation at the start.
No sign-up, no gated PDF. Where a guide mentions one of our tools it is because the tool does the thing being explained, and we say so.
New guides go out in the Orbit newsletter alongside release news. The Ambisonics guide is live now.
