The 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite plugin enables music producers to create their sounds in an innovative user-friendly interface which allows an immersive spherical sound field using the 360 Reality Audio Music Format. Stereo made obsolete. 

Sony 360 Reality Audio

Introduced in 2019, Sony’s 360 Reality Audio makes it possible for artists and creators to produce music by mapping sound sources such as vocals, chorus, and instruments with positional information and placing them within a spherical space. This revolutionary musical experience, powered by Sony’s spatial sound technologies, evokes feelings of being in a music studio or live concert venue – all without leaving the comfort of home. Now, a newly developed plugin allows the implementation of this capability in selected DAW. Read more below.

360 Reality Audio Creative Suite plugin

The plugin was developed by Sony and Virtual Sonics, Inc. as a part of a new content creation software called the 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite.  The plugin enables easier creation of 360 Reality Audio content by musicians and creators and is compatible with popular digital audio workstations (DAW). The 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite plugin software is compatible with popular digital audio workstations (DAW) like Avid Pro Tools through the AAX plug-in format and other DAWs through the VST3 plug-in format. However, Sony hasn’t elaborated on more selected DAW (besides Pro Tools), which means we don’t sure if this plugin will be relevant to Logic Pro X for instance.

Key features

These are highlights of the 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite plugin:

1. Immersive Technology: Place individual sounds such as vocals, chorus, piano, guitar, bass and even sounds of a live audience in a 360 spherical sound field based on Sony’s spatial sound technologies.
2. Premier Production: Supports mixing up to 128 individual mono audio objects with automation capability to dynamically move objects in the sound field.
3. Premium Tools: With headphone monitoring, 360 Reality Audio mixing is made possible with nearly the same immersive sound produced by loudspeakers
4. Seamless Integration: Designed to integrate into existing non-linear or linear workflows.

Workflow

With standard stem files or multi-track recordings from the studio or a live performance, mix in 360 Reality Audio using 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite. Encode and deliver your music in 360 Reality Audio Music Format, a format optimized for music distribution and compliant with the MPEG-H 3D Audio, an open audio standard. The GUI (graphical user interface) is pretty straightforward. After choosing the instrument, you can locate it in the space relative to the object. Check out the video below for a simplified demonstration.

Final thoughts: More than just a stereo

This is a very cool plugin, that allows you to produce your sounds by locating them in the space around you. Furthermore, you don’t need special earphones (yes, the results will be heard by any earphones). The 360 Reality Audio Creative Suite plugin can be used as a powerful tool for content creators and sound designers to enhance the immersive experience for their viewers, not just for moviegoers, but for streaming as well.

Do you produce music or sounds for films? Will you use this plugin’s advantages to create a more immersive experience for your audiences? Let’s know your insight in the comments section below.