Time & Space Interview with Gilbert Gabriel (Part 3 of 5)

What are the benefits of Immersive Audio?

The possibilities of using immersive audio in conjunction with immersive imagery is enormous. This will radicalise medicine, space travel, entertainment and so on. I foresee that filmmakers, musicians, artists, dancers and XR creators will revolutionise how they design and tell stories via the plethora of tools that are now emerging. I think that just as VHS video became a popular medium of playback on a commercial level over the superior quality of Betamax or Mp3s over Wav files, the mass consumption of a user-friendly experience will prevail. Professionals will seek out audio and visual formats beyond 8k visuals and 96 khz for audio. Instead of reinventing the wheel I think that this article succinctly alludes to many of the forthcoming  possibilities and articulates clearly how new technologies are constantly evolving as far as immersive audio and arts are concerned. It appears we have a technological revolution as radical as my own previous experience of the emergence of midi, sequencing with the Umi system and the BBC microcomputer.

The enormous potential of ‘localizing’ (positioning sound objects in space) presents a wonderful opportunity for filmmakers, gamers, installation artists and so on, to create, immersive storytelling, experiences that enrapture, enchant and terrify their audiences.

Are there any plugins you use that are geared towards Immersive Audio?

I really like the layout and user-friendly nature of Halo as a means of quickly ‘up-mixing’ stereo sound to 5.1 surround sound and I am in the process of evaluating if its 3D 7.1 capabilities are as useful and exciting as I anticipate. All I need is the electronic key for Nuendo to arrive. It would be nice to be able to use it directly in Logic but I suppose patience is a great virtue! It will be interesting to see how Apple Music Spatial Audio, Facebook Spatial and Sony’s 360 Reality Audio work out. I am also tempted to investigate Reaper and Audition (within Adobe Premier). As far as hardware is concerned I recently purchased a Zoom H3 VR immersive audio, a Go Pro Max video recorder and am waiting for a Rhode Sound field NT-SFI to arrive in August because of a worldwide components shortage