Routing for multichannel effects (4ex IRCAM Spat)

[aculver]

I'm hearing great things about the new IRCAM Spat plugin by Flux (see review in Sound On Sound August 2011).

Spat allows up to 8 inputs which are then placed independently in a virtual 3 dimensional acoustic space. All 8 sound sources can be independently pointed in any direction, spun, moved around, etc. It's said to be really well done and realistic.

But DP has only stereo buses, so I assume you can't just put Spat on an Aux channel and get your 8 inputs.

So how would this be setup in DP?

[stephentayler]

You can set up surround bundles with many different numbers of busses.

Open Bundles, add a new buss and choose one of the surround options.

I've been using Ircam HEar using a surround buss to access the plugin inputs. In the past I have also set up a 5.1 surround buss, and then set up individual mono busses for each channel using these same busses.

Cheers

Stephen

[aculver]

Stephen

Your suggestions work brilliantly. I too have Ircam HEar. Here's what I tried:

- Setup a quad buss bundle (buss 1-4) as well as four mono busses (bus 1, bus 2, etc).
- Setup and recorded a mono audio track of a sound that was easy to localize
- Setup an Aux track with buss 1-4 as the input
- Setup a 4 channel output bundle and used it as the Aux output
- Used an insert on the Aux track for HEar

Then I had to do a lot of experimentation to get the HEar matrix right.

Test 1: Sent output of the mono audio track to buss 1-4 -- using the TriPanner, I could move the mono source logically around in quad through headphones.

Test 2: Stepped through using each of the four mono busses as the mono audio track output, and the signal appeared in a fixed, properly localized position according to which buss was selected.

Bingo: A way to send audio to individual inputs of a multichannel effect, and another way that uses the TriPanner to send audio to a blend of the mulitchannel effect's inputs. Nice.

Many thanks.

[stephentayler]

Oh, I'm so pleased you figured it out!!

I tend to treat all my software in the same way I have used studios over the years......

In the studio: I've got all these devices, they all have various inputs and outputs, and I have a patchbay..... so how can I connect it all up?

In software: I have all these great programs and plugins, they all have various inputs and outputs, and I've got unlimited busses and Bundles (or I/O setup).... so I spend a lot of time thinking of ways to connect everything. Anything is possible!!

And if it doesn't work, or isn't actually possible, I won't stop and complain, I'll just try and find another way of doing it (just like the hardware studio world) or...... I'll come here and see if any of these wonderful people have a fresh perspective .......

After many weeks of 'in-the-box', software-based adventures, I'm back into the 'real' studio world tomorrow with my favourite artist/client....... who can tell what challenges (horrors) await me?!!!! Naaa.... I love it!!

Warmest wotnots

Stephen

[labman]

We are using 7.1 config for feeding multiple stems into SPAT. But on the back end, we are just using SPAT in stereo output config. L/R

Any ideas on how we can fire the stereo output of SPAT back into our DP mix to sum prior to the DP master stereo fader?.