Audio rendering through Waves NX?
I am trying to connect Sound Trajectory to Waves NX so that Waves NX can do all the stereo down-mixing based on the Waves NX head tracking solution. ST does not recognize Waves NX as a vst plugin which is why I need to setup an additional plugin host that takes in the output from ST and processes it with Waves NX. I am using menuBUS for that purpose. menuBUS is a menubar app for the Mac that can take in multi-channel audio input, process it and pipe it through the standard system out on a Mac. It usually works like a charm.
My signal chain looks like this:
Ableton Live -> Loopback -> Sound Trajectory with aux ambisonic output-> menuBUS with Waves NX Ambisonics 4.2 plugin -> System output
Everything works (almost) fine with one important issue. The problem that I am having is that I am not able to get the connection between ST and menuBUS working properly. The four audio channels route audio, however the format that leaves ST does not seem to match the format that Waves NX is expecting. When NX does the down-mixing, the location information of the audio is off.
I set the aux ambisonics output format in ST to 1st order ambiX which is what Waves NX is expecting.
Any ideas on what I am doing wrong? Did somebody get it to work with Waves NX?
Hello Michael
Your workflow is correct but it seems that the NX plugin in ambiX format is only available in vst3 format which is not compatible with menuBus. (correct ? please check my screen capture of vst list from menuBus)
Unfortunately Nx cannot be loaded into Sound Trajectory either.
An alternative solution is to send the ambisonic signal back to a daw that supports VST3 to host NX in ambiX format.
Uploaded files:
I can load NX Ambisonics into menuBUS. It could be that you need to either update NX or menuBUS. I also tried to have Sound Trajectory do the down-mix to 5.1 and then have NX (6->2) further down-mix it to stereo based on the head tracking. That would be a less than ideal but still functional workaround. But I am running into the same issue. It seems that the order of the channels that leave Sound Trajectory does not match the order of the channels NX wants to receive. It could be an issue with menuBUS as well, the multi-channel support is still extremely new (this week?). In any case, I am close enough to make this really exciting.
I am already hitting the limit of what my CPU can handle. Routing it through another DAW might be too much. Part of the challenge here also is to find a setup that leaves enough resources so that I can do some actual music production.
Uploaded files:
Okay, there's some updating to be done.
It is certain that menubus will be a good solution simple and light.
I can't look into this until the weekend.
We'll figure it out next week!
Brilliant! Thanks!
I made a couple of additional tests. The routing between Sound Trajectory and menuBUS appears to work exactly the way it is supposed to work. All 4 audio channels that leave ST arrive at menuBUS in the correct order. Can you check if the aux ambisonics output is working the way it should? It behaves as if horizontal and elevation angles are not correctly converted into X, Y, and Z values. If I move a sound source in ST on a straight line it translates to a circular movement in NX. I played around with the Waves NX Ambisonics plugin before and it worked correctly, so unless I am doing something wrong, this is most likely a bug in Sound Trajectory. Thanks!
I just did some tests.
The Nx viewer does suggest that the sound is rotating but on my side the result is consistent with the Sound Trajectory sound engine operation.
The phenomenon is related to the management of the listener's head.
To limit this effect, it is necessary to make sure that the volume/distance curve of the Space Design module starts at 0. to do this, copy the screenshot parameter. it makes things a little better.
If the phenomenes is still too annoying, please confirm it to try to improve things for the next update.
Unfortunately, that is not it. My comment with the circular motion might have been a bit misleading as there is some expectation that the rendering engine will translate a linear motion of a sound source into something that NX will interpret as a circular motion around the listener.
But the problem that I am having is that the location is just wrong. I am attaching a screenshot with a simple sound source that I have set up to be right in front of the listener. NX plays that as 45 degrees to the right. Rotating the reference frame does not help - there is no rotational symmetry. From what I can see the 4 channels W, Y, Z, X are leaving Sound Trajectory in exactly the same order as they arrive at NX, so audio routing seems to work ok.
I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Probably a simple configuration error.
Btw, I ran some tests with Envelop for Live 10 and that works beautifully with NX. That means that NX is working correctly.
Uploaded files:
It's very curious, sorry for that.
On my side NX works perfectly inside Repear with ST as input.
Can you share a short wav recording extract (ambix first order ) coming out of Sound Trajectory ?
perhaps, try to reset position of the Listener (switch to manual then off ).
In all case, "Waves NX support inside ST" is now in the todo list for next update... please wait...
I'm slightly busy at the moment. Will do that as soon as I can.
The Waves NX support inside ST would not help though. I want to use ST for sound design/music production in VR environments and for that I need the aux Ambisonics output to deliver correct 1st order AmbiX audio. At the moment that seems to be broken for one reason or another. Did you ever try if the aux Ambisonics output delivers correct Ambisonics audio for Facebook VR or Youtube VR?