Introducing the Open Ambisonics Toolkit

As a result of the recent extension of the fields of application of spatial audio in the entertainment industries, an increasing number of academic institutions are renewing their interest in the subject, adding it to their curricula. However, the plethora of techniques and practices, together with the relative novelty of them, has resulted in a lack of a methodology for teaching these technologies. This served as a motivation for our team to develop the Open Ambisonics Toolkit (OAT): a modular educational method for institutions and individuals alike, offering a standardised and gradual theoretical introduction and promoting a democratisation of spatial audio through a DIY approach. This introduction describes the overall project design of OAT, focussing on the first phase of its development and future possibilities.

With the diffusion of AR and VR, more and more content creators, musicians, artists, engineers and sound designers are turning their attention to spatial audio, with Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics sharing the lead in terms of diffusion [1]. But while the first one is a patented technology, primarily used in the film industry and the mainstream music sector, Ambisonics is an open source, free alternative that generally offers a wider range of applications. This consideration led to the idea that Ambisonics could be the ideal spatial audio format for higher education institutions, due to its versatility, relative affordability and the potential for many interdisciplinary applications that exceed the use in the entertainment industry.