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Spatial Sound sources might as well be mono?

Discussion in 'VR' started by rhenninger, Jun 20, 2016.

  1. rhenninger

    rhenninger

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2016
    Posts:
    2
    After reading MS and Unity docs on spatial sound for Hololens, I gather that when attaching sounds/music to AudioSources that it is best to master them as 48000kHz for a single channel (mono). The docs don't explicitly say this, but I am guessing that stereo source sound sources needlessly bloat a clip's size when that sound is to emanating from a source subject to spatial sound processing in a Hololens. Is this a correct assumption, or is there any value in preserving stereo data?
     
    rhenninger, Jun 20, 2016
    #1

  2. Unity_Wesley

    Unity_Wesley

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Sep 17, 2015
    Posts:
    558
    Unity_Wesley, Jun 20, 2016
    #2

  3. rhenninger

    rhenninger

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2016
    Posts:
    2
    Thanks for replying so quickly, Wesley. My question arose out of reading that exact link and the guidelines link at the bottom of that page. My question is from the perspective of the sound designer: if I am using spatial sound in preference to 3d sound (MS recommendation) when attaching sound to a gameobject/audiosource, what good is a stereo clip at that point. I get the impression that stereo samples are useless and that I should build only mono clips for use in the hololens - especially to save asset size in such a memory-limited environment. I was just trying to get confirmation that my impression is correct.

    Richard
     
    rhenninger, Jun 20, 2016
    #3

  4. janm_unity3d

    janm_unity3d

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2012
    Posts:
    36
    Hi Richard,

    You can use stereo or mono signals, but be aware that most spatializers will just mix the signals before applying spatialization. Anything with more channels than 2 will get downmixed to a stereo stream before spatialization is applied. It is completely up to the platform-specific spatialization solution what it does with the channels. One solution might encode front/back recordings in the left/right channels that are mixed according to orientation while others may mix the channels or just take the left channel. That part is completely up to the vendor of the particular spatializer used. For the platform in question I'd recommend using mono sources.

    Jan
     
    janm_unity3d, Jun 22, 2016
    #4
    rhenninger likes this.