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The music industry’s adoption of Dolby Atmos and immersive audio in general has renewed interest in Ambisonic recording, but only a few microphone brands have ventured to bring a premium Ambisonic mic to market.
The latest company to do so is Soyuz, with the new Soyuz 013 Ambisonic FET condenser microphone. Our previous blog covered the mic’s features and specs, proprietary plug-ins, and even a few audio samples; but today we’re digging a little deeper with a full demo recorded and mixed by Bryan Reilly.
Ambisonic recording can unlock a world of possibilities in the studio, but it comes with a bit of a learning curve. Using the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic requires four identical preamps, two special plug-ins for working with the Ambisonic signal, and a bit of extra setup in your DAW – but once you hear the magic it captures, you may never go back to stereo again. After a brief guide to setting up the mic and software, we’ll walk through each of Bryan’s tracks in detail.
The Soyuz 013 Ambisonic is a first-order Ambisonic microphone, meaning it records audio on four discrete channels which must be transcoded and decoded to reproduce the three-dimensional soundstage. To hear the full spatial audio effect, you must have an immersive monitor system or a pair of high-quality in-ear monitors or headphones for binaural playback.
Recordings made with the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic can be used in Dolby Atmos mixes, binaural mixes, VR and AR applications, or simply decoded to stereo or mono for traditional mixing.
Microphone Setup
To record with the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic, you’ll need to plug the red, yellow, green, and blue XLR connectors (in that order) into four identical preamps set to the same gain level. This step is crucial because the spatial effect will only work if all channels are in the correct order with their relative signal levels unchanged. The mic can be placed rightside-up, upside-down, or on its side, but it’s still important to face the front of the mic toward the sound source for easier mixing.
DAW Setup
In your DAW, you’ll need to create a four-channel track to record all four signals at once. To preserve the correct channel sequence, make sure the track inputs follow the order of preamps you used.
Next, you’ll need to configure your DAW’s master output to match your monitor setup, whether you have a full immersive monitor system or headphones for binaural mixing.
Finally, you can route the four-channel Ambisonic track directly to the master bus or assign it to the Dolby Atmos Renderer using a Bed track.
Transcoding
The Soyuz Transcoder plug-in processes the raw “A-Format” tracks to create a four-channel “B-Format” signal containing one channel with omnidirectional information from all capsules (W) and three more channels (X, Y, and Z) containing the front/back, left/right, and up/down information. Similar to a mid/side mic configuration, the directionality of the sound is derived from the phase relationships between these channels.
The Transcoder also allows you to designate the orientation of the mic and choose between two channel orders (AmbiX or FuMa) depending on the format your DAW and plug-ins use.
Decoding
Once the audio is converted to B-format, you can process it with any plug-in that supports four-channel processing.
Finally, the Soyuz Decoder plug-in converts the B-format audio to your choice of output formats. The Decoder supports any format up to 9.1.6, including 7.1.2 for Dolby Atmos beds, binaural for headphones, or traditional stereo, mono, and surround formats.
The Decoder features a Dominance control for shifting the overall placement of the sound, and each individual channel can be moved individually for even more creative panning.
The Soyuz 013 Ambisonic mic can be used in almost any situation you can imagine. You can use it as a room mic to put the listener in the middle of the live room, place it in the middle of a drum kit or over a grand piano, surround it with a circle of backup singers or acoustic musicians, or close-mic instruments and vocals for extreme detail and in-your-face presence.
To demonstrate the mic’s capabilities, multi-instrumental audio engineer and producer Bryan Reilly wrote and recorded a short instrumental piece using the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic on drums, acoustic guitar, and a variety of electric guitar tracks.
In Dolby Atmos, Bryan routed each track to a 7.1.2 Bed and used only the Soyuz Decoder plug-in for panning. He then rendered the full mix and each of the tracks in binaural and stereo formats to showcase the immersive effect as well as how it translates on regular speakers.
Byran also included unprocessed stereo bounces of each track, so you can hear what the recordings sound like without any panning.
Put on your best headphones or in-ear monitors and listen to the full mix in binaural and stereo, then follow along as we dig into each track one by one!
Acoustic Guitar
The track starts off with a single acoustic guitar: a Martin 000-16 recorded in Bryan’s live room with the mic about a foot away from the strings. Using the Soyuz Decoder, he adjusted the Dominance slightly to the front-left and panned the Center channel to the right for a wide, spacious sound. Shifting the Top Left and Right channels back a bit helps the track leave room in the front for other instruments.
Drums
Because they’re made up of multiple sound sources spread out in space, drum kits are an excellent use case for Ambisonic recording. For this track, Bryan used the 013 Ambisonic as an overhead mic, suspended upside-down above the kit. He then adjusted the Dominance to move the drums forward while panning the Left, Right, Side, and Top channels down and to the rear to exaggerate the overhead perspective.
Lead Guitar
Bryan recorded all of the guitar tracks using a Les Paul Traditional Pro through an Ampeg Gemini 1 amplifier with the mic on-axis about a foot and a half away. For the lead track, Bryan shifted the Dominance to the front and slightly right, then tweaked the spatial image by moving the Center channel off to the mid-left, the Front Left and Right all the way to the rear, the Side channels to the bottom, and the Rear channels to the top.
EBow Guitars
Using an EBow sustainer, Bryan recorded three harmonized guitar tracks, which he placed in a triangle around the listener using the Dominance control. The root and third harmonies appear in the back-left and back-right corners, while the third track sits in front and slightly right to offset the acoustic. Bryan chose to mute the Center channel on the third track to push it back in the mix and avoid overtaking the lead guitar.
Rhythm Guitar
The phaser-drenched rhythm guitar reinforces the acoustic strumming in parts, beefing up the arrangement without distracting too much from the melody. To fill out the virtual space without crowding the more important tracks, Bryan placed the rhythm guitar to the left-rear and moved the Center channel left to put even more emphasis on that side.
Dirty Guitar
A final track of heavily distorted chords fills out the middle of the arrangement. Bryan placed this track in the rear by shifting the Dominance about 50% back, narrowing the Rear channels and panning the Center and Top channels all the way back.
Bryan’s demo showed off the amazing versatility of the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic, but in practice, you won’t necessarily want to use it on every single track. Ambisonic recording is best for capturing spacious sounds like drums, piano, room reverb, instrumental ensembles, or multiple vocalists, but it can also be useful for shaping mono and stereo tracks – as long as you don’t mind the four inputs it takes up.
For demonstration purposes, Bryan exclusively used the included Soyuz Decoder for panning, but that’s only one of many ways to mix with Ambisonic tracks. Once you convert your recordings to B-Format, you can use them any way you please. Here are a few ideas:
Overall, the Soyuz 013 Ambisonic is a fantastic addition to its category. If you want to make immersive recordings with the kind of detail and musicality you expect from a boutique FET condenser, Soyuz has you covered.
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