> Freeware tip: give it space

If you’re making video game or VR music or sound effects, you’ll be familiar with the concept of spatial audio. If not, then there’s plenty of free tools and plugins that can introduce the spatial audio universe to your workflow. Firstly, Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation is a free software suite that is specifically tailored for the design of 360 audio. It works within a plugin shell within your DAW environment and is a wise first step, guiding you around mixing considerations that go well beyond the basic panning of ordinary stereo. For Pro Tools and Reaper users, you should certainly invest (in an un-financial way, of course) in the O3A Core plugin library, a set of completely free tools that are similarly angled at you for mangling and morphing sounds within a spherical, 3D bubble. In terms of ambisonic design, Røde’s SoundField harnesses bespoke frequency-domain processing to bring the unmatched accuracy one would expect of a company that has been at the very vanguard of ambisonic recording. If you’re an Ableton Live User, we recommend dipping your toe in the spatial waters first by downloading Envelop for Live, an opensource suite of tools that will enable Live to become a magnificent, immersive, audio-generating machine.