+ Ardour's VBAP panner is currently in development, and its semantics may + change in the near future, possibly affecting your mixes. Please do not + rely on it for important production work while the dust settles. +
++ VBAP + is a versatile and straightforward method to pan a source around over an + arbitrary number of speakers on a horizontal polygon or a 3D surface, + even if the speaker layout is highly irregular. +
+ ++ VBAP was developed by Ville Pulkki at Aalto University, Helsinki, in 2001. + It works by distributing the signal to the speakers nearest to the desired + direction with appropriate weightings, aiming to create a maximally sharp + phantom source by using as few speakers as possible: +
+
+ Thus, if you move the panner onto a speaker, you can be sure that only
+ this speaker will get any signal. This is handy when you need precise
+ 1:1 routing.
+ The drawback of VBAP is that a moving source will constantly change its
+ apparent sharpness, as it transitions between the three states mentioned
+ above.
+
+ A horizontal VBAP panner has one parameter, the azimuth + angle. A full-sphere panner offers an additional + elevation angle control. +
++ More elaborate implementations of VBAP also include a + spread parameter, which will distribute the signal over a + greater number of speakers in order to maintain constant (but no longer + maximal) sharpness, regardless of position. Ardour's VBAP panner does not + currently include this feature. +
+ ++ Each VBAP panner is specific to its speaker layout + — the panner has + to "know" about the precise location of all the speakers. A complete VBAP + implementation must therefore include the possibility to define this + layout. +
+
++ Ardour currently uses a simplified approach: if a track or bus has more + than two output channels (which implies stereo), it assumes that you + have N speakers distributed in a regular N-gon. That means that for + irregular layouts such as 5.1 or 7.1, the direction you dial in will + differ a bit from the actual auditory result, but you can still achieve + any desired spatialisation. +
+
++ For tracks with 10 outputs, Ardour will currently assume a 3-dimensional + speaker layout corresponding to Auro-3D 10.1, which is a horizontal 5.1 + system, four elevated speakers above L, R, Ls, and Rs, and an additional + "voice-of-god" speaker at the zenith. +
+ +
++ For tracks and busses with more than one input, Ardour will (for now) assume that + you wish to distribute the inputs symmetrically along the latitude around + the panner direction. The width parameter controls the opening angle of + the distribution sector. +
+