AMSTERDAM—The first thing most people think about in terms of creating virtual reality content is the camera, but Sennheiser wants to make sure they don’t forget about the audio, as the company unveiled during IBC 2016 the AMBEO VR Mic. The AMBEO mic is a compact, hand-held unit that Sennheiser says will produce “high-quality 3D audio that eliminates the boundaries between playback and reality.”
The AMBEO VR Mic is an Ambisonics microphone that uses four matched capsules in a tetrahedral arrangement. Fully balanced, the mic is powered by 4x 48 volts phantom powering. The mic comes with a split cable with four XLR connectors, a Rycote suspension mount and a foam windshield.
An encoding software is also included, which translates the A format file generated from the recording of the four microphone channels into a B format file: W, X, Y and Z. The W component is the omni and X, Y, and Z components are figure-of-eight capsules along three spatial axels. The A to B format encoder is available in VST, AAX and AU plug-ins, as well as a stand-alone version for Mac and Windows.
Sennheiser will release the AMBEO VR Mic in November.
