This is an area of intense industry focus in the studio and music production world, particularly now that Apple and Amazon started promoting spatial audio in its music streaming platforms, and all studios are encouraged to work on releasing content in object-based immersive formats such as Dolby Atmos. Several new players are making significant inroads in the concept of reference monitoring with headphones, using a combination of frequency response correction, spatial room emulation, and binaural rendering features. It makes complete sense that Dear Reality, the German company that helped Sennheiser implement the AMBEO spatial audio mixing concept and specializes in spatial audio algorithms, also offers a solution for that purpose.
With dearVR MIX, Dear Reality is bringing its iconic room virtualization - designed originally for virtual reality applications - to the stereo world. The dearVR MIX AAX/VST3/AU plugin turns any professional studio headphones into a modeled stereo mixing environment, placing the user in the sweet spot of carefully designed mix rooms – all through spatial audio technology.
As the company explains, combining dearVR MIX and the built-in Spatial Headphone Compensation (SHC) feature, audio producers, artists and content creators can ensure that their stereo productions translate reliably to any sound system – regardless of production type or music genre. Whether they are in the studio or on the road, dearVR MIX allows assess positions, stereo width, reverb, and low-end frequencies with total reliability, anytime and anywhere.
“When developing dearVR MIX, it was all about creating ultimate virtual acoustic environments for headphone mixing,” says Christian Sander, CEO of Dear Reality. “All the experience we have gained in the field of spatial audio comes together in one stellar plugin. dearVR MIX puts this technology in the hands of everyone.”
The plugin offers three world-class reference mix rooms with four selectable mono and stereo loudspeaker positions. Furthermore, each mix room can be adapted to the user’s taste by controlling the amount of diffusion and setting the perfect balance between overall coloration and localization based on the patented Clarity algorithm from Sennheiser AMBEO.
With room virtualization and virtual acoustics, dearVR MIX also lets users easily and accurately monitor their production in six non-studio acoustic environments, such as a car or a club – all without leaving the workstation. These models are useful to check how mixes will translate to typical listening environments. Head tracking support is also possible using Dear reality's dearVR Spatial Connect solution.
Together with dearVR MIX, Dear Reality is also introducing its Spatial Headphone Compensation (SHC) feature to all dearVR virtual monitoring plugins. The unique technology adjusts the 44 most used professional studio headphones to the virtual mixing room, enabling a model-independent and stable simulation of a perfect acoustic environment. “By carefully compensating for the sound characteristics of individual headphones, dearVR MIX ensures the best binaural playback experience with the highest degree of out-of-head localization,” explains Christian Sander. Each model has been carefully optimized by Dear Reality and expert mastering engineers to create a target frequency curve that perfectly matches the room virtualization.
dearVR MIX is available for USD $99 (plus VAT where required) only at www.dear-reality.com. Until November 30, 2021, users benefit from a special introduction price of USD 79.00 (plus VAT where required). Dear Reality offers a free 14-day trial at
www.dear-reality.com
