Three stages, one standard: indistinguishable from the real environment.
Most spatial audio is authored. Ours is measured. Every soundscape we deliver starts as a physical capture of a real space and ends on a reproduction system we have characterized, so what the listener hears carries the same directional, distance and temporal cues the environment actually produced.
Capture
Spherical and multi-dimensional microphone arrays, bundled with object and point-source systems, record the full field at once: every direction, including behind and below, plus the focal points inside it. Fixed-perspective binaural rigs capture the ear's own view in parallel.
Model
Sound-field synthesis combines the captured sources with physical models of how waves propagate, reflect, refract and shift in that space. Reverberation, Doppler and low-frequency behaviour are preserved rather than approximated.
Deploy
Each soundscape is rendered for the system it will actually play on — headphones, a clinical room set, a multichannel simulator array — and integrated into the game engine, audio engine or application that drives it.
Capabilities
We work as a specialist unit inside a larger programme, or as the sound team for projects that have none. Engagements range from a single captured environment to the design, build and calibration of a complete spatialization system.
Capture
- Environmental volumetric audio capture spherical and point-source arrays
- Spatial audio object modeling devices, machinery, vehicles
- 3D vehicle sound dynamics modeling pass-bys, interiors, Doppler
- Fixed-perspective binaural capture modeled-ear recording
Modeling and assets
- Soundscape design and modeling natural and built environments
- Sound-field synthesis and post-processing per playback target
- Custom 3D audio asset libraries interoperable multichannel files
- Hardware-specific optimization headphones to 250-channel arrays
Systems and deployment
- Spatial audio implementation in 3D environments game and audio engines
- Spatial audio system design rooms, simulators, kiosks
- Electro-acoustic spatialization system design and build standard and non-standard layouts
- Real-world auxiliary acoustic training system deployment live and simulated
Software and advisory
- Software and application development iOS, Windows, engine tooling
- Spatial sound consulting feasibility, specification, review
- Project management multi-vendor audio programmes
- Research collaboration psychoacoustics, HCI, clinical
Fidelity is a set of decisions, not a format.
Any spatial format can place a sound in space. What separates an approximation from an environment a listener cannot tell from the real one is how much of the original physics survives the trip from capture to playback. These are the places where we refuse to lose it.
The whole sphere
Spherical and multi-dimensional arrays record every direction at once, with the same density below and behind the listener as above and in front. A sound from a stairwell, a floor vent or beneath a vehicle arrives from where it actually was.
Resolution at distance
Sound-field synthesis reconstructs the captured field as a continuous space rather than a set of points, so direction and distance stay legible as a source moves away or a listener turns.
The room itself
Reflections, refractions and absorptions are captured from the real surfaces and reproduced as they occurred. The environment's acoustic character is recorded, not simulated afterwards.
Motion and time
Source and listener are tracked during capture, so the Doppler shift and timing of a pass-by, an approach or a departure are retained rather than re-synthesized from position data.
Weight at low frequency
Enhanced low-frequency capture keeps both the energy and the placement of bass events: vehicles, machinery, weather, impacts. The sub range has a direction too.
Tuned to the playback system
Each soundscape is rendered for the specific headphones, room set or multichannel array it will play on, and measured there. Advanced hardware gets its full resolution instead of a common denominator.
Generative spatial audio from captured ground truth
We are building the capability to synthesize new spatial events from our own library of organically captured first-order ambisonic recordings, so that scenes can be extended or varied without losing the physical plausibility of the original capture. This is active research rather than a shipping product; we are open to partners who need it.
Where accuracy changes the outcome.
We concentrate on non-entertainment applications: settings where a realistic auditory environment is a clinical input, a training variable or a research condition, and where an unconvincing one does active harm.
Healthcare and therapeutics
Spatially accurate natural environments for sensory modulation, sound therapy and patient-facing spaces, delivered on hardware that fits an inpatient unit: headphones, room speaker sets, installed kiosks.
- Immersive soundscapes for clinical and therapeutic use
- Room and listening-set design for care settings
- Measurement design to support evaluation and research
- Collaboration with psychoacoustics and neuroscience specialists
Defence, aerospace and simulation
Unrealistic sound suspends disbelief at best and creates negative training at worst. We capture and model operational environments, vehicles and events so that trainees respond to cues that behave as they will in the field.
- Environmental and vehicle sound dynamics for simulators
- Multichannel spatialization systems for domes and pods
- Integration with game engines and simulation platforms
- Auxiliary acoustic training systems, live and virtual
Training, research and human factors
For medical training, visualization and research programmes that need an auditory environment as controlled and documented as their visual one, with assets that behave like any other 3D asset in the pipeline.
- Interoperable 3D audio assets for simulation content
- Spatial audio for visualization and training systems
- Experimental setups for perception and HCI studies
- Specification and review of third-party audio systems
Products
Tools we built for our own work and now supply to clients, alongside custom asset libraries.
Soundscape Modeling
Delivers richly immersive, spatially accurate environments into therapeutic and clinical settings. Built on multi-dimensional capture and rendering, it lets patients and practitioners experience hyper-realistic environmental simulations on managed devices, with usage data available for evaluation.
3D Audio Assets
Real-world devices, dynamics and environments captured, designed and delivered as interoperable multichannel files that drop into a pipeline like any 3D visual asset. Commissioned per project or licensed from our existing library.
SSM — Spatial Sound Manager
Dynamic mapping and control of 2D and 3D audio assets across standard and non-standard electro-acoustic systems of up to 250 channels. Includes multiple spatialization and panning models, room calibration emulation and perceptual controls.
Extended Expression
Contextual remapping of device functions across software and operating-system controls. Lets a team prototype simulator and application controls with off-the-shelf hardware, with no additional code.
Talk to us about an environment you need to get right.
Spatial Sound Dynamics Lab is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada. We are part of Vaudeville Sound Canada, a sound design and post-production company with a long record in immersive and spatial audio; SSDL applies that capability to healthcare, simulation, training and research.
Tell us what the environment is, what it needs to do, and what it will play on. We will come back with an approach and a scope.
196 West 3rd Avenue, Suite 230cVancouver, BC V5Y 1E9
Canada
+1 604 376 4886