Sennheiser Ambeo VR Mic

Record Virtual Reality Audio
If you produce virtual reality content, Sweetwater has a product you should know about. It's the Sennheiser AMBEO VR Microphone, and it records seamless, immersive audio that's ideal for VR video productions. Sennheiser developed and fine-tuned the exquisitely designed AMBEO VR in collaboration with VR producers, and the end product is a mic that captures way more than mere audio — it captures a total experience. Technically, the AMBEO VR is an ambisonic microphone with four matched KE 14 capsules in a tetrahedral array. This specialized architecture lets you capture the sound around you from a single point, for 360-degree spherical ambisonic sound that perfectly matches your VR video content. The Sennheiser AMBEO VR Mic works with the included A-B encoder software plug-in.

What is ambisonics?
Ambisonics is a multichannel technique that captures sound from all directions around a single point in space. The sound is rendered binaurally in playback, letting you virtually rotate perspective in all directions, vertically as well as horizontally. Ambisonics is supported by all major post-production tools on the market, making it the appropriate technology for virtual reality and other applications that involve 3-dimensional sound and interactive audio. Bottom line, the Sennheiser AMBEO VR mic is your ticket to creating rich new worlds of sound.

How it works
The capsules of the Sennheiser AMBEO VR Mic deliver a raw, 4-channel output called A-format. Before you can use A-format audio, it must be converted to another 4-channel format, Ambisonics B-format. Here's where Sennheiser's AMBEO A-B format converter plug-in comes in. This free download for VST, AU, and AAX works with your PC or Mac DAW of choice. Diving deeper in the technicalities, B-format is a W, X, Y, Z image of the sound field around the mic, where W is the sum of all four capsules; and X, Y, and Z are virtual bidirectional mic patterns that represent front/back, left/right, and up/down. Hence, you can audition any direction from the microphone during Ambisonics B playback.

Sennheiser AMBEO VR Microphone Includes:
AMBEO VR Mic
Balanced split 4-XLR breakout cable
Rycote suspension mount
Foam windscreen
AMBEO A-B format converter VST, AU, and AAX Mac/PC plug-in (free download)