Audio spatialization tool

[cupakm]

How to do audio spatialization properly? I'd like to distribute sound sources in a virtual room.

Input: many mono or stereo tracks, room properties (impulse response samples for convolution reverb available too), XYZ coordinates for each mono/stereo source
Output: single stereo track

[AndreeeCZ]

Not sure if i understood the level of the question properly, but you can distribute the sources horizontal and in depth.

You distribute them horizontally either by simply panning them left/right (intensity stereo), or delay one channel (phase stereo).
You add depth to your tracks by placing them closer and further from the virtual listener by either applying various ratio of wet/dry reverb or a subtle LP filter.

I hope this answer suffices, there is of couse much more to it.

[Frank Carvalho]

Hi! I learned one thing back in the 90'ies, when using the excellent SoundHack program on MacOS9, namely that there is much more to the direction of a sound source than volume panning, delay and reverb. SoundHack used to have a spatialization processing, that would make a sound sound like it was circling around your head, even though you only have two channels of stereo available. You could program any movement of direction, as well as process a mono file to something coming from a fixed angle. Different frequencies behave differently to the ear when coming from an angle, and this cannot simply be emulated with a slight difference in volume and a short delay. But SoundHack did.
I have not found anything like SoundHack on Linux, and the author was not keen on porting it. For a while, I was able to emulate OS9 on Linux with SheepShaver though, so I could in fact process files with SoundHack on Linux, although not so easily.