High-quality 3D audio that eliminates the boundaries between playback and reality – this is the promise of the AMBEO VR MIC that was launched by Sennheiser today. Up until now, VR productions had to record immersive audio with quite complicated microphone set-ups. The AMBEO VR Mic puts everything into a compact and easy-to-use handheld – making it an ideal tool for any professional VR production. The microphone will become commercially available in November 2016.

The AMBEO VR Mic is an Ambisonics microphone that uses four carefully selected, matched capsules in a tetrahedral arrangement. It is fully balanced and powered by 4x 48 volts phantom powering. The handheld microphone comes complete with a split cable with four color-coded and labelled XLR connectors according to the capsule position, a Rycote suspension mount and a foam windshield.

Also included is the necessary encoding software that translates the A format file generated from the recording of the four microphone channels into a B format file W, X, Y and Z. This format is recognized in the Ambisonics world, the W component being the omni and the X, Y, Z components being figure-of-eight capsules along three spatial axes. The A to B format encoder will be available in VST, AAX and AU plug-ins for the customer’s preferred digital audio workstation and as a stand-alone version for Mac or Windows.

The AMBEO VR Mic details are here.