what's the best method to include Spatial Audio in a music streaming app

Asked on 2024-07-30

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To include Spatial Audio in a music streaming app, you can leverage the capabilities of RealityKit audio as discussed in the session Enhance your spatial computing app with RealityKit audio. Here are some key points to consider:

  1. Author Mono Files: Ensure your audio files are authored in mono to avoid unexpected mix-down artifacts when spatialized. This is because spatial audio sources are mixed down to a single mono channel before being spatialized.

  2. Use Physically Based Distance Attenuation: This feature ensures that as the audio source moves away from the listener, it gets quieter in a natural way.

  3. Apply Reverb: Spatial audio sources can have reverb applied to them, which is simulated in real-time based on the user's real surroundings. This enhances the immersive experience.

  4. Loading Strategy: For large audio files, consider using the stream loading strategy instead of preload. This reduces memory usage by streaming the audio data from disk and decoding it in real-time, which is suitable for ambient music that doesn't have strict latency requirements.

  5. Ambient Audio Component: Use the ambient audio component for music playback. Ambient audio sources are rendered with three degrees of freedom, observing source and head rotations but not translation.

  6. Quadriphonic Channel Layout: For a more immersive experience, you can use a quadriphonic channel layout, which spreads four channels equidistantly around the listener, ensuring an even distribution of audio signals.

For more detailed guidance, you can refer to the chapter on Immersive music in the session "Enhance your spatial computing app with RealityKit audio".

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