Conference Paper
Ambimix: a Scene-Based Approach to Interactive Mixing
AVARIG 2026: Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games · Paper 508 · June 2026
Abstract
Channel-based mixing has long been the standard paradigm for audio professionals in both studio and live performance contexts, owing to its intuitive, signal-oriented workflow. While this approach excels for conventional playback systems like stereo, it offers limited native support for advanced spatial applications. As immersive audio formats become increasingly popular for virtual and augmented reality, new mechanisms are needed to allow engineers and sound designers to work directly within spatial domains rather than adapting channel-based setups to
fit immersive multimedia content. This paper presents a work-in-progress interactive mixing software for First- Order Ambisonic soundfields. In its current implementation, the system supports encoding from the Sennheiser Ambeo and Core Sound TetraMic using microphone-specific directional matrices. The architecture is designed to accommodate future extensions to additional formats, positioning the platform toward a microphone-agnostic mixing framework. The system converts these recordings to B-format using a directional beamforming calculation,
in which the individual dimensions of each recording (left, right, front, back, top, bottom) are independently combined using a scaling weight for each signal. Future work aims to extend the beamforming framework beyond the first-order WXYZ dimensions, enabling the integration of higher-order ambisonic encoding to improve the spatial resolution and directional accuracy. The primary contribution of this program is a streamlined interface for ambisonic processing, designed to make scene-based mixing accessible to audio professionals working in immersive environments.
