the Ambisonic Based Coding and Decoding Environment is a scalable 3D-mixer based on ambisonic principles. it allows to spatialize an arbitrary number of mono-input channels onto a virtually arbitrary loudpspeaker-array.

description:

the input-channels are first rendered into an intermediate multichannel ambisonic-format which is independent of both the number of input channels and the setup of the reproduction system.

the ambisonic-"codec" is implemented as a plugin system: this allows you to use simple standard formats (such as Gerzon's B-format), higher-quality formats (such as 3rd-order 3D-ambisonics) and specialized formats (such as 1st+3rd, which is a mixture of 1st order 3D-ambisonics and 3rd order 2D-ambisonics).

it should be relatively simple to add new ambisonic encoding-rules.

The ambisonic representation is finally decoded onto a loudspeaker array; the setup of the array is "arbitrary" and has to given via configuration.

features:

• application (not a library)
• written in pd (zexy/iemmatrix)
• scalable
• distributable across several machines interconnected via network and audio
• graphical user-interface
• plugin-architecture
• optional 3D-rendering (Gem)
• remote controllable via network (optional OSC)
• remote controllable via MIDI (sequencer)
• optional interface to MIDI-faderboxes (MotorMix)

distribution:

the 3D-mixer is available both as soure-patches (*.tgz) and as a number of debian-packages at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=132916&package_id=152968 and is released under the Gnu-GPL-v2.0

documentation:

there is none

my thesis (German only) convers the concept and implementation of the mixer, see http://iem.at/projekte/acoustic/awt/abcde/zmoelnig/

usage:

the IEM has been using this system in the past few years, to drive the IEM CUBE (a 24 loudspeaker hemisphere)