Spatial Studio is the professional authoring tool for macOS that lets anyone - from professional to first-time sound designers - create immersive, interactive audio experiences.
Within Spatial Studio sounds can be designed to have entropy and randomness so they feel different every time. You can visualize Scenes on the canvas, allowing you to plot your speakers and intuitively design at any level. Spatial Studio is an intuitive tool that enables seamless workflow to create immersive soundscapes like never before.
Scenes are living soundscapes that render real-time, dynamic and interactive audio experiences which incorporate physics-based positioning and effects to allow them to play in all size spaces.
In This Article:
- Sign in to Spatial Studio
- Scene Manager
- Selecting your Space
- Scene Overview
- Canvas Overview
- Scene Control Bar
- Property Inspector Overview
Sign in to Spatial Studio
If you haven't already, create an account in Spatial Central.
When you launch Spatial Studio, the sign in window will prompt you to enter your Spatial Account details.
If this is your first time logging in, Spatial Scene Manager will pop up so you can download your first free test scene.
If your Spatial account is not associated with a space, Spatial Studio will begin in Local Mode. Local Mode is a generic space that allows creators to build scenes and later associate them with their Spatial account. Local Mode will play a stereo rendering of your Spatial scene using your computer audio or with headphones via Spatial Headspace.
For more information on creating a Spatial Account, review the step by step guide here.
Scene Manager
You can start experimenting with Spatial Studio right away with shared content found under Scene > Scene Manager. Simply click the ⇩ next to the scene you want to use to download the version available. You can learn more about the Scene Manager and Publishing Scenes here.
Selecting Your Space
Once you are signed in, you can choose the site and space you would like your scene to be played in the Space & Deployment window located in the Menu Bar Spatial Studio > Preferences.
Select the Site (the location of your deployment) from the drop down menu. Site selection will populate available Spaces. Select the Space you will be working with.
Note: If you do not have any spaces created yet, you can do so in the Control App, learn more here. Or work in Local Mode while you start a new creation.
Local mode creates a stereo rendering of your Spatial Scene and operates without connecting to a Space. Setting to local mode will set the default space to Local, indicated on the canvas.
Note: Spatial Studio can operate a Space without an internet connection once it is initially connected using your account. When the internet connection drops, Spatial Studio will play Scenes through the Space using the available local network. Your account settings will be saved so your permissions to use Spatial Studio will not change while disconnected from the internet. You will not be able to publish the Scene without an internet connection.
Scene Overview
The Scene overview is a hierarchy of Objects and input events within the Scene. The Scene overview includes Objects, tags, triggers and motion paths. It contains the order of Objects and respective soundsets creating the auditory Spatial experience of a Scene.
The leftmost panel in Spatial Studio (by default) is the Scene Overview. There are two distinct list views: Objects List and Input Events List. 
Objects
Objects control sound in Spatial. The Scene list organizes the hierarchy of objects in the Scene. The sound Object hierarchy includes soundsets or a collection of sounds an Object uses for a given behavior relating to the parent, child and sibling of the respected Object.
Input Events
Set of triggers which change, enable or disable and manipulate the component parts of a Scene. By selecting the Input Events tab, the toolbar functions will change. Read more about Input Event Properties.
At the bottom of the Objects list, you can search for Objects as well as filter Objects by tags. Clicking Tags will display all the active tags created from the property inspector. Click on the results to filter your Objects. To search for an object, type in the Search Objects text field to filter results.
To learn more about the Objects List visit Scene Overview Summary or learn how to control Scene Properties, Object Properties and Soundset Properties.
Canvas Overview
The window located in the center of Spatial Studio displays the canvas. The canvas is a visual map of Objects, paths, speakers defined from a current space map and triggers. It is a representation of every auditory aspect of a Scene. The canvas also has the ability for visual editing of Objects and motion point locations.
This is a visual rendering of the Scene displayed over a grid area with optional display features.
The bottom of the canvas, or the base of the grid, displays the name of the physical Space you are working in. The name indicates the front of the Space according to the coordinate system used to create the space map.
Gridlines are equivalent to meters, which translates to the real world when you playback a Scene.
Read more about canvas overview and using the canvas.
Scene Control Bar
The control bar has Scene commands that allow you to play/pause the Scene, adjust the volume and monitor the state of your Space.
The Scene control bar displays current runtime of a Scene and has the a menu of available manual triggers for input events.
Learn more about the Scene control bar in Canvas Overview.
Play / Stop - Starts and stops the Scene playback. When play is selected, the Scene will begin to play and the command now becomes a stop function. Clicking stop will reposition the timeline cursor back to the beginning of the Scene and will resume playing from the beginning.
Pause - Pausing the Scene is a temporary stop. The timeline cursor will remain at its current position.
Loop On / Off - Looping continuously plays the Scene until commanded otherwise. Click the icon to turn looping on or off. Blue indicates looping is activated.
Master Volume - Displays and changes the master volume of the connected Space.
Master Volume by Percent - Input a value from zero to 100 to control the output from the master volume.
Current Render Time - Displays the current runtime or timer for a Scene. The cursor on the timeline matches the timer display in the control bar. Click the timer to expand the timecode view.
Manually trigger I/O Event - While a scene is playing, selecting the icon will display a dropdown menu of available manual triggers for input events. If no input events are available in the current scene, this control will be disabled.
Deployment Connection Status - Indicates the connection between the Space and Spatial Studio. The colored circle indicates the status of the deployment; green, orange, and red. Green: connected, orange: local mode and red: disconnected. Clicking on the indicator will open the Space & Deployment window to manage your Space.
Property Inspector Overview
The properties panel or property inspector, provides a set of behavior tools for sound Objects, as well as input events.
The property inspector is the right panel in Spatial Studio. There are four distinct property inspector views: Object Properties, Soundset Properties, Scene & Object Properties and Input Events.
Select any part of a Scene, Object or soundset to open the appropriate property inspector.
Scene Properties
Click the name or title of the Scene. The default name is Scene. You can also view and edit the properties of the Scene itself by clicking on the Scene Object on the canvas. The property inspector will display a panel to edit features of your scene.
Object Properties
Once you add an Object to your Scene, select the Object from the scene list or canvas to display the Object Properties. The items listed in the properties inspector are behaviors and effects for the highlighted object(s).
Soundset Properties
Once you add a soundset to your Scene, select the soundset from the scene list to display the Soundset Properties. The items listed are behaviors and effects for the highlighted soundset(s).
Input Event Properties
Click on the Input Event tab. Add an input event to the Scene in order to display the properties view.
Read more about the Property Inspector.