Another way to convey a sense of an Object’s size is through enhanced low frequency reproduction. Common in conventional surround sound mixing, Spatial deployments can benefit from dedicated low frequency subwoofers. For sounds like flowing water, there’s the potential for there to be low frequency information and to what degree that low frequency content gets fed to a subwoofer can really change the perception from a trickling stream, to a raging river.
Assigning Bass Management to a Scene
The Local Mode Space you’ve been working with includes two subwoofers, one in the front of the Space and the other in the rear. You can globally filter low frequency information from the primary speakers and redirect it to subwoofers in the deployment using bass management. This option is managed by the Scene. The Scene itself can be thought of as the very top level of the hierarchy displayed in the Object list. As with other items in the Object list the Scene can be selected in order to reveal Scene level properties in the Inspector column.
- At the top of the Object List, click New Scene.
TIP: You can also click any blank area in the Object List to select the current Scene.
You can see the Bass Management checkbox is selected by default. When selected, this setting will permit the utilization of the bass management configuration in the deployment’s Spacemap. That configuration will have details regarding the crossover frequency that separates audio signals to be routed to the subwoofers as opposed to the primary speakers.
Addressing LFE Outputs
You can also make decisions about individual sounds using low frequency outputs. This is done at the Soundset level. Imagine that you want the waterfall to have a low rumble that’s enhanced by a subwoofer.
- In the Object List, expand the Water Feature Object and select the Soundset.
In the Inspector you’ll see an area called LF for Low Frequency.
In the LF area, you see an LFE property, which stands for Low Frequency Effect, a common term used with conventional surround sound playback systems that refers to a channel of audio that’s directed to a subwoofer.
If this is not changed, Default Bass Management is automatically selected which means the sound will play through both the subwoofer(s) and speaker(s). If you want to boost the amount of low frequency going to the subwoofer, raise the LF volume slider. - Use the LF volume slider to raise the low frequency volume of the Soundset by 6dB.
In some cases you may be concerned that low frequency in an audio file might become unnaturally exaggerated if redirected to a subwoofer. In this situation you can choose to not send audio to the subwoofers. - In the LFE pulldown menu, change the value to No LF to subwoofers.
Now you’re ensured that subsonic information that may be present in the audio files doesn’t become overly exaggerated, making the stream sound too big!
Now that you’ve completed the first two lessons, you should have a good understanding of how individual Objects can be manipulated within Spatial. Move on to the next lesson to learn more about working with Objects in bigger quantities and groups.
Save your Scene. You have reached the end of Lesson 3.