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Recently releasing the world’s first spatial audio synthesiser – SkyDust 3D – Sound Particles are catering for both Hollywood’s soundtracking juggernauts and creative musicians looking to get more explorative with spatial sound design…

Sound Particles CEO Nuno Fonseca

cm: Hi Nuno, can you give our readers a short overview of SkyDust 3D, what it brings to the table for spatial audiocomposers? Nuno Fonseca:

“SkyDust 3D is a modern and powerful synth, but what makes it unique is the fact that it has a 3D sound engine fully integrated inside the synth. This means that anything (MIDI, EGs, LFOs, Sequencer, etc) can control 3D panning. For instance, imagine that you want a note to start at the back, attacks to the centre, sustains on the side, and releases above your head. Or having eight oscillators per-note, where each oscillator plays at a random position around you (1 note = 8 ‘objects’ in space). Or using an LFO to make sound jump around you. Or using the modulation wheel to control the elevation of sounds. Or using the Sequencer with 3D panners to create 3D arpeggios. Or everything together. With SkyDust 3D, you play a note and you get instant spatial audio.”

cm: Prior to SkyDust 3D, how difficult was the process of mixing soft synths within the spatial domain?

“When we released SkyDust 3D, I saw a comment somewhere saying ‘Any synth with a 3D panner and automation can do the same as SkyDust 3D’. Well, good luck! Imagine that you use a 3D panner to control the audio output of a regular stereo synth. Yes, you can move and animate its sound around. But the problem is that you are moving everything around. You cannot leave a note in one place and a new note in another. As soon as you move the panner to the new position, the sound of the old notes (and their releases) also moves. If you want each note to have its own panning, you need to duplicate the track multiple times, and start removing notes in an alternate way. With SkyDust, each oscillator will have its own panning. I can play a note and have each one of the eight oscillators going to a different position, creating a very interesting immersive sound using a simple note. Can we do that with automation and regular synths? Well, you need to create multiple duplicates of each track, go to each synth instance and solo one oscillator in each track, and then pan each track differently. And it may work, although it’s a crazy workflow if you’re using a single note at a time. Playing a 3-note chord that generated 24 panning positions (where any new notes will have their own positions), would not be possible, unless you create eight tracks per note of your ‘track’. No soft or hard synth has ever given so much liberty to the spatial creation process. In spatial audio, you want to try things quickly. If you need to spend hours on each test (and in a limited way), you’ll give up fast and limit your creativity. With SkyDust, you can quickly switch between different spatial sub-presets, or even ask for random spatial settings.”