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First-order Ambisonics encodes a 3D soundfield as four channels (W, X, Y, Z) decoded for any speaker layout

Concept L4Performance B · Sound design & synthesisF · Live coding: music

Ambisonics captures spatial information in a format independent of any specific speaker arrangement. First-order B-format consists of four signals: W (omnidirectional pressure), X (front-back axis bidirectional), Y (left-right axis), Z (up-down axis). This parallels Mid-Side recording extended to three dimensions. A decoder matrix then converts the B-format signal to any speaker configuration — stereo, quad, 8-channel, headphones via binaural rendering. The Ambisonic Toolkit (ATK) for SuperCollider implements encoders, transformers, and decoders following this model, installable via Quarks.

Examples

Quarks.install("https://github.com/ambisonictoolkit/atk-sc3.git"); — installs ATK. B-format encoding then decoding with ATK: FoaEncode, FoaTransform, FoaDecode pipeline.

Assessment

What are the four channels of first-order Ambisonics B-format and what physical measurement does each represent? How does this enable playback on different speaker systems without re-encoding?

Prerequisites — understand these first

Don't confuse with

Sources

“the simplest type of Ambisonic signal is basically Mid-Side recording in three dimensions instead of just one.”
corpus · supercollider-tutorials-full-transcripts-and-code-eli-fields · chunk 124

Taught in modules