Sound Design for VR and immersive experiences

Immersive experiences stimulate our senses—they draw us in, transport us to another place, and keep us in the moment. Immersion enhances everyday experiences, making them more realistic, engaging, and satisfying, on all our devices—whether we are playing a video game on our smartphone, video conferencing on our tablet, or watching sports on our virtual reality headset.  And we are truly immersed in the experience only when the sound is realistic and matches the visual.

Sound has just as much influence on the way we interpret and feel the world around us as the things we see and touch.

As audiovisual technology continues to advance, consumers are able to be more deeply immersed in experiences than ever before. Immersive experiences herald a new phase of bold experimentation in audience engagement, and sound is essential to bringing the audience “all-in.” As our world becomes more digital, brands, entertainers and venues are investing in total-sensory experiences for their customers – and music and sound are critical to making us believe in even the most fantastic ideas.

It is becoming a regular expectation of the headset user that there is going to be a binaural sound field, but there is still a lot to be explored within virtual reality, and sound is going to be playing a huge role within that.

Binaural Sound, or 3D Sound, is necessary to use within virtual reality, because it makes up part of the natural experience.  Binaural sound technology creates a richer listening experience. By manipulating audio recordings in post production, the smallest of sounds in each ear can be altered, creating an immersive experience for the listener where they can hear sounds in all directions around them, as if they were present at the time of recording. Reverb is also incredibly important when creating a sound environment. Applying the correct reverb can mean the difference between believing you are actually in the virtual environment, and thinking that something is slightly off, which can break the immersive feeling.  Implementing audio for VR has more technical requirements than games due to the frequent use of spatialization plugins and algorithms that enable users to better localize sound sources in the virtual world.

I feel that sound is half the experience. – George Lucas

iDesign Café has over 20 years experience in music composition and sound design; and a studio equipped with a combination of high-end sound processors, 3D binaural audio plug-ins, and the best of the best analog and digital synthesizers and effects. Our studio centerpiece is the Akai MPCX, with notable analog synths like the Korg MS20, Korg Minilogue, Dave Smith Prophet 6, Moog Sub37, Elektron Analog Four, Elektron Analog Rytm, Elektron Digitone, Roland SE-02, Hydrasynth, Sequential Pro-3, Moog DFAM, Arturia Microfreak, Roland Space Echo RE-201, Moog 104M Delay, Red Panda Particle, Strymon Big Sky Reverb and Soundcraft Mixing Console to name a few.  We pride ourselves on creating the most futuristic soundscapes, clicks, bleeps, music tracks, scores, compositions and atmospheres available for films, tv, commercials, websites, apps, video games, virtual reality, and other interactive immersive experiences.