Ears
Placement
You can place the trueSpatial Ears plugin anywhere down the line from the Spatializer plugin, ranging from directly adjacent down to the Master Bus if all your audio is spatialized. Do consider that routing multiple spatialized events through a single Ears plugin instance uses less CPU cycles than placing multiple renderers adjacent to each Spatializer, so this approach is preferrable if facilitated by the project workflow.
When placing the trueSpatial Ears plugin on the Master Bus, you might have to adjust the stereo panner that is automatically inserted by FMOD Studio at the end of the signal chain.
Make sure that the Width
parameter of the stereo panner is set to 180°, otherwise undesired cross-talk will be introduced.
Properties
Externalizer
The trueSpatial Ears plug-in has two parameters that can be used to adjust the built-in Externalizer Module:
Externalizer Amount
: the amount of externalization applied to rendered sound sources. It is a value between 0 and 100, where 0 means no externalization and 100 means full externalization.Externalizer Character
: you can shape the character of the externalizer using the Character control, giving it more of an airy quality by dialing it up, or creating a more warmer feeling by bringing it down.
When Externalizer Amount
is set to 0 (OFF), the Externalizer Module will
be completely bypassed and won't need any additional rendering resources. It
can also be turned on/off without any discontinuities of the audio signal.
Personalization
The plug-in offers three different personalization settings, optimized for different age groups. With that you can deliver customized mixes for children, teens, and adults. The personalization property is RTPC-capable, so you may adjust it during run-time, e.g. forwarding the setting to your users.
Performance Mode
Enabling the performance mode will replace the DSP engine with a more efficient one, switching to symmetric HRTFs and a more efficient externalizer backend. With the performance mode engaged, the plug-in's required memory and CPU resources will be reduced by up to 50%, making the rendering even more efficient. This can be very useful on mobile platforms with lower hardware capabilities and more strict battery requirements.
In contrast to the parameters of the externalizer and personalization feature, the performance mode is not destined to be realtime controllable. The replacement of the engine will allocate resources and is therefore not realtime-safe. However, you still can enable or disable it at run-time, just make sure to not process audio during the switch, as it might lead to unwanted discontinuities of the signal.