Creating Immersive Audio for VR

Ready to expand your audio skills into the immersive world of VR? Creating Immersive Audio for VR bridges traditional audio production with cutting-edge spatial audio techniques for virtual reality applications. Perfect for producers, sound designers, and audio engineers looking to master VR audio workflows.

Building on your existing Digital Audio Workstation knowledge, you'll learn specialized spatial recording and encoding techniques using ambisonic microphones alongside familiar recording tools. We'll work extensively in Reaper with professional ambisonic plugins and spatial panning tools that transform your traditional stereo mindset into three-dimensional thinking.

You'll explore Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) encoding and decoding, understanding how these formats create convincing 3D soundscapes for VR environments. The course covers advanced routing configurations for binaural monitoring and specialized 3D audio processing that goes beyond traditional effects.

Technical aspects include proper loudness standards for VR content, specialized encoding workflows for 360° video delivery, and critical evaluation using actual HMD playback. You'll master the complete production chain from spatial capture through final VR-ready deliverables.

This hands-on approach ensures you'll confidently integrate spatial audio production into your existing skill set, opening new opportunities in the rapidly growing VR content industry. Professional feedback and peer review support your transition into this specialized field.

Creating Immersive Audio for VR is designed for persons with basic understanding of Digital Audio Workstations, audio processing workflows such as editing, rendering, and using FX such as EQ, reverb, gain.

A basic understanding of spatial audio is useful to make the most of the course, but fundamental knowledge on principles of stereo recording and mixing will be sufficient. If you have been making music in the box or in the studio, and fancy expanding your skills into the world of VR - this is a course to explore.

You'll need to have various pieces of software installed onto your personal computer before starting this course. Please see the "technical requirements and software" section for more information.

Meet the team

Natalia Mamcarczyk - Course Leader

Natalia Mamcarczyck is a sound artist and audio engineer specializing in immersive, multichannel and binaural audio installations. Her compositional work explores sound's spatial context through field recording, soundscape techniques and disembodied voice, complemented by her classical piano training and improvisation experience.

With expertise spanning Ambisonics, Dolby Atmos, object-based, surround sound, and 360° audio implementation, Natalia provides consultancy and engineering services for VR, sound installations and cinema sound production. Her technical knowledge supports businesses working across immersive technologies.

As an educator, Natalia lectures at dBs Institute and UWL while mentoring at UCL, focusing on spatial audio production, post-production and research. Her extensive artist development portfolio includes projects funded by the British Council, PRS Foundation, and ACE, working with record labels, commercial artists, and independent creatives.

Nik Rawlings - Assistant Tutor

Nik Rawlings is a singer and composer based in Bristol, UK. With a background in choral singing, queer club music and sonic arts, their work addresses voice’s relationship with technology, queer embodiment and collectivity through spatial sound performances and system design.

In 2021 they received of Bristol + Bath Creative R+D’s Expanded Performance Prototype grant, leading the project ‘breathing.systems’ developing prototype wireless, wearable multichannel sound systems.

This work was showcased with a performance piece at Bristol’s Trinity Center in August 2021 with ten performers drawn from Bristol’s queer community; whose movements spatialised live, processed singing. The work formed a collective body of sound for Nik’s voice, on and between the bodies of performers. They have presented this system and practice at IRCAM Forum at New York University, University of the West of England, and Sampad, Birmingham.

In 2022-23, Nik was resident on the Down The Wire Live residency commissioned by Cryptic, Glasgow and B’sarya, Alexandria with immersive exhibitions and performances in Scotland and Egypt. They have presented their movement and sound diffusion performance practice at IRCAM Forum at New York University. They teach spatial sound composition at UWE, and won an Arts Council England DYCP grant to open an immersive sound studio in Bristol - which is now B-Form Studio, aiming to become Bristol’s key independent immersive audio R&D studio.

Nik has previously shown performance work at LUMA Westbau with 89plus, Guest Projects and The Surrounding in London. They have performed as a DJ extensively around the UK, and Europe, and hosted shows on NTS, Noods Radio and Threads.

Terms and conditions

Read the terms and conditions for taking part in this short course.

Contact us

For more information about the course please email your enquiries to shortcourses@bathspa.ac.uk .