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The SPATIAL Tab

The SPATIAL tab describes the room the bands are panned into. Its left column holds the LISTENER card, the MODE selector, the bass management controls (XOVER and SUB) and SPREAD; the rest of the tab is the speaker layout editor.

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Speaker layout editor

The editor shows the layout as an isometric view of the room, marked FRONT and BACK, with the room’s width, depth and height printed along its edges and a list of outputs beside it. Each output appears as a marker in the view and as a row in the list, with its X, Y and Z position and its ROLE. While audio plays, a ring around each marker shows that output’s level. There are three ways to edit the layout:
  • drag a marker across the floor of the view,
  • type X, Y or Z values into an output’s row,
  • choose a layout from the LAYOUT menu.
+ ADD SPEAKER adds an output (up to 32). Adding to a named layout turns it into a Custom layout first. In a Custom layout with more than two outputs, each row has a × button that removes that output. Once a named layout has been edited, its name is shown with (edited).

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The LAYOUT menu

In 5.1, 7.1, Atmos 7.1.4 and Atmos 9.1.6, output 4 is the LFE: its ROLE is SUB and it sits at Centre, so it takes no panned signal. Atmos 5.0.4 has 9 outputs, in the order L, R, C, Ls, Rs, then four height speakers (front left, front right, rear left, rear right), with no LFE channel. The ring, cube, box and dome entries are geometries named by their output count: a ring spaces its outputs evenly around the listener at ear height, and the cube, box and dome layouts add outputs above it.

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Saving and loading layouts

SAVE writes the current layout to an .xml file and LOAD reads one back. Layouts saved in the default folder (~/Library/Polytope/SpeakerLayouts/ on macOS, %APPDATA%\Polytope\SpeakerLayouts\ on Windows) are listed under Saved in the LAYOUT menu, and other NOMN plugins that use the same editor read from the same folder. The current layout, including any hand edits and roles, is saved with your DAW session. Presets do not store the layout, so loading a preset leaves your speakers where they are.

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Matching the layout to your bus

When CHAKRABOOST is inserted on a bus wider than stereo, it starts with that many outputs spaced evenly in a ring. For a standard bed, choose the named layout that matches your host’s channel order (5.1 for a 6-channel bus, for example). Editing the layout switches Spatial Mode to Surround when the layout has more than two outputs and to Stereo when it has two, unless Headphone Preview is selected. In Stereo mode the editor shows the two stereo speakers, and dragging them reshapes the stereo field (see Panner and Spatial Mode).

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Output roles and bass management

Each output has a role, set in its ROLE column: The high-pass and low-pass filters meet at the same frequency, so a SMALL speaker and the sub together sum flat through the crossover, and they add no latency. If the layout has no SUB output, SMALL outputs behave as FULL so that no low end is discarded. Bass management runs in Surround mode only, before the output limiter, so the SUB outputs are limited and metered with every other output. Leave SUB at 100% for a flat response, since bass management moves the low end of the SMALL outputs to the SUB outputs at equal level; any other setting changes the summed level below the crossover.

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SPREAD

SPREAD (0 to 100%, default 0%) widens every band across neighbouring speakers in Stereo and Surround. At 0% each band is a point between the nearest speakers; at 100% every speaker carries part of every band.

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LISTENER

The LISTENER card sets where the listener sits in the room, with X, Y and Z controls from -1 to +1 (centred at 0). Dragging the listener marker in the layout view also moves the listener. Moving the listener changes the direction from which each speaker is heard, which changes how the bands are panned across the layout. The listener position applies in Stereo and Surround.

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Distance compensation

In Surround mode CHAKRABOOST delays the outputs of closer speakers so that sound from every speaker arrives at the centre of the room at the same time. This delay is part of the latency reported to your host, and CHAKRABOOST reports the new value whenever a layout edit changes it; see Output Protection and Latency.