When you listen to a standard stereo mix using headphones, sounds are perceived like they are "internalized": a left-mixed sound will be heard in the left ear, a center-mixed sound will be heard inside your head!

With binaural mixing, sounds can easily be placed around the listener's head, even above and below, with distance effects!

Some examples of H3D usages:

• 3D sounds for some instruments in order to widen a musical mix
• binauralized foley sound, for a more immersive listening experience
• 3D trajectories effects for some audio tracks...

Binaural mixing is based upon special filters measurements: HRTF. These measurements are generally done in anechoic environments, that have little or no reverberation in order to record only the precise direct sound.

If you have ever been to an anechoic room, you may remember that such an experience is not really enjoyable! It is often why most binaural plugins don't sound natural.

We chose to include a virtual room to H3D, the parameters (presence, size, color) of which you can setup. This greatly enhances the binaural perception and makes it more enjoyable and natural.

The H3D process is meant to be played back on headphones, hence the plugin outputs a stereo audio stream, regardless of the original audio clip that is processed by H3D.

Some RTAS and AU hosts (ProTools, Logic) allow "mono-to-stereo" plugin types. H3D supports the insertion on mono tracks in such hosts, and will output a stereo binaural signal.

On the contrary, VST hosts such as Nuendo or Cubase don't support such plugins in/out formats. As H3D binaural processing must be heard in stereo, you'll have to insert it on stereo tracks, even if you intend to process only mono audio clips.

H3D v2.0.0 now allows to process stereo tracks.

The H3D plugin inserts in an audio host (Cubase, Live...), on an audio track. The plugin will process the sound.

The 3D view, that you can open from within the plugin interface, will display in a single 3D view all the plugins that have been inserted in the audio host

The 3D view runs as a system service, and adds an "H3D" icon:

• in the Mac OS X system icon zone, on the right of the menu bar (close to the Airport and Bluetooth icons). It may be hidden depending on the active application menu size.
• in the Windows notification zone, on the right bottom of your screen.

Just click on that icon to display the 3D view.

H3D evaluation version is freely downloadble in the Downloads section of our website. It has the following limitations:

• The plugin parameters are not saved in your host session. If you load an audio session that contains an H3D plugin, its 3D source position will be back to default.
• Plugin parameters automations are disabled
• H3D sometimes outputs silence instead of the processed sound.
• Reverberation parameters are not shown and are fixed to default values.

RTAS plugin for Pro Tools 8, 9 and 10

• On Mac OS X, navigate to /Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins and make sure the RTAS plugin H3DBinauralizer.dpm is present in that directory

• On Windows XP/Vista/Seven (32-bit edition) navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Digidesign\DAE\Plug-Ins and make sure the RTAS plugin H3DBinauralizer.dpm is present in that directory

• On Windows XP/Vista/Seven (64-bit edition) navigate to C:\Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Digidesign\DAE\Plug-Ins and make sure the RTAS plugin H3DBinauralizer.dpm is present in that directory

AAX plugin for Pro Tools 10

• On Mac OS X, navigate to /Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins and make sure the AAX plugin H3DBinauralizer.aaxplugin is present in that directory

• On Windows XP/Vista/Seven (32-bit edition) navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins and make sure the RTAS plugin H3DBinauralizer.aaxplugin is present in that directory

• On Windows XP/Vista/Seven (64-bit edition) navigate to C:\Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins and make sure the RTAS plugin H3DBinauralizer.aaxplugin is present in that directory

VST plugin

The VST plugins can be used on PC and Mac with Cubase, Reaper and with most Windows-only audio hosts.

• On Mac OS X, Longcat's VST plugins are installed in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Longcat Audio. Look for H3DBinauralizer.vst in that folder
• On Windows XP, Vista and Seven (32-bit editions), Longcat's VST plugins are installed in C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins\Longcat Audio\. Look for H3DBinauralizer.dll in that folder.
• On Windows XP, Vista and Seven (64-bit editions), Longcat's VST plugins are installed in C:\Program Files(x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins\Longcat Audio\. Look for H3DBinauralizer.dll in that folder.

Reaper: you must tell Reaper where to look for VST plugins in Preferences/Plug-ins/VST. Try to press the Auto-detect button, or simply type the above path. Please refer to the Reaper manual in order to get more info about how it handles plugins.

Cubase: you must set the Cubase VST2 folder, as it is not set by default. Please refer to the Cubase manual.

AudioUnit plugin in Logic Audio

The AU plugin is installed in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components.  Look for H3DBinauralizer.component in that folder.

If you're running Logic Audio as 64 bits, please make sure that 32-bit plugins were scanned: under some circumstances, Logic64 won't scan 32-bit plugins by default.

• With Cubase: sometimes, moving a source in the 3D view will make the H3D plugin click. This only happens with some precise versions of Cubase 5 (5.11 in particular). To solve this problem in Cubase 5.11, please hide the H3D parameter subtrack (X, Y, or Z) in Cubase, or update to the latest version of Cubase.
• With Live 8: the automation management has been modified in Ableton Live 8 and up. It is not possible to record 3D source movements from within the H3D 3D view if you are using the VST plugin. This problem doesn't appear in Live 7. While we are working on this issue, you can use Live's X-Y view to record source automations. On Mac OS X, please use the AU plugin with Live.

This crash has been fixed in H3D 2.1.1

Major changes in multithreading handling took place in Mac OS X Lion. ProTools 10.x seems to have issues with multithreaded plugins, such as H3D, with a high CPU usage or CPU spikes while playing back sessions. Other plugins exhibit the same issue.

One solution is to set Pro Tools' playback engine to use less cores than the actually present cores in your machine. For example, with a dual-core machine (Core 2 Duo), set the Playback Engine to use 1 CPU. On a 8-cores machine, use 7 cores. This should solve the CPU-spikes issue.

You'll have to buy and download the complete H3D version. It will be available to you as soon as your order is completed on our online shop.

Once installed, just run the H3D application found in your computer's applications or programs folder, and follow instructions you received by email after you ordered H3D.

During the ordering process, you will receive:

• an order confirmation email, which is sent after validation of your basket, before any payment is done
• an order validation email, after the payment is completed
• an info email about how to generate your own H3D license key
• for each online generated H3D license key, an email including the license key proper

If you didn't receive one or more of these emails, it is highly probable that your mail server (gmail, Yahoo, or your Internet Service Provider one...) or you mail software (Apple Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird...) tagged our emails as spam.

You can generally access these emails in a separate folder. Please refer to your mail server or software documentation.

To prevent this behavior in the future, please make sure you added the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it address to your contact list.

We allow H3D to be installed and used on two different machines, for example on your workstation and on your laptop.

Some users reported that they couldn't properly authorize H3D on their Mac, particularly with Mac OS X Lion, but also with recent versions of Snow Leopard. Some internal system modifications prevent the license to be registered.

The H3D 1.1.3 Mac update fixed this issue and is fully compatible with OS X Lion.

Some users reported that they couldn't properly authorize H3D on Windows Vista or 7. The license was correctly entered but the plugin would always display "unregistered", and the 3D view couldn't be launched from the plugin.

In this case, you may solve the issue by either:

1. running your audio host with administrative rights. This will solve the H3D authorization issue on most machines.
2. totally disabling Windows UAC (choose the "Never notify me" setting)

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