Professional spatial mixing in headphones is now possible!
✔ Artefact Free
✔ Timbre & Spectral Integrity
✔ Accurate localisation
✔ Easy to use
✔ No HRTFs
Sympan Monitoring Tool
Standalone & AAX | VST3 | AU
Access to a well set-up multi-monitor studio isn't always possible. This is why we created Sympan Monitoring Tool.
It's an easy-to-use virtual studio plugin that gives the gives artists, producers and engineers accurate monitoring of multichannel speaker mixes, such as Dolby Atmos, on your headphones without HRTFs..
Simply route your speaker feed to the Sympan standalone app or monitoring plugin and it sounds like you're there in the studio!
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Sympan Monitoring Tool guarantees a full frequency mix and a sense of presence like you're in the studio listening to speakers. It is the first product built with Kinicho's revolutionary Sonic Reality Engine,
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The Sonic Reality Engine does not use HRTF-based emulations to give you a binaural mix. It processes an accurate physical simulation of perfectly positioned flat-response speakers in a virtual anechoic space for a fully volumetric spatial mix.
Sympan Monitoring Tool takes speaker-to-headphone translation to another level so you can deliver professional spatial mixes without a speaker set-up.
watch a video to hear the monitoring tool working in the major DAWs
Logic Pro
- AU plugin
Pro Tools
- Standalone
ProTools
- AAX plugin
Nuendo
- VST3 plugin
is it for me?
Small and home studio owners
Sympan Monitoring Tool can be the first step for small and home studio owners. You can have access to professional spatial mixes before you're ready to commit to the investment of multi-channel studio.
Sending mixes to clients/artists
It's not always possible to have the client in the room with you. Sympan Monitoring Tool will allow you to send the best binaural mix possible, whether you are streaming live or rendering a file.
Away from the studio
Sometimes you just can't get to the studio but you still to need work on your mixes. Sympan Monitoring Tool is the next best thing with quality sounding Speaker-to-headphone translation.
Preparing for a studio session
In a forthcoming release, Sympan Monitoring Tool will allow users to create bespoke speaker layouts that exactly match the studio before you get there. Advancing your mix can save both time and money.
Roadmap
We have been working on the Sympan Monitoring Tool for while now. In the first version, we've kept the UI super simple with just one parameter to change. We wanted to keep any complexity out of the way for now while we get your feedback on what we should do next.
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That said, there's a lot of work under the hood that is already in place that will allow us to switch on lots of features in a very short space of time. We're not sure of the release schedules or the order that we'll bring this extra functionality - we're hoping you will plan this journey with us.
Heres a rundown of what's coming soon....
Head-tracking - with an Inertial Measurement Device (IMU) or headphones with an IMU embedded and an exposable API, you will be able to listen to your speaker with a whole new level of experience. Head-tracking really adds to the presence of mixing as it gives your brain that extra layer of data to make the spatial effect much more realistic.
Status: Code in place... internal tests complete, early beta testing ongoing.
Positionable Speakers - the official guidance for positioning speakers in a 7.1.4 or (7.1.2 for ProTools) system has quite a bit of tolerance. While we have positioned the speakers in the virtual studio plugin in a future release, we enable a more flexible approach to positioning speakers. This will the user to match positions in the virtual studio to positions in a real studio.
Status: In development; initial trials in a real studio yielded very positive results.
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Other speaker layouts - Atmos isn't the only speaker layout that a virtual studio. We will make it possible to virtualise any layout from 2.0 and upwards. This will offer ultimate flexibility from the Sympan Monitoring Tool.
Status: Code in place; initial trials with an external tester are ongoing.
Volumetric Room Effects - Most studio rooms have small toleration of reflection whether by design or architectural constraint. In the current SMT, the virtual studio space is an anechoic room. Adding volumetric reflections and reverb will help to increase the presence in the space and make the monitoring more realistic.
Status: in development; a very early prototype is in place and work in ongoing.
Speaker Response Modelling - not all monitors are equal! The very best studio monitors all aspire to be perfectly flat, and many do an incredible job getting to reference level. Nevertheless, this can never be the case pragmatically. In the virtual studio of the Sympan monitoring Tool, the speaker feed is truly flat. While this has lots of advantages, it can also be too perfect. In a future release, the ability to model the speakers to match the real-world response curve of specific monitors will give the engineer more choice.
Status: in research; active research is looking at the best way to achieve this.
You tell us - we're really eager to know what features you would like to see delivered first or what functionality you would like us to add that could benefit the production community.
Status: permanently open; we're all ears (I'll get my jacket)
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