There are a few DAW programs that can support the workflows we will be using
Other DAWs, such as Logic, are limited in the number of channels that the master bus can handle and are thus not suitable for the type of work we will be doing with them (for example, to support 3rd order Ambisonics rendering the master bus has to be 16 channels wide)
Plugin collections that are useful for binaural rendering:
a very complete set of VST plugins for Ambisonics (Windows, Mac OSX >= 10.7, Linux), includes the following and more:
you will need to download the VST plugins and the binaural presets. Follow directions in the web page to install both in the right directories in your computer.
a simple VST plugin that can render up to 3rd order Ambisonics (1st, 2nd or 3rd order depending on the number of channels of your bus or track), see the getting started guide for instructions on how to integrate this into your session
These plugins are specific for Reaper (although they can be used with other VST hosts through )
A very good toolkit for Ambisonics work in Reaper, this version is limited to FOA (First Order Ambisonics) only. But the Binaural Decoder supports both spherical modelling and the CIPIC and Listen databases of HRIR measurements.
There are several options for working with Ambisonics and binaural audio in SuperCollider. You will need to install both SuperCollider and the SC3-Plugins for your platform.
Once you have SuperCollider working, you can install:
This quark (install through "Quarks.gui" in SuperCollider) includes many HOA (High Order Ambisonics) unit generators with detailed tutorials and examples on how to use them.
The HOABinaural unit generator is a very good binaural decoder with optional headphone compensation filters, and while the class itself is not documented currently, examples can be found in the "HOA Tutorial Exercise 9" (search for it in the scide help browser pane). The UGen was created using KU100 HRIR measurements presented in [1] and the rendering approach proposed in [2]:
For the headphone correction filters the impulse responses were created by Benjamin Bernschuetz.
After loading the headphone filters using "HOABinaural.loadHeadphoneCorrections(s)" you can list the supported headphone models with "HOABinaural.listHeadphones"