How to write Ambisonics B-Format file to disk?
Very confused by this. There are multiple methods for encoding an ambisonic stream (I'm interested in 3rd order for this purpose). There's spat5.hoa.encoder~, theres ambiencode~ and mc.ambiencode~, but I can't seem to find resources on how to actually write a file to disk. I've read that the *.amb file format is just a *.wav file but with a modified header, so I'm guessing I can't just use mc.sfrecord~. Can anyone help? Thanks!
for private use you can use wav64 or aiff, just make sure that your apps and patches and brain are all synced and remember which track is which. (i´d suggest FUMA odering)
and while i have no personal experience with it, but using mc.sfrecord~ you can now also write single files with many channels directly in max.
mc.sfrecord~ works perfectly for recording 3rd order periphonic files. Set for wav format, Max will unfortunately write standard wav files (whereas .amb is based on Wave_EX).
They will open perfectly well in commercial software for decoding and playback.
For distribution you may need to convert to .amb, perhaps using Richard Dobsons copysfx commandline utility.
BTW the amb file extension seems to be used for completely different file formats, too.
Like files produced by All My Books...
Right, okay. That's kinda what I figured. Can Max write Wave_EX format?
Will look into external conversion tools.
Max will record standard wav format up to 4GB, beyond which it will change mid-course to RF64 wave, which is an extension of wave_EX. Unfortunately, Max will record only in its most basic form, with no extra metadata.
As you are already busy with spat5, it may be worth experimenting with spat5.sfrecord~. It additionally has the option to insert into the RF64 wave an iXML chunk, which could carry metadata for decoding. But undocumented, AFAIK.