During a conference visit to Athens, I toured Alejandro Cabrera's acoustically isolated studio and discussed his recent integration of Audio Brewers' ambisonic decoder into Pro Tools, which streamlines spatial audio workflows by automating technical configuration. The conversation explored how his dual perspective as artist and developer informs plugin design that prioritizes creative usability over exposing every available parameter.

I'm breaking down four game-changing developments in immersive audio that have been happening behind the scenes: NovoNotes' new format support for 9.1.6 and 7.1.6 configurations, Audio Brewers' revolutionary beamforming decoder, Eclipsa Audio's open-source spatial audio plugins that finally make 3D sound accessible to everyone, and Apple's Spatial Audio Format that transforms static mixes into responsive sound environments. Each of these deserves its own deep dive tutorial which I'll be releasing over the coming weeks, plus there's another massive announcement on the horizon that could revolutionize immersive music production—but I'll have to save that for another day.