Since its early access launch in April 2023, VIRTUOSO has quickly earned recognition among top sound engineers as the industry’s leading and most professional binaural renderer, celebrated for its unmatched sound quality. Now, we are thrilled to introduce VIRTUOSO v2, packed with major new features and enhanced spatial accuracy. VIRTUOSO v2 empowers you to make faster, more precise mix decisions on headphones, within a fully customizable and finely tuned virtual mix room. It’s also an exceptional tool for sound design, composition, remote QC, immersive audio education, and even casual listening.
Special discounts are available for students and faculty. See details here.
I thought I was listening to my speakers! Virtuoso fooled me. Amazing recreation. We finally have a convincing tool for binaural translation…I absolutely recommend Virtuoso for mixing engineers who do not have a good listening room.
APL’s Virtuoso Binaural Renderer is simply astounding. I was able to arrive at settings where listening over headphones in my studio is eerily similar to listening over my immersive speaker layout. Virtuoso gives me confidence that I can make decisions on headphones and not be disappointed when I get back to my studio.
Virtuoso has been absolutely invaluable to me mixing my last batch of EPs for Dolby Atmos. I don’t have an Atmos setup, so I used Virtuoso for monitoring while I was creating the mix on my home setup, then checked the final tweaks mixes on a friend’s setup. I actually changed very little from the Virtuoso mixes.
Virtuoso is the best binaural monitoring tool I’ve used. The records that I have mixed using Virtuoso have translated exceptionally well to speakers and radio, while the score I mixed translated flawlessly to the dub stage.
Virtuoso is an unprecedented solution to the challenge of finding reliable, accurate software-based binaural monitoring for working on spatial mixes when away from the studio. APL have made it very straightforward to model a familiar space or experiment with new environments. Highly recommended.
We used APL Virtuoso for approval playbacks on Halo Season 2. We found Virtuoso to have the most convincing immersive/spatial rendering of any plugins we had tested. You truly feel as though the sound is moving around you.
Virtuoso is the most realistic binaural renderer I have used and I am happy to have found a reliable tool I can turn to that accurately translates immersive room environments over headphones. I recommend every engineer include it as part of their immersive mixing workflow.
Virtuoso is phenomenal. The imaging of multichannel mixes on headphones is truly immersive. The translation of Atmos on headphones literally had me check that the monitors weren’t on a few times. I also used it in conjunction with some delays and verbs to create textures and atmospheres that turned out great. I love it.
Never before have I heard such amazing binaural detail from behind and above. I was blown away by how moving an object around my head was translating binaurally on headphones. Mixing through Virtuoso really does give the impression of mixing through speakers in a room.
As a mastering engineer I have found Virtuoso invaluable in allowing me to recreate the conditions in my control room when I am on the move. The accuracy with which Virtuoso replicates my room is uncanny – on several occasions I have been fooled into thinking I had left my monitors on. All my listening on headphones goes through Virtuoso now.
Virtuoso is the first binaural monitoring tool that I found to reproduce the nuances and immersive sensory fields of high-resolution audio masters I produced. I wholeheartedly welcome the release of Virtuoso.
Virtuoso produces a convincing and trustworthy binaural 3D sound experience, empowering the artist to continue working on their spatial audio materials outside the studio. The many virtual space parameters also allow creative exploration of binaural mastering to bring forth qualities in the source.
Virtuoso is a top class binauralizer! I’m very impressed by the degree of externalization and the naturalness of the virtual room sound. Virtuoso makes my recordings sound like convincing dummy head recordings – that’s very impressive!
Virtuoso is a game changer for my binaural adventures. Finally I have a reliable immersive monitoring setup to go, and all I have to think about is making music for it.
Virtuoso is the first binaural software I used which replicates speaker monitoring close to a real speaker setup. It’s not only very accurate in terms of localization and frequency response, but also very musical-sounding.
Virtuoso provides an unprecedented level of accuracy in spatialisation while preserving the naturalness and integrity of the source. It’s an integral part of my immersive audio workflow.
What a special binaural experience! I had to take off my headphones and make sure the speakers were off. With Virtuoso, I can see myself genuinely being able to create music in spatial audio with accuracy and confidence.
Finally, a binauralizer that I can trust! With Virtuoso, I feel more confident in my mixing of immersive audio using headphones. I am impressed by its ability to create enveloping and externalised sounds without compromising the punch and clarity.
The VIRTUOSO v2 standalone app can decode and play stereo or multichannel re-render WAV files, as well as ADM Dolby Atmos master WAV files, allowing you to virtually hear how your mix sounds over different loudspeaker setups and in various rooms. This feature also ensures your mix translates accurately during the QC process—simply share your ADM master file with clients or colleagues who have VIRTUOSO, so they can experience how your mix sounds in your studio or in different environments.
VIRTUOSO supports 53 input configurations with up to 26 channels, covering all popular loudspeaker formats from mono to 3D, including ITU-R, Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, MPEG-H, NHK, and various standard arrays ideal for Ambisonics (e.g., Quad, Cube, Octagonal, and the Lebedev grid). VIRTUOSO lets you precisely localise sound images around you, as if they’re being reproduced by real loudspeakers positioned at a distance, rather than inside your head. Even without an extensive speaker setup, you can embark on your immersive audio journey with just a pair of headphones and VIRTUOSO.
VIRTUOSO offers seven virtual listening room presets, scientifically designed using ASPEN™’s 3D geometric acoustic simulation and finely tuned by expert sound engineers. These rooms provide a highly realistic and natural sound experience without introducing any tonal coloration. In the VIRTUOSO environments, you can trust that what you’re hearing on headphones will translate accurately to real loudspeakers in similar settings, thanks to VIRTUOSO’s precise imaging. If you face acoustic challenges in your studio, simply transport yourself into APL’s ITU-R BS.1116-compliant reference listening room in VIRTUOSO, making critical mix decisions easier and more confidently.
The room presets provide excellent starting points. However, depending on the acoustic conditions of your physical environment, you may need to customise the acoustic characteristics of the virtual room to maximise the sense of immersion. VIRTUOSO gives you full control over important acoustic parameters, including room dimensions, room damping, reverb time, reverb liveliness, listening distance, and overall ambience level. Note that VIRTUOSO does not use conventional stereo reverb; instead, it renders three-dimensional early reflections and diffuse reverb signals based on the defined room dimensions and acoustic characteristics.
VIRTUOSO not only provides five carefully selected and finely tuned built-in HRTFs, but also supports the import of custom HRTFs in SOFA (Spatially Oriented Format for Acoustics).
The auto and manual sound field rotation provide smooth, low-latency head tracking. Four message formats are supported: APL, Audeze (for Maxwell), IEM and Nxosc (for Waves NX).
Each loudspeaker configuration has its own standard channel order. However, with the routing matrix, it is possible to flexibly assign any input signal to any virtual loudspeaker within the selected loudspeaker configuration. You can also solo, mute, or adjust the level of each virtual loudspeaker. The routing matrix also allows for passive downmixing. Various downmix algorithms are provided as presets in the Settings tab. For a given input configuration, one or more downmix configurations can be selected (e.g., Atmos 7.1.4 to Atmos 5.1.2, ITU 7.1, or 5.1), with variable downmix gain for each loudspeaker signal. This feature is useful for checking how your 3D mix translates to a smaller number of loudspeakers.
For the most accurate presentation of head-related transfer function (HRTF) in binaural audio rendering, it is often necessary to make the frequency response of the headphones perceptually flat. To achieve this, VIRTUOSO currently provides HPC EQ filters for 98 popular headphone models and allows you to load a custom headphone EQ .wav file (e.g., from the popular AutoEQ library). Additionally, SPK EQ filters model the on-axis frequency responses of 11 popular loudspeaker models. These EQs enable you to select virtual loudspeakers with different spectral balances for monitoring purposes and can also be used to add a unique tonal color to your binaural mix. More headphone and loudspeaker EQs will be added in future updates.
Once you select or load the EQ profile for your headphone model in HPC EQ, you can customise it to suit your preferences using the 10-band parametric equaliser. This gives you complete control over the tonal balance of the output signals, ensuring that you can make accurate mix decisions.
Please use headphones.
Below is a Samply playlist of Virtuoso binaural samples. For streaming quality, you can select between 48kHz/24bits Lossless (recommended) and Adaptive in the Audio Controls at the bottom of the player, depending on your internet bandwidth.
Authorisation Method
PACE iLok (dongle gen. 2 or 3 or machine-base)
Formats
AAX
VST3
AU
Standalone macOS Application
Standalone Windows Application
Operating Systems
Apple macOS 10.14 through 12.6.2
Microsoft Windows 10 and 11
Mac Requirements
Apple M1, M2 and M3
Intel 64-bit CPU with SSE3 (minimum Core i5 at 2 GHz)
– We recommend using a Mac from at least 2019. Core 2 Duo is not supported.
PC Requirements
Intel 64-bit or compatible CPU with SSE3 instruction set (minimum Core i5 at 2 GHz)
– We recommend using a PC from at least 2016.
Memory
4 GB minimum, 8 GB recommended.
DAW
We tested on the following DAWS:
Pro Tools 2023.3
Reaper 7
Logic Pro 10.7
Nuendo 12
Cubase 12
Studio One 6
Pyramix 14
Sequoia Pro 16
Samplitude Pro X7
Audition CC
Ableton Live 12
* JRiver is currently not supported.
Sample Rates
44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192 kHz
This video demonstrates how to use APL VIRTUOSO to binaurally monitor 7.1.4 output from Dolby Atmos External Renderer. Use headphones for a binaural demo at the end.
Sam Hocking explores Atmos 9.1.6 playback using VIRTUOSO alongside the Supperware headtracker within a VR desktop setup. Achieving an ambiance level that matches the virtual cinema acoustics delivers a highly realistic and impactful externalisation.
Michael G Wagner introduces new features of Virtuoso v1.1.0 and demonstrates Dolby Atmos Renderer (7.1.4) + VIRTUOSO (binaural) + Bridgehead (Headtracking) on Windows via Dante VIA (ASIO).
The legendary mastering engineer and author Bob Katz gave a talk and demo on Binaural Translation of Immersive Music using Virtuoso on February 7th, 2023, as part of AES San Francisco’s Audio Education Series.
Dr Michael G Wagner of Drexel University thinks that VIRTUOSO and Bridgehead headtracker are a killer combination for delivering a truly immersive binaural listening experience.
Click below to read.
I thought I was listening to my speakers! Virtuoso fooled me. Amazing recreation. We finally have a convincing tool for binaural translation…I absolutely recommend Virtuoso for mixing engineers who do not have a good listening room.
APL’s Virtuoso Binaural Renderer is simply astounding. I was able to arrive at settings where listening over headphones in my studio is eerily similar to listening over my immersive speaker layout. Virtuoso gives me confidence that I can make decisions on headphones and not be disappointed when I get back to my studio.
Virtuoso has been absolutely invaluable to me mixing my last batch of EPs for Dolby Atmos. I don’t have an Atmos setup, so I used Virtuoso for monitoring while I was creating the mix on my home setup, then checked the final tweaks mixes on a friend’s setup. I actually changed very little from the Virtuoso mixes.
Virtuoso is the best binaural monitoring tool I’ve used. The records that I have mixed using Virtuoso have translated exceptionally well to speakers and radio, while the score I mixed translated flawlessly to the dub stage.
Virtuoso is an unprecedented solution to the challenge of finding reliable, accurate software-based binaural monitoring for working on spatial mixes when away from the studio. APL have made it very straightforward to model a familiar space or experiment with new environments. Highly recommended.
We used APL Virtuoso for approval playbacks on Halo Season 2. We found Virtuoso to have the most convincing immersive/spatial rendering of any plugins we had tested. You truly feel as though the sound is moving around you.
Virtuoso is the most realistic binaural renderer I have used and I am happy to have found a reliable tool I can turn to that accurately translates immersive room environments over headphones. I recommend every engineer include it as part of their immersive mixing workflow.
Virtuoso is phenomenal. The imaging of multichannel mixes on headphones is truly immersive. The translation of Atmos on headphones literally had me check that the monitors weren’t on a few times. I also used it in conjunction with some delays and verbs to create textures and atmospheres that turned out great. I love it.
Never before have I heard such amazing binaural detail from behind and above. I was blown away by how moving an object around my head was translating binaurally on headphones. Mixing through Virtuoso really does give the impression of mixing through speakers in a room.
As a mastering engineer I have found Virtuoso invaluable in allowing me to recreate the conditions in my control room when I am on the move. The accuracy with which Virtuoso replicates my room is uncanny – on several occasions I have been fooled into thinking I had left my monitors on. All my listening on headphones goes through Virtuoso now.
Virtuoso is the first binaural monitoring tool that I found to reproduce the nuances and immersive sensory fields of high-resolution audio masters I produced. I wholeheartedly welcome the release of Virtuoso.
Virtuoso produces a convincing and trustworthy binaural 3D sound experience, empowering the artist to continue working on their spatial audio materials outside the studio. The many virtual space parameters also allow creative exploration of binaural mastering to bring forth qualities in the source.
Virtuoso is a top class binauralizer! I’m very impressed by the degree of externalization and the naturalness of the virtual room sound. Virtuoso makes my recordings sound like convincing dummy head recordings – that’s very impressive!
Virtuoso is a game changer for my binaural adventures. Finally I have a reliable immersive monitoring setup to go, and all I have to think about is making music for it.
Virtuoso is the first binaural software I used which replicates speaker monitoring close to a real speaker setup. It’s not only very accurate in terms of localization and frequency response, but also very musical-sounding.
Virtuoso provides an unprecedented level of accuracy in spatialisation while preserving the naturalness and integrity of the source. It’s an integral part of my immersive audio workflow.
What a special binaural experience! I had to take off my headphones and make sure the speakers were off. With Virtuoso, I can see myself genuinely being able to create music in spatial audio with accuracy and confidence.
Finally, a binauralizer that I can trust! With Virtuoso, I feel more confident in my mixing of immersive audio using headphones. I am impressed by its ability to create enveloping and externalised sounds without compromising the punch and clarity.
The user manual can be accessed by clicking the i button in the top right corner of the plugin/app.
Or click here to download the user manual.
The list of loudspeaker layouts currently supported by Virtuoso can be accessed by clicking the i button in the top right corner of the plugin/app.
Or click here to download the list of loudspeaker layouts.
Click here to find answers to frequently asked questions.
If you have any questions, please email us at support@apl-hud.com
If you found a bug, please report it here.
