Introduction to Audio for VR
Are you interested in how spatialised audio works with VR for games and installations?
This one-day hands-on course will introduce you to how to record spatially to produce audio suitable for use with VR, and will demonstrate how it can be used with 360 visual environments.
The course will be led by Natalia Mamcarczyk, a sound artist and audio engineer specialising in immersive, multichannel and binaural audio installations and supported by sound composer and artist Nik Rawlings.
In the morning you will record audio and in the afternoon you will upload and listen back to your recordings and be introduced to how audio can be implemented in VR environments.
You will learn:
How to record audio for immersive audiovisual spaces, to be experienced on Head Mounted Displays (VR Headsets).
Gain an understanding of processes to create visually and sonically immersive scenes.
Understand head-tracking and principles for head mounted displays (VR).
Understand Ambisonic 3D scenes alongside Headlocked (stereo) mixes in VR.
This is an introductory course so no previous experience needed.
This workshop is fully subsided for Residents of The Studio in Bath with a discount code (please contact k.baillie-Lane@bathspa.ac.uk or r.pownall@bathspa.ac.uk for details).
Non Resident tickets are available on a pay what you can basis.
Accessibility at The Studio:
We seek to make all our events accessible. - All areas of the event are wheelchair accessible. The event space is through 2 doors from the street, with no steps. - There are accessible toilet facilities available on the same floor as the main event, through one door. - We provide a separate quiet room for delegates to use throughout the event. - Parking is available in a car park near to the venue. Charlotte Street Car Park is the closest. - You are welcome to bring a personal assistant or service animal. - There is currently no hearing loop at The Studio. All presentations will be delivered without PA. Please reach out to us if you have hearing or audio requirements. - You will be able to inform us of any specific access needs in the booking form for the event.
What3Words: listed.shapes.herbs
Introduction to Creating Spatial Sound for Performance
This one day workshop at The Studio introduces musicians and performers to spatial sound for performance and installation works. It will be hands on course with an opportunity to share work with other attendees on a speaker array at the end of the day.
The course is led by spatial sound composer and artist Nik Rawlingsand assisted by immersive sound artist and audio engineer Natalia Mamcarcyzk.
During the day you will be introduced to Envelope for Live spatial plugs ins for Ableton and look at first steps to creativing spatial narratives, sound clusters, sequences and phases. You will explore different types of spatialised audio comparing ambisonics, multichannel diffusion and binaural.
This workshop is fully subsidised for Residents of The Studio in Bath with a discount code. Non-Residents tickets are available on a pay what you can basis.
SXSW London: Crack x MyWorld Spatial Audio Evening
MyWorld, in partnership with the Immersive Audio Network, will bring a showcase of spatial audio performances from leading music artists connected to the West of England to SXSW London, highlighting the region’s growing reputation for creative innovation in spatial music and immersive audio technologies.
The showcase is at Christ Church (The Nave) Spitalfields in London. It is curated by Crack Magazine and MyWorld, will feature four artists and musicians with ties to Bristol, Bath, and the wider West of England, including Adrian Utley, guitarist and sonic architect for Portishead, who will present Flow, a 360° spatial composition created with Flow’s producer, Grammy Award-winning engineer Hans-Martin Buff, recorded at the world-renowned Real World Studios in Wiltshire. Speaking about the project, Adrian commented, “I think creating Flow has changed how I feel about making music.”
Flow will also be livestreamed to MIT’s Spatial Sound Lab in Boston, in a world-first immersive audio experience for collective listening. The livestream will explore the possibilities of spatial audio reproduction, transmitting channels from a d&b Soundscape system in London to a matching Soundscape at MIT, recreating the presentation in real-time.
Taking place as part of SXSW London’s programme exploring the future of music, media and technology, the event will demonstrate how artists are using spatial audio to create more immersive listening experiences and push the boundaries of live performance.
The showcase will also feature Charlie Hooper-Williams, pianist and developer, who will present his vividly beautiful piano music, using his custom software system to drive dynamic lighting responses for each piece. Emika, Immersive Audio Network’s sound artist-in-residence and Bath Spa University graduate, will perform a solo spatial piano piece. A pioneer in spatial music, Emika has been praised by artists including Thom Yorke and The Weeknd. Finally, Sega Bodega will present an immersive set merging electronic music with visual storytelling and intimate live performance design.
Check out the full SXSW London Schedule 2026 here.
Ghost Orchid
A special presentation of Ghost Orchid - an immersive audio production specially for the Bath Digital Festival.
24 spaces available for each session.
Features a Q&A session after each presentation.
Please note that the timings are to be confirmed.
Introduction to Underwater Recording
Develop sound recording skills, explore underwater sounds and gain hands-on experience with specialist microphones.
Explore underwater sounds and other hidden sound worlds with interdisciplinary artist Kathy Hinde in this one-day Introduction to Underwater Recording course. You’ll be introduced to recording techniques using a range of specialist microphones such as hydrophones, geophones and adapted contact microphones to access sounds that are usually inaccessible to the human ear.
In the morning, you'll go outside for a listening walk. You'll then explore and record using a range of different specialist microphones including hydrophones, contact microphones and geophones.
In the afternoon, you'll listen back to your recordings and listen to recordings from other artists for inspiration. You'll also critically reflect upon and contextualise how field recording sits between sound art and eco-acoustics and explore how to further develop your creative practice.
Immersive Audio Network Festival
Location: Bath Spa University, Newton Park Campus, Commons Building,, Bath, BA2 9BN
Date: Wednesday 28th January 2026
Please join us for an action-packed festival programme of talks, practical workshops, opportunities to gain technical advice on your creative projects and collective listening events.
Professionals leading our festival workshops include multi Grammy award-winning mixing engineer and record producer Andrew Scheps.
Ticket prices:
£20 per festival pass giving you access to all festival activities
£10 discounted student festival pass
Tickets available here.
We have a limited number of free tickets for those experiencing financial barriers. No questions asked.
Ticket assistance is available on a first-come basis for those who need it. To enquire, please contact: r.farrar@bathspa.ac.uk
Beyond Stereo: Immersive Music Making
Join us for our event at BTF+ The Bristol Festival of Tech, Creativity & Culture.
Date: Monday 6th October 2025
Location: Unit 11, Temple Studios, Bristol BS1 6QA
Tickets: Register for a free BTF+ festival pass via https://techspark.co/btfplus/btfplus-tickets-registration/ and then you can book individual sessions via the festival's app for this free event.
Explore how spatial audio technologies like Dolby Atmos and ambisonics are transforming how we create and consume music. Join us for a lively discussion with Grammy award winner for 'Best Immersive Audio Album' Hans Martin-Buff, Dr Ruth Farrar, founder of the Immersive Audio Network, Natalia Mamcarczyk, sound artist and spatial audio specialist, Jake Spurgeon, a composer, sound designer and mixer and Jan Meinema, a Sound Designer, Supervising Sound Editor, and Re-recording Engineer. We will delve behind-the-scenes sharing insights on immersive music making including Flow - a 360° composition by Adrian Utley from the band Portishead. Flow is a 30-minute immersive journey in sound: an orchestra of guitars, voices, four double basses, electronic oscillators, and field recordings from Iceland. We will also share lessons gained from an Experimental Audio Camp helping artists embrace the creative possibilities of 3D sound composition to envelop listeners in music.
The Experimental Audio Camp and Flow were created at the world-renowned Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire. Funded by MyWorld. Flow was also supported by Digital Catapult and Bath Spa University. The Experimental Audio Camp was co-produced with the Watershed and Real World Studios.
Immersive Audio Lab @ Bath Digital Festival
The Immersive Audio Network presents a programme of immersive audio installations, sound artist Q & As, a panel and demos all played back on the network’s Mobile Immersive Audio Lab of 25 Genelec speakers and 3 subwoofers. The Mobile Immersive Audio Lab is based on the ground floor at No 1 Bath Quays on 15th May for Bath Digital Festival 2025.
COLLECTIVE LISTENING EVENT
Please join us for an evening of immersive collective listening via our Mobile Immersive Audio Lab from 6pm to 8pm on Wednesday 25th September 2024.
We are keen for our Immersive Audio Network members to use our Mobile Immersive Audio Lab: an excellent new resource for the region. Its maiden voyage successfully exhibited an IAN sound artist residency-funded project Unravelling / Desenredando to over 300 people across two days at Arnolfini.
On 25th September in a great large TV Studio in Bath, treat your ears to our curated programme of immersive audio and music content so you can hear for yourselves this new set-up of 25 Genelec speakers and three subwoofers.
We would love to showcase IAN members' creative work as part of this event. Have you created original immersive audio and music that you want us to include in our listening event's programme? If yes, please email Dr Ruth Farrar directly sharing details about your project and ambisonics mix track length. Email r.farrar@bathspa.ac.uk
This listening event is in an accessible venue and is free to attend. Though signing up for a ticket is required so we can ensure our drinks reception is plentiful for everyone attending.
Sign up to attend here.
Image: Exhibition of Unravelling / Desenredando a multichannel bilingual sound installation (Spanish and English) using the Mobile Immersive Audio Lab in March 2024. Image credit: Ximena Alarcón-Díaz and Ulf A.S. Holbrook.
Unravelling / Desenredando - immersive sound art installation at Arnolfini, Bristol
For the next Immersive Audio Network meet-up we’re delighted to invite you to a private event to experience the world premiere of Unravelling / Desenredando by network members Ximena Alarcón-Díaz and Ulf A. S. Holbrook - developed in part through the first IAN Sound Artist Residency in 2023.
Arrivals: 6.15pm (please arrive in time to enter the installation at 6.30pm for the full experience)
Artists talk and Q&A - followed by celebratory drinks and networking: 7.30pm
Gallery closes: 10pm
‘Unravelling / Desenredando: Immersive listening to Colombian women’s voices’ is a surround-sound bilingual installation (Spanish and English) featuring the voices of nine Colombian women from varied backgrounds, listening to and resonating with each others’ stories of their migratory journeys to Europe. Improvising in trios, they weave a multilayered sonic memory of intense and intimate listening, while sounding their experiences of how migration and conflict are heard through their bodies: their social spaces of interaction, the memory of conflict in their native land, and the challenges met in the countries where they now live.
The installation invites audiences to be immersed in these women’s individual experiences and find resonances in the overlaps and synchronicities, as they might also meet across universal narratives between gender, conflict and migration.
Immersive Audio Network members are invited to join this event at 6.15pm on Saturday 2nd March to experience the work in full.
This will be followed at 7.30pm by short talks and a Q&A session with the artists - followed by an invitation to Immersive Audio Network members to join the artists, funders and stakeholders for an informal celebratory gathering. Drinks and refreshments will be provided. The gallery closes at 10pm.
Immersive Audio Network meet-up @ dBs Institute
Thanks to the team at dBs Institute in Bristol who will host us for the next Immersive Audio Network meet-up on Thursday 2nd November 2023, 6-9pm.
They’ll be opening up their industry-leading facilities, including:
· An intro to Dolby Atmos - showcasing works created for their new Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 studio – with a short introduction to this new technology
· Spatial audio experiences – examples of work made for the multi-speaker array in their spatial audio lab
· Short talks on sound design for games and installations
· Networking drinks – tours will be followed by a chance to meet fellow network members as well as the dBs team and students
Immersive Audio Network Meet Up
Join us on 22nd June from 6 to 8pm for an Immersive Audio Network meet up at The Studio.
Gain insights about two immersive audio projects, listen to a creative immersive audio headphones prototype and get to know more sound artists, practitioners and researchers in a friendly environment. Immersive Audio Network members and non-members all warmly welcome. Complimentary refreshments will be provided.
Two projects you will learn about include:
- Unravelling by Ximena Alarcón, a Sonic Migrations Artist, working in collaboration with Oslo-based composer and spatial audio researcher Ulf A. S. Holbrook who were awarded our funded Immersive Audio Network Sound Artist Residency and
- Sound/Sense: a project led by Joseph Hyde, an Immersive Audio Network member and Emeritus Professor at Bath Spa University who is curious to explore 'feeling' sound and music
Hope you can join us. Free tickets are available here.
Image Credit:
Unravelling_ValledeCocora_Colombia_byRonHerrema
Introduction to Immersive Audio Short Course
Discover immersive audio techniques using binaural and ambisonic technologies.
Curious to explore something new in your career so you can offer immersive binaural and ambisonic options to your industry clients and your creative projects?
Immersive Audio Network Launch
The Immersive Audio Network Launch will take place on Wednesday 8th February at The Studio in central Bath from 6pm to 8pm.