miniDSP AMBIMIK-1 Ambisonic Microphone User Manual

: June 5, 2024
: MiniDSP

Table of Contents

miniDSP AMBIMIK-1 Ambisonic Microphone
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
PRODUCT OVERVIEW
INSTALLATION
USING THE AMBIMIK-1
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Download This Manual (PDF format)

miniDSP AMBIMIK-1 Ambisonic Microphone

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Please read the following information before use. In case of any questions, please contact miniDSP via the support portal at support.minidsp.com.
System Requirements – Windows

1GHz or higher processor clock speed recommended / Intel® Pentium®/Celeron® family, or AMD K6®/AMD Athlon®/AMD Duron® family, or compatible processor recommended.
512 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended
One free USB 2.0 port
Microsoft Windows® Win7/Win8/Win10

System Requirements – Mac OS X / macOS

Intel Core Duo processor or greater
256 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended
One free USB 2.0 port
OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or later, macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later

Disclaimer/Warning
miniDSP cannot be held responsible for any damage that may result from the improper use or incorrect configuration of this product. Please read this manual carefully to ensure that you fully understand how to operate and use this product, as incorrect use or use beyond the parameters and ways recommended in this manual have the potential to cause damage to your audio system.
Please also note that many of the questions we receive at the technical support department are already answered in this User Manual and in the online application notes on the miniDSP.com website. So please take the time to carefully read this user manual and the online technical documentation. Thank you for your understanding!

Warranty Terms
miniDSP Ltd warrants this product to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one year from the invoice date. Our warranty does not cover failure of the product due to incorrect connection or installation, improper or undocumented use, unauthorized servicing, modification or alteration of the unit in any way, or any usage outside of that recommended in this manual. If in doubt, contact miniDSP prior to use.

FCC Class B Statement
This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:

This device may not cause harmful interference.
This device must accept any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired operation.

Warning: This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:

Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected.
Consult the dealer or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.

Notice: Shielded interface cable must be used in order to comply with emission limits.
Notice: Changes or modification not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the user’s authority to operate the equipment.
CE Mark Statement
The ambiMIK-1 has passed the test performed according to European Standard EN 55022 Class B.

A Note on this Manual
This User Manual is designed for reading in both print and on the computer. If printing the manual, please print double-sided. The embedded page size is 8 ½” x 11”. Printing on A4 paper will result in a slightly reduced size. For reading on the computer, we have included hyperlinked cross-references throughout the manual. In addition, a table of contents is embedded in the PDF file. Displaying this table of contents will make navigation much easier:

In Adobe Reader on Windows, click on the “bookmarks” icon at the left. The table of contents will appear on the left and can be unfolded at each level by clicking on the “+” icons.
In Preview on the Mac, click on the View menu and select Table of Contents. The table of contents will appear on the left and can be unfolded at each level by clicking on the triangle icons.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Thank you for purchasing a miniDSP ambiMIK-1 ambisonic microphone. The ambiMIK-1 packages four low-noise 14 mm cardioid microphone capsules with preamps and A/D convertors. Sample rates from 44.1 to 192 kHz are supported. The analog gain of the preamp (prior to A/D conversion) is settable in software, with up to 69 dB of gain available. The ambiMIK-1 is accompanied by a VST decoder plugin from Dirac Research that leverages their extensive experience in 3D audio. It is specifically calibrated for the ambiMIK-1 from over 1200 measurements and includes yaw, pitch, roll and output gain controls. Output formats are 4-channel B-format or stereo binaural. With its slim aluminum body, nylon protective frame, and single USB connection to your computer with no need for additional electronics (e.g. preamp/ADC), the ambiMIK-1 has many applications in portable ambient, VR and music recording.

INSTALLATION

For use with Windows, the miniDSP ASIO driver must be installed. For both Windows and macOS, you will need to install the ambiMIK decoder plugin.

DOWNLOAD

If you purchased your product directly from miniDSP, your software will be available from the User Downloads section of the miniDSP website when your order ships. You will need to be logged into the website with the account you created when purchasing to access the download. If you purchased your product from a miniDSP dealer, you will receive a coupon together with the product. Redeem this coupon and select the Plugin Group “ambiMIK-1” at the link below:

https://www.minidsp.com/support/redeem-coupon
The User Downloads link is visible from the dropdown menu at the top right of the website page:
Navigate to the UMIK Series / AmbiMIK Series section, click on UMIK-2, then click on the download link at the right. Unzip the downloaded file: on Windows, right-click and select “Extract All…”; on Mac, double-click.

USB DRIVER INSTALLATION (WINDOWS ONLY)

The USB driver enables Windows to stream audio from the ambiMIK-1. In addition, it installs a control panel to help manage the ambiMIK-1.
To install the driver, go to the Win Drivers folder of the installation download and double-click on the installer:

miniDSP_UAC2_v4.82.0_2020-06-09_setup.exe
(The version number embedded in the filename may be different.) We recommend accepting the default installation location. Once the driver installation completes, click the Finish button.

MINIDSP-MIK-1 APP INSTALLATION

The download includes a simple app for setting the analog gain of the preamps in the ambiMIK-1.
MacOS

Navigate to the Plugins folder of the software download and then to the Mac folder.
The installer is named miniDSP-MIK.pkg. To run it, double-click on it, or right-click and open as described above. We recommend that you accept the default installation settings.
To run the plugin, locate it in the Applications -> miniDSP folder and double-click on it. To make it easier to run in future, right-click on its dock icon and select Options -> Keep in Dock.

Windows

Navigate to the Plugins folder of the software download and then to the Windows folder.
Double-click on the plugin installer to run it. It will be named miniDSP-MIK.exe. We recommend that you accept the default installation settings.

USING THE AMBIMIK-1

The ambiMIK-1 is provided with a VST plugin for Windows and macOS. The plugin decodes the raw four-channel data into either four-channel B-format or two- channel binaural. The two-channel binaural format can be directly monitored with headphones. The VST plugin is installed in a digital audio workstation (“DAW”) program. There is therefore a high amount of flexibility in how you process and record ambisonic audio. This section will give some specific setup examples using the Reaper DAW.

SETTING ANALOG GAIN

Run the miniDSP-MIK app:

Click on the Connect button. The Connect icon will change to a green check- mark. Adjust the analog gain with the slider or by typing in the desired value and pressing Return.

INSTALL THE VST PLUGIN

Follow the Reaper instructions for installing the plugin. This will depend on your platform.
MacOS
Unzip the plugin download and view it in the Finder. It will look like this:

Open the folder Library/Audio/Plug-ins in the Finder:

Hold the Option key and click on the Go menu at the top of the screen.
Select the Library menu entry.
In the Library window in the Finder, navigate to Audio then Plug-Ins.

Then copy the file miniDSP ambiMIK-1.vst to the folder VST and the file miniDSP ambiMIK-1.component to the folder Components.
In Reaper, open Preferences from the Options menu, then go to Plugins->VST. Click on the Clear cache/re-scan button.
Windows
Reaper on Windows doesn’t use a standard installation folder for VST plugins.

If you are already using plugins, copy the plugin files to that location.
Otherwise, you can create a folder for the plugin. A good location is in Documents\MiniDSP.
- 1. Navigate to Documents\MiniDSP and create a new folder named VST.
- 2. Copy the files miniDSP ambiMIK-1 x64.dll and miniDSP ambiMIK-1 x86.dll to that folder.
- 3. Open Preferences from the Options menu and click on VST in the sidebar. Click on Edit… then Add… and select the new folder.
- 4. Click on Clear cache/re-scan.

CREATE THE AUDIO DEVICE

Reaper needs a single audio device for both input and output. The ambiMIK-1 is input only, so it needs to be combined with an output device.
MacOS

Open Audio MIDI Setup. You will see ambiMIK in the left sidebar.
Click on the + icon at lower left and create an aggregate device.
Click on the name “Aggregate Device.” It should change to a text entry box. Type a new name for it. We used “ambiMIK-IO”:
Check the box for ambiMIK, then for the output device. In this example we are using headphones connected to the Mac for monitoring:
Open Reaper preferences and go to Audio->Device. Select ambiMIK-IO then click OK.

Windows

If you don’t have ASIO4ALL installed on your computer, download it from https://www.asio4all.org and install it.
In Reaper Preferences, go to Audio->Devices. For Audio, select ASIO, and for the driver, select ASIO4ALL v2.
Click on the button ASIO Configuration… Click on the spanner/wrench icon at lower right to enable advanced options. Click next to “ambiMIK” to enable it as shown in the screenshot below. Also enable the output device that you want to use. In this example we have enabled the ambiMIK-1 and PC headphone output:
In Reaper Preferences under Audio->Device, check “Enable inputs” and select the input and output channels:

SET UP THE PROJECT

In Reaper, create a new project.

Set up the input track

Insert a new track (press Command-T). Double-click in the track name area (initially blank) and enter “ambiMIK-1 input”:
On the vertical channel strip, click on the Route button. Set the number of channels to 4, and turn off Master send:
Click on the Record Arm/Disarm button:
Click on the input dropdown and select Record: disable:
Click on the output dropdown and select the 4-channel ambiMIK:

Set up the decoder track

Insert a second track (Command-T). Double-click in the track name area and enter “Decoder”:
On the vertical channel strip for track 2, click on the Route button. Click on the “Add new receive…” button and select “ambiMIK-1 input”.
Drop down the menu for “Audio” and select Multichannel source -> 4 channels -> 1-4. Leave Master send enabled.
On track 2, click on the FX button. Select VST in the left sidebar and then the ambiMIK-1 plugin in the main window. On Mac, it looks like this:
On Windows, it looks like this:
Click OK. The result is:
Close the plugin window and press the Record Arm/Disarm button. Click on the dropdown labeled “In” and select “Record: output (stereo)”:
Making a sound near the ambiMIK-1 will show the meters operating. Check that track 1 shows four channels on the meters and track 2 shows two channels.

RECORDING AND PLAYING BACK BINAURAL AUDIO

Press the Record button.
Sounds will be decoded from the ambiMIK-1 and can be monitored from the main out. Press Record again to stop recording.
- To play back the recorded binaural track, return the cursor to the start and press the Play button.
- To save the recorded binaural audio to a file, drop down the File menu and select Render… .

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

SPECIFICATIONS

USB Audio Controller: XMOS 500MHz multicore processor
ADC: 32bit ADC with embedded PGA for up to 60dB analog gain 120dB SNR, Gain control via Mac/Win application
Capsules: 4 x Low noise cardioid capsules, 14mm pre-polarized condenser Max SPL: 127dB SPL Self Noise: 16dB SPL A format layout: Ch1 – Front Left Up (FLU), Ch2 – Front Right Down (FRD), Ch3 – Back Left down (BLD), Ch4 – Back Right Up (BRU)
Connectivity: USB 2.0 streaming 32bit / Selectable sample rate 44.1kHz to 192kHz
Software: VST plugin (Mac/Win) Powered by Dirac Research Uniquely calibrated for ambiMIK-1 Selectable output: B format or Binaural Controls: Output gain, Yaw, Pitch, Roll
USB Audio: Linux/macOS/Android Driverless ASIO compatible driver for Windows iOS support with USB camera adaptor
Accessories: 1 x mini tripod with microphone clamp 1 x windjammer 1 x USB 2m long USB cable
Dimensions (W x D), weight: 42 x 213 mm, 130g
Construction: Aluminum body with plastic microphone holder

OBTAINING SUPPORT

Check the forums on miniDSP.com to see if this issue has already been raised and a solution or solutions provided.
Contact miniDSP via the support portal at support.minidsp.com with:
The product information.
A clear explanation of the symptoms you are seeing.
A description of the troubleshooting steps you performed and the results obtained.

LICENSING
The plugin uses one open-source library (https://github.com/polarch /Spherical-Harmonic-Transform). Copyright (c) 2015, Archontis Politis. All rights reserved.
miniDSP Ltd, Hong Kong / www.minidsp.com / Features and specifications subject to change without prior notice