Spatial Audio Monitoring in Logic Pro for Mac
You can use the Spatial Audio Monitoring plug-in to check your surround mix in the Apple Renderer binaural formats or on built-in computer speakers that support spatial audio.
Note: To use the Spatial Audio Monitoring plug-in, you must have macOS Monterey 12.3 or later installed. The Apple Renderer (Head Tracking) monitoring format requires a Mac with Apple silicon.
To insert the plug-in, click the Audio Effect slot in the surround master channel strip, then choose Imaging > Spatial Audio Monitoring from the plug-in pop-up menu. If you have other plug-ins on the surround master channel, insert the Spatial Audio Monitoring plug-in in the last empty Audio Effect slot.
Choose one of the following formats from the Monitoring Format pop-up menu:
Monitoring Format pop-up menu: Select an option to monitor your surround mix in a binaural format on headphones or on built-in computer speakers that support spatial audio.
Apple Renderer (Standard Spatial Audio Profile): This is the headphone virtualization used by Apple Music to render a binaural spatial audio mix for playback on headphones.
Apple Renderer (Personalized Spatial Audio Profile): This headphone virtualization uses Personalized Spatial Audio to optimize the immersive sound experience on headphones.
To use this option, you must first create a Personalized Spatial Audio profile on your iPhone (iOS 16 or later with a TrueDepth camera). After that, when you sign in with your Apple Account on any Mac (macOS Ventura or later), Personalized Spatial Audio is automatically turned on.
Apple Renderer (Head Tracking, Standard Spatial Audio Profile): Used by Apple Music to render a binaural spatial audio mix for playback on Apple headphones that support head tracking. This format is only available when head tracking–capable headphones or earbuds are selected as the output device. Head tracking is turned off when bouncing with this format.
The Bluetooth enabled headphones or earbuds transmit any movement of your head to the renderer, which updates the three-dimensional sound field in real time, so any signal, regardless of the wearer’s head movement, remains in its virtual location when listened to over headphones.
Apple Renderer (Head Tracking, Personalized Spatial Audio Profile): This option uses the Apple Renderer algorithm with head tracking enabled and is optimized with Personalized Spatial Audio.
Renderer for Built-in Speakers: This format is available only if you use Logic Pro on a computer that supports Spatial Audio playback on internal speakers, and the speakers are selected as the output device in Logic Pro settings.