Make the chat roomier with the latest Discord Spatial Audio addition.
Now users can simulate a 3D space when in a voice channel.
But what does this spatial audio do and how does one turn it on?
Discord Spatial Audio
Firstly, this new Discord Spatial Audio is currently only available for Canary users. Also to add this only is for those using the Desktop client. So mobile Canary users will have to wait. Meanwhile mostly everyone using the main build will also have to wait a few.
But by hopping onto their website and downloading the test build you can setup these rooms.
They adding this 3D audio support for all voice channels. With tis you will be able to hear those in the same channel as if you were talking right next to each other.
Because what it does is simulate a 3D environment for the users of the channel. Within this space you can move your Icon and this will simulate the position according to you and the others. So, if a friend is to the left, he will sound like he is coming from the left.
This is different to the standard Mono audio setup. Monophic audio is where all sound is mixed into one channel and played the same form every speaker. Because of this there is no sense of direction or space just noise.
This is good if you just have one speaker. Although technically Discord uses Stereo which creates two channels being for left and right. Your voice is transmitted in just Mono and played out of Stereo being both ears at once.
However, with the new Discord Spatial Audio you can simulate a full 3d environment and go beyond Mono.
But of course, this in itself will come with some disadvantages especially when it comes to gaming.
Safe Space
Because most games have spatial audio having two bits of software playing at once can throw you off your game. Take CS2 for example which is all reliant on hearing the enemies’ footsteps and positioning.
But if you got a buddy on the left ear sounding like he is B site while there’s a guy on the right well… You can imagine how distracting that can get.
Although hopefully this will be a opt in and out feature and not turned on by default for voice channels.
The Discord Spatial Audio is nothing ground breaking but a fun addition to the program.
However, some fans have remarked disappointment to this feature update. Because instead of increasing the file size limit they have added this instead. Yeah, it would be funny to pretend to be in the same room on call. But having a bigger file size limit than 8MB means you can send and share more files via messaging.
Although this is still a problem with most file sharing and communication software today. Even outlook or Gmail caps your send limit to about 15MB . Even though this is fine for the odd PDF any high-res photo or video clip gets cut out.
But that is a rant for another day in the meanwhile look out for this new update.
