Spatial Mapper

Semantic type: SpatialMapper · Category: spatial

Separates direct, diffuse, and residual sound and routes each component across a multichannel bus.

Contract

• Seeded: no
• Catalog sample rates: not declared; this does not mean unsupported
• Assets: none
• Catalog-declared latency: sampleRateDependent; depends on sampleRate

EffeTune app documentation

The following section is reproduced from the English EffeTune app documentation. Its parameter names and values describe the app UI and can differ from semantic API parameters through transforms or value maps. The generated contract above is authoritative.

Spatial Mapper

Spatial Mapper analyzes how the input channels relate across frequency bands, continuously separates the sound into Direct, Diffuse, and Residual components, and routes each component across the current channel bus. Use it to keep focused sound toward the front, move ambience toward surround or height channels, extract center or ambience content, or reshape stereo width. The default Transparent preset keeps the original channel placement.

The three components have different roles. Direct contains the dominant coherent sound in each band. Diffuse contains less coherent, distributed sound. Residual keeps content that is not assigned fully to either component. The split is gradual, so changing the controls does not hard-switch sounds between routes.

Spatial Mapper adds frequency-analysis latency. EffeTune includes this in the Total Delay display. Keep that delay in mind for real-time monitoring and audio/video synchronization.

System Presets

Click Effect Presets in the effect header to choose a complete starting configuration.

• Transparent - Keeps the original channel placement and is the default.
• Stereo Enhance - Widens a stereo input through the Residual route while retaining focused and diffuse placement.
• Center Extract - Sends the Direct component toward channel 3. Use a bus with at least three channels.
• 5.1 Upmix - Maps stereo to L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs order. It leaves LFE empty and requires at least six bus channels.
• 7.1.4 Upmix - Maps stereo to L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lb, Rb, Ltf, Rtf, Ltb, Rtb order. It leaves LFE empty and requires at least twelve bus channels.
• Ambience Extract - Keeps the Diffuse component and suppresses the Direct and Residual components.

Reading and Editing the Routing Grid

Under Component Routing, choose the Direct, Diffuse, or Residual tab. Columns are analyzed input channels and rows are output bus channels. Use the small slider or number field in each cell to set a linear gain from -1.00 to +1.00 in 0.01 steps: 0 makes no connection, +1.00 sends the component at full positive polarity, and a negative value sends it with inverted polarity. Negative values appear in red. Values between these points set a proportionally lower level.

A routed output row replaces that bus channel with the mapped result. An output channel within the Input Channels range becomes silent when no component is routed to its row. Channels outside Input Channels pass through with matching delay when no component writes to them.

Listening Enhancement Guide

1. Widen stereo without moving focused sound as strongly
   • Start with Stereo Enhance.
   • Lower Directness or Diffuse Extraction only if more material needs to remain in Residual for the widening route.
   • Compare with Transparent, and reduce the change if center images become weak or mono playback loses too much content.
2. Build a center channel from stereo
   • Use a bus with at least three channels and choose Center Extract.
   • Raise Directness and Separation to concentrate more coherent content in Direct.
   • Check that vocals and other centered material remain stable while wide ambience stays mainly in left and right.
3. Expand stereo across surround or height channels
   • Set the bus to the channel order shown above, then choose 5.1 Upmix or 7.1.4 Upmix.
   • Adjust Diffuse Extraction to control how much distributed content reaches the surround and height routes.
   • The preset does not generate an LFE signal; add bass management separately when needed.
4. Isolate ambience
   • Start with Ambience Extract.
   • Raise Diffuse Extraction for a stronger diffuse selection, and use Phase Sensitivity to decide how strongly opposing channel phase reduces Direct classification.

Parameters

• Input Channels (1 to 16): Sets how many channels from the start of the bus are analyzed. If the bus has fewer channels, Spatial Mapper uses the available channels.
• Analysis Bands (8, 16, 24, 32, or 48): Sets the frequency resolution of the spatial analysis. More bands follow frequency-dependent placement more closely but require more processing. The default is 24.
• Directness (0% to 100%): Controls how much dominant coherent content is assigned to Direct. Higher values make the Direct extraction stronger.
• Separation (0% to 100%): Controls how selectively content is assigned to Direct and Diffuse. Higher values leave more ambiguous content in Residual, increasing the contrast among routes.
• Diffuse Extraction (0% to 100%): Controls how much low-coherence content is assigned to Diffuse. Higher values send more distributed ambience into the Diffuse route.
• Phase Sensitivity (0% to 100%): Controls how strongly channel phase opposition reduces Direct classification. Lower values treat coherent opposite-polarity content more like other coherent sound; higher values leave more of it outside Direct. This control does not automatically designate opposite-phase sound as rear content.
• Temporal Smoothing (0% to 100%, Fast to Stable): Controls how quickly the analysis and routing follow changes. Lower values react faster; higher values reduce image movement and pumping but respond more slowly.
• Energy Preservation (Off/On): Normalizes Direct, Diffuse, and Residual routing separately to avoid unintended level changes from the routing matrices. Turn it off when the matrix gain itself should change component level.
• Component Routing / Direct: Selects the Direct grid and sets its output gains.
• Component Routing / Diffuse: Selects the Diffuse grid and sets its output gains.
• Component Routing / Residual: Selects the Residual grid and sets its output gains.

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