Spatial9 Academy: learn immersive audio, from first listen to research

Two tracks: start free, go graduate level

Start the free course · Explore Academy Advanced

Core course curriculum (free)

Learn immersive and spatial music for free: 24 lessons and hands-on labs for university students, including a feature-by-feature course on the Immersive Classroom, a $9/month student plan and academic partnerships.

Module 1: Foundations

How we hear in 3D, where immersive sound came from and the language of formats.

1. Lesson 1: How we hear in 3D (14 min)
2. Lesson 2: From mono to immersive (12 min)
3. Lesson 3: The language of formats (15 min)

Module 2: The Spatial9 approach

Our philosophy, our pipeline and how GravityLLM learns and generates a spatial scene.

1. Lesson 4: AI as a creative partner (12 min)
2. Lesson 5: Inside the pipeline (15 min)
3. Lesson 6: How GravityLLM learns (14 min)
4. Lesson 7: Generating a spatial scene (13 min)

Module 3: Inside the Immersive Classroom

Every tool in the classroom studio: the Sphere and 7.1.4, the console, movement, motion capture, 1,459 effects, Niner and delivery.

1. Lesson 8: Tour the Immersive Classroom (18 min)
2. Lab 9: Place sound on the Sphere and in 7.1.4 (25 min)
3. Lesson 10: Console, meters and clarity (16 min)
4. Lesson 11: Design movement with intent (16 min)
5. Lab 12: Record movement with your body (25 min)
6. Lesson 13: 1,459 effects, one rack (18 min)
7. Lesson 14: NASA sonification and MIT sound hacks (22 min)
8. Lab 15: Design effects with your voice (25 min)
9. Lesson 16: Learn with Niner, your AI tutor (14 min)
10. Lesson 17: Export, share and deliver (15 min)

Module 4: Hands-on labs

Guided training from critical listening to your first binaural export and sound for picture.

1. Lab 18: Critical listening in 3D (25 min)
2. Lab 19: Mix with hands and voice (25 min)
3. Lab 20: Your first immersive mix (35 min)
4. Lesson 21: Sound for picture (15 min)

Module 5: The open future

Open formats, what is coming next and where you fit in the industry of tomorrow.

1. Lesson 22: Open formats and mindset (12 min)
2. Lesson 23: What comes next (13 min)
3. Lesson 24: Your place in the industry (20 min)

Academy Advanced curriculum (paid, graduate level)

Paid graduate spatial audio course: sonification, audio AI, psychoacoustics, Hugging Face, Databricks, computer vision, HRTFs, XR, IAMF and research. Every lesson pairs a concept with code, a lab and the papers behind it. The opening of each lesson is public.

Module A: Sonification in 3D

Turn data into sound you can read, then use space itself as a data channel.

1. Lesson 1: Sonification Principles: Turning Data into Sound (30 min, 5 readings). A graduate guide to sonification: audification, parameter mapping, model-based methods, earcons, polarity, scaling, psychoacoustic limits and evaluation.
2. Lesson 2: Space as a Data Channel: Spatial Sonification Design (30 min, 5 readings). How to use azimuth, elevation and distance as data channels: localisation acuity, scene analysis, release from masking and object-based rendering of data streams.

Module B: Training your own audio AI

Audio tokens and neural codecs, then fine-tuning a language model that writes spatial scenes.

1. Lesson 3: Audio Tokens and Neural Codecs (30 min, 5 readings). How audio becomes tokens: VQ-VAE, residual vector quantization, SoundStream, EnCodec and DAC, semantic vs acoustic tokens, and why spatial audio is hard to tokenize.
2. Lesson 4: Fine-Tuning a Language Model for Spatial Scenes (30 min, 5 readings). Build a stems-to-scene model: dataset design with datasheets and consent, LoRA and QLoRA fine-tuning, DPO, constrained JSON decoding, and honest spatial evaluation.

Module C: Computer vision for spatial audio

Find what is sounding in a frame, then track it in depth so the sound moves with the picture.

1. Lesson 5: Audio-Visual Source Localization (45 min, 5 readings). How self-supervised audio-visual models find which pixels make a sound, from Look Listen and Learn to ImageBind, and where heatmaps fail for spatial mixing.
2. Lesson 6: Depth, Tracking and Moving Sound from Video (30 min, 5 readings). Turn video into moving audio objects: monocular depth, YOLO and SAM 2, SORT and ByteTrack tracking, Kalman smoothing and camera-to-listener geometry for spatial mixes.

Module D: Advanced acoustics and rendering

Personalized HRTFs, room simulation and higher-order Ambisonics.

1. Lesson 7: Personalized HRTFs: Measurement, Modelling and ML (30 min, 5 readings). Learn how HRTFs are measured, simulated, stored in SOFA and personalized with machine learning, and how to evaluate binaural rendering quality.
2. Lesson 8: Room Simulation and Higher-Order Ambisonics (30 min, 5 readings). Model rooms with image sources, ray tracing and feedback delay networks, then encode, decode and binauralize scenes with Higher-Order Ambisonics.

Module E: Real-time and interactive worlds

Six-degrees-of-freedom audio for VR and AR, and music that adapts to play and place.

1. Lesson 9: Six-Degrees-of-Freedom Audio for VR and AR (30 min, 5 readings). How to build convincing 6DoF audio for VR and AR: listener transforms, distance models, occlusion, diffraction, latency, Web Audio HRTF panning and room matching.
2. Lesson 10: Adaptive and Generative Music for Games and Installations (30 min, 5 readings). Design adaptive scores with resequencing, layering, stingers and state machines, then place music stems in space for games, XR and VBAP, DBAP or Ambisonics domes.

Module F: Applied frontiers

Spatial audio for accessibility and hearing, wildlife monitoring and lost historic spaces.

1. Lesson 11: Spatial Audio for Accessibility and Navigation (30 min, 5 readings). How spatial audio supports blind and low-vision navigation, accessible sonification, hearing aids, safe listening and group calls, with a Python beacon example.
2. Lesson 12: Bioacoustics and Acoustic Heritage (30 min, 5 readings). Passive acoustic monitoring, soundscape ecology, ACI and NDSI, BirdNET, wildlife arrays and Ambisonics, plus auralization of historic spaces such as Stonehenge.

Module G: Standards, agents and QC

Inside IAMF and ADM, and AI agents that check a deliverable before a human signs it off.

1. Lesson 13: Inside IAMF and ADM: Metadata, Profiles and Rendering (30 min, 5 readings). A deep dive into ADM (BS.2076), BW64 axml/chna chunks, Serial ADM, the BS.2127 renderer and IAMF OBUs, profiles and loudness, with a Python axml parser.
2. Lesson 14: Audio Agents and Automated Quality Control (35 min, 5 readings). How tool-using LLM agents (ReAct, MCP) orchestrate automated audio QC: BS.1770 loudness, true peak, LRA, phase, PEAQ, ViSQOL, FAD and human sign-off.

Module H: Advanced psychoacoustics and AI

Masking, loudness and perceptual losses, deep networks as models of hearing, and the illusions and MIT hacks that reveal how we listen.

1. Lesson 15: Psychoacoustic Models Meet Deep Learning (40 min, 5 readings). Critical bands, masking and loudness models, perceptual metrics and losses for neural audio, and MIT research that uses deep networks as models of human hearing.
2. Lesson 16: Auditory Illusions, Perceptual Hacks and MIT Projects (30 min, 5 readings). What classic auditory illusions reveal, how spatial audio exploits them, where AI listeners disagree with people, and how MIT labs and hackathons build perceptual hacks.

Module I: Build and ship your own audio model

Train and serve a model on Databricks with a production architecture, and explore and fine-tune audio models on Hugging Face.

1. Lesson 17: Training an Audio Model on Databricks (35 min, 5 readings). Build a governed audio pipeline on Databricks, train and register a stem-role classifier with MLflow, serve it, and design the architecture that features it in an app.
2. Lesson 18: Exploring and Fine-Tuning Audio Models on Hugging Face (30 min, 5 readings). Navigate the Hugging Face Hub, read model cards critically, run and fine-tune audio models, publish with a good card and Space, and bring models into Databricks.

Module J: Research methods and capstone

Design listening tests that hold up to review, then take a project from question to publication.

1. Lesson 19: Designing Listening Tests: MUSHRA, ABX and Statistics (30 min, 5 readings). Design defensible listening tests for spatial audio with BS.1116, MUSHRA, ABX and ACR, then analyse ratings with Friedman, Holm-corrected Wilcoxon and mixed models.
2. Lesson 20: Capstone: From Research Question to Publishable Project (30 min, 5 readings). Take an immersive audio project from research question to publishable paper with literature reviews, reproducible artifacts, ethics, milestones and a grading rubric.

Plans and access

• Student Pro, $9 / month: full access to Academy Advanced, upload your own stereo tracks or stems, 9 projects every month, youtube eclipsa audio video export, binaural, stereo mixdown and 5.1.4 speaker file, auro 3d and ambisonics orders 1 to 4, every surround layout from 3.1 to 9.1.6, one-click all package archive. Get the student plan.
• Free student: every core lesson and lab, the Immersive Classroom and a certificate.
• Institutions: covered students need no personal plan and get Academy Advanced.

Academic partnership

Universities and organizations partner with Spatial9 and every covered student gets access at no personal cost. Annual plans are paid upfront and save 25%.

• Course & Lab

  Up to 100 students: $500 a month or $4,500 a year. One course, production lab or small program.

• Department

  Up to 500 students: $1,000 a month or $9,000 a year. Several classes in music, film, audio or media.

• School

  Up to 2,500 students: $2,000 a month or $18,000 a year. Multiple departments or a larger creative school.

• Campus

  Up to 5,000 students: from $3,500 a month or from $31,500 a year. A broader institutional deployment across campus.

Every partnership includes: covered students need no personal subscription; unlimited music projects for every covered student; youtube eclipsa audio, binaural, stereo, 5.1.4, auro 3d, ambisonics 1 to 4 and every surround layout; eclipsa audio previews for coursework; every spatial9 academy lesson and lab as course material; video processing while video is in early access. A departmental package is available for 101 to 500 students. Contact us about a partnership.

Questions about the courses

Is Spatial9 Academy free?

Yes. The core course, 24 lessons and hands-on labs, is free with a Spatial9 account, including the Immersive Classroom and a verifiable certificate when you finish.

What is Academy Advanced?

Academy Advanced is the paid, graduate-level track: 20 lessons in 10 modules on sonification, audio AI, psychoacoustics, training models on Databricks and Hugging Face, realtime model architecture, computer vision, personalized HRTFs, XR, IAMF and ADM, and listening-test research, with 100 academic readings and a capstone project.

Who can access Academy Advanced?

Verified students on Student Pro ($9 a month), Music Pro and Music Studio subscribers, and students and staff covered by a partner university or organization. Anyone can read the opening of every lesson.

Do I need the core course before Academy Advanced?

It is recommended but not required. The core course covers hearing in 3D, formats and mixing; the advanced lessons include code labs, so some programming experience helps.

How long do the courses take?

About 7 hours for the core course and about 11 hours for Academy Advanced, self-paced and online.

Who counts as a covered student?

A named student in the course, department, school or campus included in your agreement. You sponsor the students who will actually use Spatial9, not your total enrollment.

Is there a limit on projects?

No. Covered students can create unlimited music projects for their coursework, including revisions.

Which exports are included?

YouTube Eclipsa Audio video, Binaural, Stereo Mixdown, the 5.1.4 speaker file, Auro 3D, Ambisonics orders 1 to 4 and every surround layout from 3.1 to 9.1.6, individually or as one All package archive, for educational use. Dolby Atmos ADM and commercial delivery formats are available on Spatial9 standard plans.

Is video included?

Video is in early access. Partner institutions can use it within their agreement while it is being rolled out.

We have 120 students. Do we need the Department package?

No. Add students to Course & Lab in groups of 25 for $100 a month each. Move to Department when the extensions would cost more than the next package.

Can we change the student list between terms?

Yes. Update your roster at the start of each academic term, within the capacity of your package.

Can we start with a pilot?

Yes. A one-semester pilot for 25 to 50 students costs $1,000, and the fee is credited toward an annual partnership when you continue.

Do you accept purchase orders?

Tell us how your institution buys in the inquiry form and we will work with your procurement process.

Does a covered student need the $9 student plan?

No. The $9 student plan is for individuals whose institution is not a partner. It requires a verified school or university email.