Two Big Ears
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| Two Big Ears | |
|---|---|
| Information | |
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Spatial audio |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founder | Abesh Thakur, Varun Nair |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Notable Personnel | Abesh Thakur (CEO), Varun Nair (VP Products) |
| Products | 3Dception, 3Dception Spatial Workstation |
| Parent | Facebook (from 2016) |
| Website | http://www.twobigears.com |
Two Big Ears (Two Big Ears Ltd) was an Edinburgh, Scotland company that developed spatial audio software for virtual reality, 360-degree video and games. Its main product, 3Dception, was a real-time 3D audio and environmental modelling engine that let listeners hear sounds above, below and behind them over ordinary headphones.[1] The company was founded by University of Edinburgh graduates Abesh Thakur and Varun Nair.[2]
Facebook acquired Two Big Ears for an undisclosed sum in May 2016. Facebook released the company's cinematic VR toolset free of charge as the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation, and said the game audio engine would be combined with the Oculus team's VR audio work.[3][4] The UK legal entity was wound up in a members' voluntary liquidation and dissolved on 15 April 2020.[5]
History
Founding
According to the University of Edinburgh's Acoustics and Audio Group, Thakur, newly graduated from the university's MSc in Acoustics and Music Technology, joined forces in 2012 with Nair, a recent graduate of its MSc in Sound Design, to form Two Big Ears. Their aim was to commercialise the real-time binaural spatialisation work Thakur had done for his final MSc project. The start-up was first supported by the university's Launch.Ed scheme and hosted by members of the group.[2] Two Big Ears Limited was incorporated in Scotland on 11 March 2013 under the name HMS (957) Limited and was renamed Two Big Ears Limited on 19 March 2013 (company number SC444737).[6] The company's own website also gave 2013 as its founding year.[7]
In 2014 the company described itself as designing "immersive and interactive audio applications and tools, with a focus on mobile and emerging technologies". Its website from that year listed showcases at the Turing Festival, London Technology Week, the Edinburgh Games Symposium and the Edinburgh Science Festival, and named two non-executive directors, George Elliott and Neil Heywood.[8] By mid-2015 Thakur was listed as CEO and Nair as VP Products, and the team included DSP engineer Toby Carpenter and Ross Taylor, both graduates of the same Edinburgh acoustics master's programme.[7][2]
3Dception and VR projects
Two Big Ears built 3Dception for VR developers. In December 2014 Road to VR reported that Tomáš Mariančík had added the engine, which it called a "real-time binaural synthesis engine", to a new version of SightLine: The Chair; the developer said the 3Dception team had fixed bugs and changed the library based on his feedback.[9]
In March 2015 Road to VR reported that Björk's 360-degree music video for "Stonemilker", directed by Andrew Huang for Vrse.works, would premiere at Rough Trade stores in New York and London from 22 March with a binaural soundtrack driven by 3Dception. Björk and BBC audio engineer Chris Pike remixed the song for the engine, and Nair told the site that "on the mobile device, our engine takes all that information and recreates a binaural mix in real-time based on head tracking data."[10]
By early 2016 the company was selling two product lines: 3Dception for Games and the 3Dception Spatial Workstation for cinematic VR and 360 video.[11]
Acquisition by Facebook
On 23 May 2016 Two Big Ears announced that it was joining Facebook. The terms were not disclosed.[3][12] The founders wrote that the team would be "working with the Oculus team to combine our expertise and create best in class VR audio".[12] As part of the change:
- The cinematic VR and 360 video pipeline (authoring tools, encoder and rendering engine) became a free download, renamed the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation.[13]
- 3Dception for Games stopped being sold as a separate product. Its engine was to be combined with Oculus's own VR audio work.[4][14]
- Existing non-commercial evaluation and free-version agreements were cancelled, and Pro customers of 3Dception and the Spatial Workstation kept support under their agreements for 12 months.[4] The Unity, Wwise and FMOD plug-ins could no longer be downloaded, though existing projects stayed supported for those 12 months.[3]
Two Big Ears said its tools would "continue to be platform and device agnostic".[3] The University of Edinburgh noted that, after two further hires from its Acoustics and Music Technology MSc, graduates of that programme made up 75 percent of the start-up's core team.[2]
After the acquisition
In February 2017 Facebook engineers Hans Fugal and Varun Nair described the audio system behind the Spatial Workstation. It used an 8-channel format that Facebook called hybrid higher-order ambisonics, plus a separate head-locked stereo track for narration or music that does not move with head tracking. The authors said the renderer, part of Facebook's Audio360 engine, had less than half a millisecond of latency, and that the rendering SDK was integrated across Facebook and Oculus Video.[15] Third-party playback documentation from RenderHeads names the default channel mode for this audio "TBE_8_2", meaning eight channels of hybrid ambisonics and two channels of head-locked stereo.[16]
Nair went on to lead AR and VR audio software at Facebook's California headquarters for almost five years. In November 2021 FutureScot reported that he had returned to Edinburgh, and that the technology he integrated at Facebook was used across Facebook and Instagram and ran on the Oculus Quest.[17] An undated Audio Engineering Society speaker biography describes Thakur as a product manager at Facebook working on spatial audio and immersive media products.[18]
In August 2022 the audio trade site Production Expert described the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation as discontinued and no longer supported by Meta. It quoted a March 2022 Meta notice saying the team would continue supporting external downloads of the Audio360 Encoder application.[19]
Company filings show that the shareholders passed a special resolution to wind up Two Big Ears Limited on 26 February 2019. A final account in the members' voluntary liquidation was filed in January 2020, and the company was dissolved on 15 April 2020. Its last filed accounts covered the period to 31 December 2017.[5][6]
Products
| Product | Description |
|---|---|
| 3Dception for Games | Real-time binaural 3D audio and environmental modelling plug-ins for Unity and the Wwise and FMOD audio middleware. The Wwise version was a mixer plug-in usable with Unity, Unreal Engine 4 and custom engines.[1][11] |
| 3Dception Spatial Workstation | An end-to-end pipeline of authoring tools and rendering technology for producing spatial audio for 360 videos and cinematic VR; released free as the Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation in May 2016.[11][13] |
Technology
The company's 2016 website said 3Dception placed sounds with full elevation and front-back effects at a resolution down to a single degree. The site listed mono, stereo, surround and ambisonics as inputs, and named environmental modelling features including geometry-based spatialised reflections, sound propagation, air absorption and speed of sound. The same page claimed 3Dception was up to 12 times more efficient than competing products, and offered cross-platform APIs for desktop, mobile and the web.[11] In 2015 the engine was sold on a subscription. Buyers could keep using it without updates after the initial 12 months, paid separate licences for each additional platform, and could use a non-commercial version for projects that earned no revenue, provided they showed a Two Big Ears logo on a splash screen.[20]
In an April 2015 comparison of five 3D audio plug-ins for Unity on Designing Sound, Anastasia Devana tested 3Dception 1.0.0, its first stable release. She noted that its room modelling spatialised reflections so they changed as the listener moved, which she considered unique to 3Dception at the time, and that it supported ambisonics playback. In her informal performance tests, which she described as not exactly scientific, the Oculus Audio SDK had the best numbers, followed by 3Dception and AstoundSound. She called 3Dception and GenAudio's AstoundSound her top picks and wrote that 3Dception "feels like the most mature plugin with lots of advanced features". The site disclosed that Nair was one of its contributing editors and said he had no more involvement in the article than the representatives of the other tools.[21]
XR work
Besides SightLine: The Chair and Björk's "Stonemilker", the company's early-2016 website listed these projects as using 3Dception:[11]
| Project | Creator or context (as listed by Two Big Ears) |
|---|---|
| VTime | Social network on mobile VR, with real-time binaural audio in its virtual environments |
| Battle for Avengers Tower 360 | 360-degree experience for Samsung Gear VR |
| In the Eyes of the Animal | Installation by Marshmallow Laser Feast in Grizedale Forest, commissioned by the AND Festival |
| A Blind Legend | Audio-only action-adventure game by DOWiNO |
| Meet the Family | VR experience made by Exzeb and Unit9 |
| Kasabian Live 360 | Kasabian performance at O2 Academy Brixton, for Gear VR |
| Björk: Songlines | Head-tracked spatialised audio for Björk's show at MoMA, with Third Space Agency |
| The Gallery | Cloudhead Games, whose audio director Joel Green was quoted praising the technology |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Two Big Ears - 3Dception". Two Big Ears (archived). 2015-06-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20150618131136/https://twobigears.com/3dception.php. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "TwoBigEars, start-up company run by AMT graduates, joins Facebook". Acoustics and Audio Group, University of Edinburgh. 2016-05-23. https://www.acoustics.ed.ac.uk/2016/05/twobigears-joins-facebook/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lucas Matney (2016-05-23). "Facebook just bought VR audio company Two Big Ears and is making their tech free to developers". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/23/facebook-just-bought-vr-audio-company-two-big-ears-and-is-making-their-tech-free-to-developers/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Jamie Feltham (2016-05-23). "Facebook Now Has Two Big Ears For Spatial Audio". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/facebook-two-big-ears/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "TWO BIG EARS LIMITED filing history (SC444737)". Companies House. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC444737/filing-history. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "TWO BIG EARS LIMITED overview (SC444737)". Companies House. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC444737. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Two Big Ears - About". Two Big Ears (archived). 2015-06-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20150618131317/https://twobigears.com/about.php. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Two Big Ears: About Us". Two Big Ears (archived). 2014-09-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20140913153601/http://twobigears.com/about.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Paul James (2014-12-06). "New 'Sightline: The Chair' Gets '3DCeption' Binaural Audio, Developer Discusses VR Audio". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/sightline-chair-goes-binaural-developer-shares-thoughts-3dception-integration/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Paul James (2015-03-21). "Björk's 360 VR Music Video 'Stone Milker' Debuts Tomorrow, Powered by 3DCeption Audio". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/bjorks-360-vr-music-video-stone-milker-debuts-tomorrow-powered-by-3dception-audio/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 "Two Big Ears". Two Big Ears (archived). 2016-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304051727/http://www.twobigears.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Jonathan Vanian (2016-05-23). "Facebook Just Bought This Hot Virtual Reality Startup". Fortune. https://fortune.com/2016/05/23/facebook-just-bought-this-hot-virtual-reality-startup/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Facebook buys VR audio company Two Big Ears, debuts 'Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation'". GamesBeat. 2016-05-23. https://gamesbeat.com/facebook-buys-vr-audio-company-two-big-ears-debuts-facebook-360-spatial-workstation/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Paul James (2016-05-24). "VR Audio Specialists 'Two Big Ears' Acquired by Facebook". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/vr-audio-specialists-two-big-ears-acquired-by-facebook/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Hans Fugal, Varun Nair (2017-02-22). "Spatial audio - bringing realistic sound to 360 video". Engineering at Meta. https://engineering.fb.com/2017/02/22/virtual-reality/spatial-audio-bringing-realistic-sound-to-360-video/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "360 Audio - AVPro Video Documentation". RenderHeads. https://renderheads.com/content/docs/AVProVideo/articles/feature-360audio.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Poppy Watson (2021-11-09). "Former Facebook chief embarks on new Scottish venture". FutureScot. https://futurescot.com/?p=16267. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Abesh Thakur". Audio Engineering Society. https://aes.digitellinc.com/b/sp/abesh-thakur-3053. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Mike Thornton (2022-08-29). "Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation - What Now?". Production Expert. https://www.production-expert.com/production-expert-1/facebook-360-spatial-workstation-what-now. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ "Two Big Ears - FAQs". Two Big Ears (archived). 2015-06-18. https://web.archive.org/web/20150618131035/https://twobigears.com/faq.php. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
- ↑ Anastasia Devana (2015-04-17). "3D Audio: Weighing The Options". Designing Sound. https://designingsound.org/2015/04/17/3d-audio-weighing-the-options/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.