Announcement
(Athens, Greece – October 26, 2022) SoundFellas releases Echotopia, a new desktop audio editor specialized in producing soundscapes, acoustic environments, ambience loops, and atmospheres. Echotopia combines the intuitiveness of a map editor with the layering of sounds using tools similar to a graphics editor. Under the hood, Echotopia calculates the virtual acoustics and position of the sounds on the map to render the sound of any position on the map.
Storytellers can use Echotopia live while telling their story to captivate and immerse their audience in the story. Sound designers, filmmakers, game developers, and content creators can generate soundscapes fast and iterate through different space positions to render audio using accurate acoustics.
Echotopia fits perfectly in sectors like:
- Audio for media
- Content creation
- Storytelling
- Tabletop gaming
- RPG and LARPG
- Theaters and live performances
- Streaming
- Escape rooms
- Wellness, spa, meditation, and places of worship
- Interior design
"Soundscapes are the invisible magic power that transfers your audience into the exciting scenes of your story," says Pan Athen, SoundFellas founder. "Until now, soundscapes were difficult to produce. Professional producers first had to set up different layers with complex signal routing to produce a specific point of listening. Then, to produce a simple change of point of listening, they had to remix the layers completely and even change the signal routing and most parameters of multiple processors. Hobbyist creators and enthusiasts were also affected by the lack of a proper solution for soundscape production. Dungeon masters had to rely on inflexible generator apps or endless searches online and use low-quality repetitive loops. All those problems compromise the aesthetics of the experience with inconsistent sound".
The release of Echotopia marks a new era in creating soundscapes for traditional and emerging media. SoundFellas is committed to developing more specialized functionality in Echotopia, balancing the user experience for both professionals and hobbyists.
Echotopia also features editions that contain a vast collection of sound libraries from SoundFellas. SoundFellas produces all its sound libraries using dereverberation and other optimizations, making them perfect for immersive audio production. All audio assets that include spatial information are offered in stereo, surround, and ambisonics. Furthermore, all ambience kit sound libraries have isolated elements and impulse response files for reverb and occlusion. Delivering all three major spatial formats, isolated sound elements, and impulse responses allows users to create dynamic environments in games, film, and VR experiences. This offering makes those Echotopia editions a turnkey solution for sound design. In addition, the audio content is royalty-free in open formats for the user to import it into other tools and authoring applications, further boosting creativity through freedom.
Echotopia is available from the SoundFellas website (soundfellas.com). Echotopia currently can be run on the Windows operating system. However, SoundFellas plans on releasing a macOS version in the future. Echotopia has a rich roadmap full of features ahead; you can find it at https://soundfellas.com/software/echotopia/roadmap/. Echotopia has a free 30-day trial for anyone that wants to try Echotopia out. Learn more about Echotopia at https://soundfellas.com/software/echotopia/.
About SoundFellas
SoundFellas (SoundFellas Immersive Audio Labs) is a creative audio laboratory and teaching studio founded by Pan Athen. Since 2011, SoundFellas offers novel audio services, content, and software tools for games, film, and entertainment media. Fusing scientific research with design, SoundFellas aims to produce quality-in-use content for all levels of creators. Our libraries feature innovative acoustic and psychoacoustic qualities that enhance the 3D sound experience of any project, from stereo music production to immersive audio pipelines such as Dolby Atmos, Ambisonics, and MPEG-H. Our software tools and services always focus on artistic integrity, commercial value, and cutting-edge technical artistry.
Notable products are its innovative Sound Libraries and the unique DMDJ mobile soundscape generator. Coming out of a 5-year long R&D effort, the latest creation of SoundFellas, the Echotopia Soundscape Designer, offers a novel way to create naturally-behaving soundscapes. Echotopia offers a next-gen soundscape production solution for storytellers, filmmakers, game developers, sound designers, escape room producers, meditation experts, and interior designers.
With scientific research in audio production and entertainment media consumption as a core practice, SoundFellas has developed an Innovative Audio Production Pipeline, with notable mentions such as the pre-authoring loudness normalization protocol AuthorNorm™, the forensics-inspired PureSource™ and Scene Analysis workflows, plus the immersive 3D sound mixing processes of True3D Audio™ and FocusBlur™.
SoundFellas also operates a teaching studio and curates new talent. At the same time, it provides consulting services for the design of educational programs and other educational purposes. A notable contribution is creating the first Bachelor’s Degree in Games Programming in Greece in collaboration with the SAE Institute. In addition, as a technology-innovating and talent-curating studio, SoundFellas designed and implemented the sound systems and content of AAA game titles such as the Darkfall Online series and movies such as Short Fuse.
Learn more at soundfellas.com.
About Echotopia
Echotopia is a new audio editor specializing in soundscapes production. Echotopia makes it easy for professional and hobbyist media creators to produce immersive and natural-sounding soundscapes. Echotopia is the result of more than ten years of user feedback and development experience from SoundFellas’ DMDJ, the first soundscape generator for mobile platforms, loved by a large community of storytellers worldwide.
Echotopia combines the ease of use of a videogame level map editor with ready-made sound behaviors that mimic the natural behaviors of various sound source types. Under the hood, a real-time acoustics simulation engine faithfully renders how the environment sounds from any position on the map. With acoustics simulation modules such as reverberation (from surface reflections) and inwards occlusion (i.e., from walls) within the calculations of sound propagation over distance and different climate conditions, Echotopia empowers users of any level to create professional-grade acoustic environments. The acoustics modules use the popular convolution method and the open format of impulse response files widely available on the internet. With Echotopia, the user can focus on the creative process without the need to constantly automate parameters and change audio configurations. You design complete maps, and Echotopia’s mixing engine will provide an accurate render from any position you desire.
The higher editions of Echotopia come together with the entire collection of curated sound libraries from SoundFellas. Tenths of thousands of sounds, all organized in optimized packages, including stereo, surround, and ambisonic versions of spatial audio content. Furthermore, the content is unlocked and royalty-free for sync with media, so the users can also use them with other applications. The Echotopia editions that include audio content are a future-proof solution for producing sound for media using any authoring environment, even outside Echotopia.
Media Kit
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