WigWare
WigWare is a collection of spatial audio processing tools, designed to enable ambisonic sound production within DAWs. It includes ambisonic panners, reverb, and decoders, and is aimed at educational, personal, and research use for immersive audio creation. The range covers AmbiX-format panners and encoders, the AmbiXFreeverb 3D Ambisonic reverb, and a family of decoders (WigAmbiDec) supporting first through third order and layouts including ITU speaker configurations, with dual-band decoding and adjustable low- versus high-frequency gain. Its Ambisonic tools implement near-field compensation and distance filtering, features Wiggins has noted aren't common in other Ambisonic plug-in sets. Plug-ins are distributed as both VSTs for Mac and PC and as JSFX for Reaper, and have also been tested successfully in AudioMulch and Plogue Bidule.
tech specs
history
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WigWare was first released in November 2005 by Dr. Bruce Wiggins, building directly on his 2004 doctoral thesis and a paper presented at the 31st AES conference on Ambisonics and irregular loudspeaker layout decoding. Developed and maintained at the University of Derby, the tools grew steadily over the following years, expanding to third-order plug-ins by around 2012 and later being reworked in JSFX to add support for the AmbiX standard alongside near-field compensation and distance filtering, followed by 64-bit versions as DAW-based Ambisonics gained wider adoption. The plug-ins have found use well beyond personal and educational projects, informing the BBC's own research into irregular loudspeaker layout decoding, with the broadcaster citing Wiggins' published thesis and conference paper in developing its own MATLAB-based decoding algorithms. WigWare continues to be actively maintained, with updates recorded as recently as November 2024.
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