# Classroom Lab 1: Place Sound on the Sphere and in a 7.1.4 Studio

> Hands-on lab: place stems on the Spatial Sphere and in a 7.1.4 speaker studio, read azimuth and elevation, and learn how 3D VBAP panning works.

Web page: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-lab-sphere-714-placement
Author: Spatial9 Team
Published: 2026-10-16. Updated: 2026-10-16.

## Key takeaways
- Every position is three numbers: azimuth around you, elevation above or below your ears, and distance from 0.5 to 8 metres.
- On the Sphere, dragging changes direction but keeps distance, Quick place jumps to standard spots, and arrow keys nudge by 5 degrees.
- A 7.1.4 room has seven ear-level speakers, one LFE and four ceiling speakers; the classroom places floor speakers 3.5 m away at 1.2 m height.
- 3D VBAP shares each object across the three nearest speakers at constant power, and a sound straight overhead feeds all four ceiling speakers equally.

In this lesson: You will place stems by hand on the Spatial Sphere and in the 7.1.4 Studio, read azimuth, elevation and distance like a pro, and learn how 3D VBAP shares each sound across real speakers. You will finish with a placement plan you can defend.

Placement is the first decision in any immersive mix. Before effects, before movement, before automation, you decide where each sound lives. A good placement makes a mix feel clear and inevitable. A poor one makes even great sounds feel lost.

In the classroom tour you met the two views that show your scene: the Sphere and the 7.1.4 Studio. They show the same scene in two ways. The Sphere is the listener's view: directions around your head. The 7.1.4 Studio is the engineer's view: a real room with twelve speakers. In this lab you will use both.


## What you will learn

- How azimuth, elevation and distance describe any position.
- How to drag, nudge and quick-place a stem on the Sphere.
- How the Trails, Paths and Orbit layers help you read motion.
- The layout of a 7.1.4 room and the job of each speaker.
- How 3D VBAP shares a sound across the three nearest speakers.
- How to read the Routing view and the speaker output meters.

The rest of this lesson is free with a Spatial9 account: https://spatial9.ai/blog/academy-lab-sphere-714-placement