Howto

Description of the procedure

More details can be found in FAQs.

Step 1 Register

  • Register and confirm registration by clicking on the link in the mail you will receive.
  • Registering is free and gives you member status with access to Upload recording and My measurements pages.
  • When registering, you have to fill a field “Company or Title”. This important field will be the name of your main folder with all your measurements, images and subdirectories. This name is seen by all visitors. Important : do not use a company name for which you have no rights !
  • The folder structure will be : \title\studio\date\ with dates automatically added and “Studio or reference” being a field, new or not, to complete for each new upload. Accepted are alphabets, numbers, underscore “_” and spaces (no space at beginning or end and no consecutive spaces).

Step 2 Upload recording

Tips on some fields

  • “Reference, Studio” : for home users with just one audio system, you may leave this field empty or fill with “home” or “listening room” or “without correction”, “with correction”, aso. For companies with more than one studio, you can enter the Studio name. If you want to upload several measurements, it is generally better to use a different “Reference, Studio” for each so that graphs will be in separated folders and may be easier to read. Not allowed : special characters, spaces at start or end, consecutive spaces, and PRIVATE if you have not registered for private folders.
  • “Directivity” : for standard loudspeakers, choose HF “Standard” and LF “Omni”
  • “Target curve” : “Auto music” is recommended for home HiFi and pro music studios.
  • “Timbre target” (only valid for “Auto music”) : start with the standard “Balanced”
  • “LF target” (only valid for “Auto music”) is defined by cutoff frequency and level, ie “403” gives a +3dB level and a 40Hz cutoff. Choose a standard value such as 400 to start. The LF performance is calculated on the L+R response at +6dB above the LF target (+6dB coming from an expected perfect summation of L and R)

Test/Measure/measure and correct/New correction

  • “Measure” starts the analysis of uploaded file to write measurement graphs.
  • “Measure and correct” adds calculation of FIR correction for your processor.
  • “New correction” keeps all values of the form, so you just change “Timbre target” and/or “LF target” to process again.

Test track and recording

  • The test track is a sequence of various signals with a total duration of about 2mn30s for stereo and 3mn10s for multichannel
  • This test file can be written on a CD or DVD or streamed from a computer or added to a DAW session (Protools, Nuendo, Pyramix,…)
  • Play this track on your loudspeakers and record simultaneously with your microphone.
  • Sound level must be fair ie the voice level should be comparable to someone speaking in the room.
  • Start recording and just after start playing : there is a 5s starting silence so you have time to get to the listening position
  • Record in mono .wav, .flac or .aiff, 16bits or 24 bits, 44.1 to 96kHz.
  • Be sure to avoid any process to the played sound file and to the recording : no normalisation, compressor, reverb, limiter, filter,… and EQ only if you want to measure with correction EQ.
  • Follow instructions given by the voice in the soundfile (don’t move mic while sine sweeps and bongs, only move with the pink noises)
  • Upload your recording together with your mic calibration file, a .txt file if you have one.

Step 3 Get your measurements

  • A few minutes after upload, your graphs will appear in All measurements and also in My measurements
  • Explanations to understand graphs are here.
  • If you have not bought a plan and just want to do a test, you will only get one graph to check the validity of your recording so you can decide to buy a plan if your mesurements are valid
  • Dans My measurements, you will  see all files of your own folders : soundfiles, text, calibration, images and correction files. And there you can upload pictures, delete, move, rename files and modify descriptions.
  • If you don’t get your measurements after 10 minutes, check the files you’ve send : open the recording file with an audio editor such as Audacity: check if there is some signal recorded and if it is complete (see FAQ). Also check if the mic calibration file is correct (FAQ).