3 Nov 2024

‘Dark’ FIR Designer Adds Support for AFMG, Storm Audio, LabGruppen IPX & Audio Weaver

The recent updates to FIR Designer & FIR Designer M go beyond the new dark interface.

We’ve introduced two new branded IIR modes – AFMG and Storm Audio – to ensure precise matching of the IIR filter behavior with the destination processor by adjusting for brand-specific differences in IIR filter interpretation. The AFMG mode is unique in modelling analog filters spec’d in loudspeaker GLLs used in AFMG simulation tools like EASE and EASE Focus.

Two new export options are also available. These include an IIR filter coefficient export option specifically for Audio Weaver (adding to the existing FIR export capability), and Direct-to-Processor export for Lab Gruppen’s IPX range of DSP amplifiers (read IPX loading instructions).

Users of FIR Designer’s ‘Supplementary Responses View’ will welcome the newly-added normalization option. A new set of loaded measurements can now be viewed in relation to the on-axis response, for both individual response plots and the polar heatmap, providing a clearer picture of the loudspeaker’s radiation pattern. All main workflow processing – gain, polarity, delay, IIR, FIR – is applied to the new measurements before on-axis normalisation is applied.

Download a free demo for macOS or Windows.

FIR Designer M Release Notes
FIR Designer Release Notes

IIR modes in FIR Designer expanded to include AFMG & Storm Audio
Supplementary responses window in FIR Designer M
13 Aug 2024

New Dark Mode in FIR Designer

In response to (many!) user requests, we’re pleased to announce that FIR Designer & FIR Designer M both now include a dark user interface theme option. It’s available for both macOS and Windows users.

Now you can design custom DSP using either a light or dark theme. We’ve also expanded the existing plotline color customization to allow adjustable plotline thickness, which is useful in increasing visibility of some plot colours against a black background in particular.

This video provides a quick demo of how to switch from light to dark mode. Download a free demo to try it out!

5 Jun 2024

FIR Creator EX Version 2 Expands Functionality

Several features previously only available in FIR Designer & FIR Designer M have been rolled into FIR Creator EX as part of the version 2 update.

Read on for the details or check out this article in Mixonline.com.

Unlimited IIR filters (increased from maximum 8 per project)

Unlimited FIR magnitude filter prototypes (increased from maximum 8 per project)

Unlimited FIR phase filter prototypes (increased from maximum 8 per project)

More brands supported for IIR emulation. New Blaze Audio, Pascal Audio, RAM Audio & RMS-Acoustics IIR filter modes have been added to the list of emulated brands, joining Biamp Tesira, Marani, Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, QSC Q-SYS, Symetrix, & BSS). (Note, brand IIRs can be emulated but it’s only possible to convert IIR filter sets from one brand to another in FIR Designer & FIR Designer M.)

New Direct To Processor export windows for Lab Gruppen’s IPX DSP amplifiers, in addition to pre-existing Lake and Powersoft DTP export. See Lab Gruppen DTP instructions.

Customizable plot colors. Choose any colors you want across different plots, and they’ll be saved in the project file. When opening different projects, plot colours will default to any custom colours previously set for that specific project, and can be modified again at any time.

Existing FIR Creator EX or FIR Creator users are invited to upgrade to FIR Creator EX v2 at a reduced cost. (Discount depends on time elapsed since original purchase; see here.)

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FIR Creator EX Specs
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25 Mar 2024

New ‘Auto IIR’ functionality in FIR Designer & FIR Designer M

The latest versions (4.2) of FIR Designer & FIR Designer M include all new ‘Auto IIR’ functionality, which dramatically speeds up the IIR EQ process by automatically selecting and setting parametric filters to match a response to a target response.

The Auto IIR function is accessed from within the IIR tab & works with the non-branded ‘Generic’ mode or any of the twelve branded IIR filter modes. (Blaze Audio & Pascal Audio have just been added for v4.2, joining Biamp Tesira, BSS, Lake, Linea Research, Marani, Powersoft, Q-SYS, Symetrix, RAM Audio & RMS-Acoustics.)

Key parameters to set for auto IIR generation include desired input smoothing, frequency range & the number of filters (to match the available number on your processor). Automatically generated IIRs can be added to the IIR tab with a single click, where they can be turned on/off & adjusted just like any other IIR filter.

All IIRs (whether manually or automatically created) can be exported alone or as part of a combined FIR+IIR preset from the ‘Export’ tab, in a file format to match the destination processor.

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*Demo version doesn’t include Auto IIR

22 Mar 2024

FIR Designer adds new Pascal & Blaze IIR modes | Twelve brands now included

The latest 4.2 versions of FIR Designer & FIR Designer M include two new branded IIR modes – Pascal Audio & Blaze Audio. IIR filters can be exported to TXT file reports, and crossover and EQ settings can be copied into input and output channels in the Blaze Audio “PowerZone” and Pascal Audio “ZoneControl” web UI’s.

Brand-specific IIR modes ensure common IIR filters produce consistent results when used across various amplifier/processor brands, because there are differences in the way each brand’s software interprets some filter parameters, like Q and bandwidth (BW), and in the conversion between Q & BW. (Learn more about IIR brand emulation.)

IIR responses in the new modes can be automatically converted to/from RMS-ACOUSTICS, Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, Q-SYS, Symetrix, BSS,  Biamp Tesira, Marani, RAM Audio & generic IIR modes using the IIR Reference Editor. (The ‘Generic’ mode is the a starting point for use with processors that don’t have their own branded mode.) This ensures IIR response matching when working with different amplifiers & processors, and solves the problem of standard filter settings producing different results on various amplifier/processor brands.

Let us know what other processor brands you’d like to see included with a custom IIR mode in FIR Designer.
FIR Designer M Release Notes | FIR Designer Release Notes
Blaze and Pascal in IIR drop down menu
11 Jan 2024

New RMS-ACOUSTICS Mode in FIR Designer

We’ve added an ‘RMS-ACOUSTICS‘ IIR filter mode to FIR Designer (v4.1) & FIR Designer M (v4.1). It enables ‘WAY EQ’ IIR filter export for import into RMS-CONTROL software & aids mixed IIR+FIR RMS-ACOUSTICS preset creation.

IIR responses in the new RMS-ACOUSTICS IIR mode can be converted to/from Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, Q-SYS, Symetrix, BSS,  Biamp Tesira, Marani, RAM Audio & generic IIR modes using the IIR Reference Editor. (The ‘Generic’ mode is the a starting point for use with processors that don’t have their own branded mode.)

The IIR Reference Editor enables the automated conversion of IIR filters between brands in a single click. This ensures IIR response matching when working with different amplifiers & processors, and solves the problem of standard filter settings producing different results on various amplifier/processor brands.

Version 4.1 Project Compatability Notification

With the number of branded IIR filter modes continuing to increase, we’ve made an essential change to the project and system formats used within FIR Designer for IIR filter inclusion. This change will facilitate faster addition of even more branded IIR filter modes in the future. The file format change applies to both FIR Designer & FIR Designer M, from version 4.1 onwards.

This change means projects created in v4.1 (or later versions) aren’t backwards-compatible with version 4.0 and earlier. In addition, if projects created in earlier versions are opened in v4.1, we recommend saving as a new project (rather than saving over previous work) to avoid the risk of losing data.

Let us know what other processor brands you’d like to see included with a custom IIR mode in FIR Designer.
FIR Designer M Release Notes | FIR Designer Release Notes
1 Dec 2023

Rational Acoustics & Eclipse Audio Announce Licensing & Development Agreement

Rational Acoustics and Eclipse Audio development agreement

Rational Acoustics, developers of the Smaart® acoustic test and measurement software platform and Eclipse Audio, developers of the FIR Designer range of DSP filter design software, have announced a licensing and development agreement. The agreement will bring together Rational Acoustics’ market leadership and innovation in sound system alignment and optimization with Eclipse Audio’s expertise in DSP filtering solutions for loudspeakers.

Under the agreement, Rational Acoustics will license a selection of code libraries from Eclipse Audio and the two companies will cooperate in the development of a future Smaart branded software product.

“Our goal is to ensure that Smaart software provides users with the best, and most innovative, sound system measurement solutions.” says Jamie Anderson, President of Rational Acoustics. “Eclipse Audio has developed some very interesting technologies that we feel will benefit the Smaart user base in future product development and we are eager to put those technologies to use.

“We’re excited to be collaborating with Rational Acoustics to broaden the scope of solutions available to SMAART users,” says Michael John, Director & Founder of Eclipse Audio. “SMAART measurements are frequently used as the basis for custom processing within our products. Our overlapping user base and passion for maximising loudspeaker performance means working with Rational Acoustics is a natural fit for us.”

Read the announcement on rationalacoustics.com

SMAART is a registered trademark of Rational Acoustics LLC, Connecticut, USA.

22 Nov 2023

FIR Designer v4 update adds ‘auditionDSP’ & more

Several of the new features recently released as part of the major FIR Designer M update have now been rolled into FIR Designer v4. Here’s a summary:

Listen to filters and presets with ‘auditionDSP‘

Use the brand new, built-in audio player + processor to audition, develop & perfect custom loudspeaker processing and presets, without the need to export data to an external hardware processor first.

It runs up to three loudspeaker presets simultaneously in real-time, with live switching between presets, and playback can be mono or stereo.

Screenshot of auditionDSP in FIR Designer

New Polar Map

The Supplementary Responses window plots the behavior of custom filters & presets when applied to a new set of (uploaded) measurements.

Now, the processed measurement sets can be optionally viewed as a polar map (or contour plot) making it easier to identify various on and off-axis behaviour of the loudspeaker preset with polar measurements.

Where measurement sets only include one off-axis direction (due to loudspeaker symmetry), the Polar Map plot can be mirrored at either the top or bottom. Other plot customizations include vertical flipping and plot angle limits.

Screenshot of polar map in FIR Designer version4

New Group delay display

View the time delay, through the combined processing, as a function of frequency, as well as independently for the IIR and FIR filtering.

(Available within the Second View window.)

More brands supported for IIR emulation. A new ‘RAM Audio‘ IIR filter mode has been added to the list of emulated brands, joining Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, QSC Q-SYS, Symetrix, BSS,  Biamp Tesira & Marani . (The ‘Generic’ mode remains available as a starting point for use with processors that don’t have their own branded mode.) RAM Audio IIRs can now be converted to or from other branded filters in a single click.

Plot colors saved with the project file. When opening different projects, plot colours will default to any custom colours previously set for that specific project, and can be modified again at any time.

Upgraded macOS support . Separate, optimised binaries are now available for both Intel and newer ARM (M1, M2) based macs.

Significant speedup to underlying computations. Design custom filters & presets faster than ever!

Various user-interface updates and fixes.

Free Demo Download*
FIR Designer Product Info
FIR Software Comparison Table

*Demo version doesn’t include auditionDSP or the IIR Reference Editor

1 Nov 2023

New Demo Versions Don’t Need Imported Measurements

Brand new, user-friendly demos of all our DSP filter design software tools are now available for free download. Now you can try out any software in the FIR Designer range WITHOUT having to upload any measurements first. Skip the ‘Import’ tab & dive right into the workflow & customization options using the pre-loaded example project.

FIR Designer, FIR Creator & Creator EX demo versions all now include the same single-channel pre-loaded example project. In FIR Designer M, an entire multi-channel example system has been pre-loaded to enable experimentation across all channels.

Please note, the IIR Reference Editor , auditionDSP player+processor & other selected features (built into some of our tools) are only available within the licensed software versions (not the free demos).

For help choosing the right tool for your needs, check out the software feature comparison table.

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4 Oct 2023

New Polar Map in FIR Designer M v4

In response to customer requests, the latest version of FIR Designer M includes a new polar ‘heatmap-style’ plot in the ‘Supplementary Responses‘ window.

The Supplementary Responses window displays the behavior of custom filtering & presets when applied to additional sets of uploaded measurements; either for a single loudspeaker or for each loudspeaker driver in a multi-way system. (See supported measurement file formats).

In FIR Designer M version 4, the processed measurement sets can now be optionally viewed as a polar heatmap-stype plot, making evaluation of directional behaviour (including on and off-axis) much easier. Where measurement sets only include one off-axis direction (due to loudspeaker symmetry), the Polar Map plot can be mirrored at either the top or bottom. Other plot customizations include vertical flipping, setable angle limits and the option to view either the combined loudspeaker response, or each channel individually.

As before, the Supplementary Responses window has controls for preparing the measurements sets, including optional time-alignment, level adjustment and level normalization.

Viewing supplementary responses is only possible in the full version of FIR Designer M (not the demo version).

FIR Designer M heatmap plot

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About FIR Designer M
What’s New in v4

*Demo version doesn’t include the Supplementary Responses window

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