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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
More brands supportedfor 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!
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).
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).
‘auditionDSP’ is the digital signal processor & audio player built into the recently released FIR Designer M version 4. It allows users to LISTEN to their custom filters using either live audio or uploaded files, with live switching between up to three presets.
It’s perfect for auditioning, developing & perfecting custom loudspeaker filters and presets, without the need to export data to an external hardware processor for playback. Learn more about auditionDSP.
The free demo version of FIR Designer M doesn’t include auditionDSP, so we’ve just released a brand-new video to demonstrate how it works:
We’re pleased to announce a major update to FIR Designer M. Version 4 includes the game-changing new auditionDSP tool, which along with several other new features, delivers significantly expanded functionality for development of custom filters & presets. Here’s a summary of what’s new for v4:
Listen to filters and presets with ‘auditionDSP‘ – a brand new, built-in audio player + processor. It runs processing for up to three loudspeaker presets simultaneously in real-time, with live switching between presets. Use it to audition, develop & perfect custom loudspeaker filters and presets, without the need to export data to an external hardware processor first.
New Contour Plot. By popular demand! 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 contour plot, or heatmap, making it easier to identify various on and off-axis behaviour of the loudspeaker preset with polar measurements.
New Group delay display. View the time delay, through the processing, as a function of frequency. (Available within the Second View window.)
Project file consolidation. The system (fds) project file now contains everything. No more separate project files required for each audio channel! Fewer files means simplified project management.
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.
New SpeakerMeasure from Eclipse Audio (the developer of FIR Designer) is a completely free software tool designed for loudspeaker manufacturers and designers who are measuring loudspeaker maximum linear sound levels using the AES75-2022 standard for acoustics.
SpeakerMeasure automates most of the AES75 test procedure to ensure level measurements are captured in way that’s repeatable and objective.
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