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.

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.)

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

+ Various user-interface updates and fixes.

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

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.

Windows & macOS versions available.

Learn more.

Several of the new features recently added to FIR Designer & FIR Designer M have just been rolled into FIR Creator EX 1.7.0. Here’s a summary:

More brands supported for IIR emulation. New ‘Biamp Tesira‘ & ‘Marani‘ IIR filter modes have been added to the list of emulated brands, joining Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, QSC Q-SYS, Symetrix, & BSS). The Lake mode has also been revised to include Lake-specific filters only. (The original and broader ‘General (Lake)’ mode remains available as ‘Legacy’). (BTW, in FIR Creator EX, IIRs for a brand can be emulated but it’s only possible to convert an IIR from one brand to another in FIR Designer & FIR Designer M).

New ‘Generic’ IIR mode. This new default mode increases speed & accuracy when working with processors that don’t have their own branded IIR filter mode.  It includes bandpass filters, low and high shelf, low-pass and high-pass Bessel, Butterworth, Chebyshev I & II, Elliptic, Linkwitz/Riley & Neville Thiele notched crossovers. It also uses Robert Bristow-Johnson Q & BW definitions for many filters. Learn more.

New import & export file formats. ‘Smaart® Control‘ in FIR Creator EX now works with Smaart version 9. Also CLIO MLS impulse response TXT files can now be loaded. FIR filter export for Xilica TXT files REW magnitude/phase text file import are both now supported. See all supported import file formats.

Enhanced plot display customization. The IIR Filters tab now has a BW/Q selector with each filter table list, enabling rapid switching between the BW & Q without having to change the setting in Preferences.

Inverted FIR filters view. A ‘FIR polarity’ checkbox now replaces the ‘Invert FIR at save’ checkbox on the channel Export tab. View the FIR filter in alternate polarities before choosing which to use and save.

Sample rate warnings. These now appear when using a branded IIR mode with hardware that doesn’t support the current FIR Creator EX sample rate.

Speed improvements. Theres an approximate 7% speedup to the FFT that underlies most calculations.

Various user-interface updates and fixes.

FIR Designer M Release Notes | FIR Designer Release Notes

Smaart V9 compatibility has been added to FIR Designer (v3.5) & FIR Designer M (v2.6) and works with Smaart Suite, Real-Time and Light Editions.

Load previously saved Smaart measurements & use them as the starting point for FIR filter & preset design, or use Smaart® Control from within FIR Designer to capture measurements in real-time directly from Smaart running locally or on the local network. Measurements capture in Smaart Control can then be sent via a single click to either the ‘Import’, ‘Target’ or ‘Averaging’ tabs.

In addition, the latest updates add automatic saving of all Smaart measurements sent to the ‘Averaging’ tab, when saving an averaging session. The measurements are saved to a new *.FDM file format & will be loaded when the averaging session file is loaded in the future.

Check out this video to see how Smaart Control works (using Smaart V8; same functionality for v9), or download a free demo of our software to experiment.

FIR Designer M Release Notes | FIR Designer Release Notes

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

recently used to tune a system using only IIR filters – no FIRs at all – at a newly-renovated church in Australia.

In this step-by-step case study, see how FIR Designer (using averaged measurements captured in Rational Acoustics’ Smaart®) was recently used to tune a system using only IIR filters – no FIRs at all – at a newly-renovated church in Australia.

FIR Designer & FIR Designer M have been newly updated to include a Biamp Tesira IIR filter mode that provides emulation of 48kHz IIR filter behaviour in the Tesira range of Biamp products and aids mixed IIR+FIR Tesira preset creation. IIR responses in the new Biamp Tesira IIR mode can be converted to/from Lake, Linea Research, Powersoft, Q-SYS, Symetrix, BSS & Marani IIR modes using the IIR Reference Editor.

The IIR Reference Editor (in FIR Designer 3.4 & FIR Designer M 2.5) 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 (learn more). Check out this video tutorial of the IIR Reference Editor to see how it works. (Note, the video demonstrates the original non-automated conversion process which usually required manual parameter adjustments to complete the match; these manual adjustment have been replaced by one-click conversion in more recent versions of the FIR Designer software).

FIR Designer M Release Notes

FIR Designer Release Notes

*When using FIR Designer to convert IIR filters for brands not listed, we recommend trying all modes within the FIR Designer IIR tab, & comparing the plots displayed with the IIR plots generated by your own control software to determine which mode produces the closest match.

 

 

Here’s a few of the features added to FIR Designer in 2022 so far…

More brands & file formats supported. FIR filter export for Xilica TXT files & REW magnitude/phase text file import are both now supported. Lake XP modules can now have 96 kHz output channels (in addition to 12, 24 and 48 kHz). Marani Pro Audio specific IIR filters have been added to the list of brand specific IIR filter modes.

Automatic IIR Conversions. The IIR Reference Editor now automatically converts IIRs from one brand to another in a single click, eliminating the need for manual adjustments entirely. Supported brands include Lake, Marani, Linea Research, Powersoft, QSC Q-SYS, Symetrix & BSS. Learn more.

Independent FIR sample rate export. The exported FIR filter sample rate can now be set independently of the workflow’s Design Sample rate. This allows the FIR filter to have a different sample rate to the IIR filtering and delay; ideal for processors that use one sample rate for the bulk of core processing, such as 96 kHz, but only accept FIR filters at a different sample, such as 48 kHz. Learn more.

Workflow speed improvements. Both the Auto Mag and Auto Phase computation can now be optionally paused to reduce program update lag while working in the IIR, Mag Adjust and Phase Adjust tabs.

Copy & Paste between windows & programs. Easily transfer filter table data across windows in FIR Designer and FIR Designer M, and also between products. Copy and paste buttons are available on the Target Mag and Phase, IIR, Mag Adjust, Phase Adjust and Voicing tabs and work between matching tabs (eg. Mag Adjust -> Mag Adjust).

Enhanced plot display customization. Both the IIR Filters tab and the IIR Reference Editor now have a BW/Q selector with each filter table list, enabling rapid switching between the BW & Q without having to change the setting in Preferences. In addition, on the Import tab time delay adjustment can now be viewed in mm, feet and inches.

 

 

Differences in IIR filter definitions continue to be a challenge when working with multiple brands of processors. The same Q or BW setting, for common IIR filter types, does not result in the same response across brands. Q or BW on one processor needs to be adjusted, often significantly, to match the response on another processor.

The IIR Reference Editor was added to FIR Designer & FIR Designer M in 2019, making it possible to convert & match IIR filter settings across brands with different Q or BW interpretations. The editor performed a quick and close conversion, with additional manual parameter adjustments usually required to complete the match. (This video demonstrates the original process.)