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.
More brands supportedfor 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.
FIR Designer M v2.6 now integrates with Marani processors. Transfer a multiway DSP signal chain directly from FIR Designer M to Marani MIR FI & A series processors via the DTP (Direct-To-Processor) functionality within FIR Designer M. See step-by-step instructions.
DTP works over a network (either hardwired or WiFi).
Marani is the third brand to offer DTP integration with FIR Designer M (in addition to Lake & Powersoft). For all other amplifier/processor brands that accept custom FIR filters, data from FIR Designer M can be saved & exported in the file format required for upload (see a list of supported brands, file formats & loading instructions).
Marani DTP integration is currently available in FIR Designer M. The same functionality will be rolled into FIR Designer and FIR Creator EX in the future. (DTP for Lake & Powersoft is already available in FIR Designer & FIR Creator EX.)
A ‘Generic’ IIR filter mode has been newly added to FIR Designer (v3.5) & FIR Designer M (v2.6). It increases speed & accuracy when working with processors that don’t have their own branded IIR filter mode within the IIR Reference Editor.
For all other processor brands, the new ‘Generic’ filter mode is the best place to start when creating optimized IIR filters. 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.
The Generic mode now operates as the default mode within the IIR Reference Editor, and IIRs can be automatically converted between the Generic mode and any of the other branded modes in a single click.
We’ve also modified the Lake IIR filter mode to include Lake-specific filters only. It replaces the original, broader ‘General (Lake)’ mode, which has been renamed ‘Legacy’ & is still available. When loading projects and systems that previously used ‘General (Lake)’, the IIR mode will now show as ‘Legacy’.
Let us know what other processor brand you’d like to see included with a custom IIR mode in FIR Designer.
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 takes room tuning to another level by enabling the creation of arbitrary-phase FIR filters that perform room EQ, phase-correction and loudspeaker magnitude & phase matching.
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.
SMAART is a registered trademark of Rational Acoustics LLC, Connecticut, USA.
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.
We use cookies to analyse our traffic, personalise content and ads & to provide social media features. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media & and analytics partners.OkSee details
