FIR Creator EX Release Notes
Learn more about FIR Creator EX or download a free demo.
Version 2.1.1 (8 January 2025)
- Fix (macOS): The “Auto Mag” filter component was incorrectly being applied twice into the FIR filter and the “Auto Phase” component was being ignored. (Bug was introduced in version 2.1.0)
- Various UI improvements and speed improvements.
Version 2.1.0 (7 December 2024)
- New: FIR Creator EX now has a dark user interface theme available on both macOS and Window. To switch between light and dark themes, in Preferences, change the “Use dark mode” setting and restart the application.
- New: The thickness of plot lines can now set in Preferences, from1 pixel to 10 pixels.
- New: “AFMG SpeakerLab” IIR filter mode. (This mode is an analog filter mode and cannot be exported to processors over DTP.)
- New: “StormAudio” IIR filter mode.
- Various UI improvements and speed improvements.
Version 2.0.0 (3 June 2024)
We’re pleased to announce FIR Creator EX version 2, now with:
- Unlimited IIR filters, FIR magnitude filter prototypes and FIR phase filter prototypes.
- New Direct To Processor (DTP) window for Lab Gruppen, for IPX DSP amplifiers (in addition to Lake and Powersoft).
- New IIR modes for Blaze Audio, Pascal Audio, RAM Audio and RMS-Acoustics (in addition to Generic, Biamp Tesira, BSS, Lake, Linea Research, Marani, Powersoft, QSC Q-SYS and Symetrix).
- The ability to customize plot colors. (Plot colors are now saved in the project file.)
Version 1.7.9 (31 March 2024)
- Update: The FIR export “DC Compensation” feature sometimes wouldn’t work properly, particularly with FIR filters that are inverted.
Version 1.7.8 (27 January 2024)
- Fix to target file loading problem on macOS. (Bug introduced in 1.7.7)
- Minor fixes to IIR txt coefficient export for Marani, Symetrix, Biamp & Generic IIR modes.
- Improved WAV file loading.
- For the IIR QSC Q-SYS HPF Natural Bessel filter order; fix to IIR tab cut-paste and fix to LPIF export.
Version 1.7.7 (3 October 2023)
- New Q option for Biamp IIR mode. (Now either BW or Q can be used.)
- Fixed bug in Kaiser/Bessel window function.
- New “check for updates” window. (Update link on previous window stopped working due to Apple macOS changes.)
- Updated Qt toolkit to latest. (Minimum O/S requirements have changed.)
- Speedup to some underlying computations.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.7.6 (13 June 2023)
- Workaround for spurious data that might come from SMAART through SMAART Control.
Project File Format Version: 25
Version 1.7.5 (24 May 2023)
- Fix: SMAART Control “Send to..” buttons were not working. (Bug introduced in version 1.7.0.)
Version 1.7.4 (1 May 2023)
- Fix: Rare crash using Auto Mag or Auto Phase tabs.
Version 1.7.3 (29 April 2023)
- Fix: Some SMAART .srf files would not load correctly.
Version 1.7.2 (10 April 2023)
- Fix: Biamp Tesira IIR Linkwitz/Riley filters sometimes displayed filter order incorrectly.
- Fix: FIR summary text file was missing filter order for Biamp Tesira IIR filters.
Version 1.7.1 (7 April 2023)
- macOS: from version 1.6.2 to 1.7.0, the Lake DTP window would not connect to the Lake Controller and incorrectly reported “Packet error: bad checksum”. The cause is unknown but we have implemented a workaround in this version.
Version 1.7.0 (26 February 2023)
- New ‘Biamp Tesira’, ‘Marani’, ‘Lake’ and ‘Generic’ IIR filter modes.
- The ‘General (Lake)’ IIR mode has been rename to ‘Legacy (General)’.
- The ‘Lake’ mode has Lake specific filters only.
- The ‘Generic’ mode – now the default – has a similar filter set to the ‘Legacy (General)’ but with additional bandpass and notch filters, and now uses Robert Bristow-Johnson Q & BW definitions.
- Sample rate warnings now appear when using a branded IIR mode whose hardware doesn’t support the current FIR Designer sample rate.
- A new ‘FIR polarity’ checkbox is now available on the channel Export tab. This replaces the ‘Invert FIR at save’ checkbox and the ‘Invert FIR at save’ setting is now transferred to the ‘FIR polarity’ when an older channel project file is loaded.
- CLIO impulse response TXT file import.
- ~7% speedup to FFT that underlies most calculations.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.6.2 (19 November 2022)
- Fix: On Windows 10, text wasn’t scaling correctly for display scaling values other than 100%.
- The updates default on and can be enabled/disabled in the Preferences dialog.; see “Use high DPI improvements” setting.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.6.1 (24 April 2022)
- New: REW measurement magnitude/phase text file import.
- Fix: Project file loading crash in BSS IIR filters.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.6.0 (7 February 2022)
- New
- Mag Adjust tab now has Keel-Horbach filters and “Invert” and “Complement” filter options.
- Mag Design tab now has “Invert” filter option.
- Update: High DPI improvements, for Microsoft Windows and released in 1.5.0, can now be enabled/disabled in Preferences.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
- This version has an updated project (*.fdp) file format. When loading project files made with previous versions, we recommended not to save over these files, in case opening them in an older version might be necessary.
Version 1.5.1 (20 October 2021)
- Update: SMAART® TRF files with MTW+ can now be loaded.
Version 1.5.0 (4 October 2021)
- New: Mouse controls for IIR, mag and phase filters, and auto-mag and auto-phase bands.
- New: “BSS” IIR filter mode.
- New: KaiserBessel FIR window option with adjustable alpha.
- New: Export IIR filters in Eclipse Audio LPIF format.
- New: Export IIR filters in CSV file format for QSC QSYS custom IIR filter block.
- New: “Phase Only” option when using target response files.
- Update: More improvements for high DPI displays on Microsoft Windows.
- Various user-interface updates.
Version 1.4.10 (20 July 2021)
- New: 2nd order variable Q HP and LP filters in “Powersoft” IIR filter mode.
- New: “Linea Research” IIR filter mode now supports Q.
- Update: Improvement to shelf filter Q interpretation in Powersoft IIR filter mode. Now matches Powersoft Armonia Plus.
- Various user-interface updates.
Version 1.4.9 (20 March 2021)
- New: SMAART Control now works with SMAART DI.
- Update: Improvements for high DPI displays on Microsoft Windows.
- Fix: Minor stability improvements in SMAART Control.
Version 1.4.8 (12 August 2020)
- Fix: Auto Mag wasn’t working when using a File target.
Version 1.4.7 (25 June 2020)
- Updates to SMAART Control
- Network control improvements
- Plot shows ‘data out of range’ warning
- Hotkeys for buttons: ‘Reset Time Averaging” use key ‘r’ and ‘Grab Measurement’ use key ‘g’
- Fix: Changing any tab’s ‘Enable’ checkbox wasn’t alerting the user to a change in the project.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.4.6 (13 April 2020)
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.4.5 (7 April 2020)
- Fix: SPK file response was shifted 2x in frequency.
Version 1.4.4 (2 April 2020)
- Fix: Parts of the UI locked when loading a file on the Target tab. (Bug introduced in 1.4.0.)
Version 1.4.3 (29 February 2020)
- New: SMAART Control can send a measurement to the “file” response on the Target tab.
- New: Gain/polarity/delay tab now shows delay in mm and inches. The speed of sound can be set in Preferences.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.4.2 (15 February 2020)
- Fix: Import & GPD impulse response samples plots would sometimes disappear when using power smoothing on import.
Version 1.4.1 (24 January 2020)
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.4.0 (19 January 2020)
- New: “QSC Q-Sys” and “Symetrix” IIR filter modes provides accurate emulation of IIR filters for specific brand products, particularly with regard to bandwidth or Q.
- New: Remote control of SMAART® from a new SMAART Control dialog with the ability to grab measurements live into FIR Creator EX’s Import tab.
- New: Room EQ Wizard (REW) text file import.
- Fix: Variable-Q LP & HP filters on IIR, Mag Adjust, Mag Design and Voicing tabs were sometimes randomly level shifted.
- Fixed a few minor problems loading some measurement TXT files.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.3.8 (16 December 2019)
- Fix: Powersoft Bessel filter warning was appearing for every project load. (Bug introduced in 1.3.5.)
Version 1.3.7 (19 October 2019)
- Update: Removed 513 sample, 48 kHz restriction on GKF FIR filters. GKF filters of any length can now be exported.
Version 1.3.6 (29 September 2019)
- Update: Application notarized to run on macOS 10.15 Catalina
- New: “FIR Designer JSON” FIR export file format. Specification to be provided shortly.
- Fix: DFM 64 bit double file now has file extension .FIR and loads in NetControl2.
Version 1.3.5 (22 September 2019)
- Fix: Powersoft Bessel HP and LP filters weren’t matching Powersoft Armonia. (Armonia shifts Bessel filters to have -3dB response at the selected frequency.)
Version 1.3.4 (20 September 2019)
- Fix: DFM FIT file format.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.3.3 (4 September 2019)
- Update: Improvement to measurement sample-rate converter near nyquist.
- Update: BW & Q are now both written to the IIR text and summary text files.
Version 1.3.2 (13 July 2019)
- Fix: Filename in title bar might not display correctly.
- Update: Solo checkboxes cleared and tab Enable checkboxes enabled after program load.
Version 1.3.1 (11 July 2019)
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.3.0 (9 June 2019)
- New: FIR filter “rewindowing” when sideloading. On Lake and Powersoft DTP dialogs, sideloaded FIR filters longer than the platform supported FIR filter length can be shortened and optimised using a new “rewindowing” dialog.
- New: Phase plots no longer show a vertical line at the wrap point. (The old plot method, that shows the wrap line, can be enabled in Preferences.)
- New: IIR filter modes provides accurate emulation of IIR filters for specific brand products, particularly with regard to bandwidth or Q. Options include “General” (including all IIR filters from prior versions of FIR Designer), “Linea Research” (including unique Hardman crossover filters) and “Powersoft.”
- New: FRD measurement file, SMAART SRF file and miniDSP BIN (32bit float) file import.
- New: FIR file, and 32bit and 64bit float FIR filter file export for DFM processors.
- New: FIR text note for GKF files on export.
- Fix: Magnitude offset level not correct when importing some SMAART TRF files.
- Fix: Program crash when trying to load an AFMG SPK file.
- Fix: Some WAV files from realtime recorders may not load and cause the program to crash.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.2.5 (3 April 2019)
- Fix: Some WAV files, generated by SMAART, wouldn’t load.
- Fix: When resampling an impulse response during load, some sample rate combinations caused artefacts.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.2.4 (20 January 2019)
- Minor update to the tracking of odd-order low-pass Bessel filters. (See fix in 1.2.3.)
Version 1.2.3 (17 January 2019)
- Fix: Polarity of odd-order low-pass Bessel filters was incorrect, but matched Lake products. This version calculates the correct polarity for new projects, but maintains the inverted filters when loading older projects. It also provides an option to convert a project to the correct polarity.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.2.2 (25 November 2018)
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.2.1 (4 November 2018)
- Fix: A power spectrum only STO file may crash the application.
- Fix: The FFT size, for new projects, in the Preferences dialog wasn’t saved between program runs. (Bug introduced in 1.2.0)
Version 1.2.0 (2 November 2018)
- Update: Improved robustness of network communication with the Lake Controller plugin for some rare situations.
- Fix: When side-loading FIR filters on the Lake and Powersoft DTP dialogs, some FIR filters that should load were being prevented and were triggering a message that they were too long. The FIR filter length check wasn’t adjusting for the difference in sample rate between the FIR filter and the output channel.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes including parameter table drop-down controls now open in one click.
Version 1.1.0 (29 July 2018)
- New: “Monkey Forest” SPK measurement files can now be loaded.
- New: When “Normalise magnitude to max” is set, the “Magnitude offset (dB)” field displays the normalisation gain.
- New: Right-clicking on a zoomed plot now zooms out to maximum.
- Fix: Minor error in measurement response when measurement is resampled down to 12 kHz or 24 kHz.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.0.1 (28 April 2018)
- New: A direct link to the new version is now provided on the update dialog.
- New: Added Klippel Impulse Response text file measurement loading.
- Fix: When loading TXT and WAV files, if the delay is indicated in the filename, it wasn’t being used correctly to align the measurement.
- Various user-interface updates and fixes.
Version 1.0.0 (21 April 2018)
- Initial release
SMAART is a registered trademark of Rational Acoustics LLC, Connecticut, USA.