With the current favorable dollar/ruble exchange rate, the Pro version can be bought for less than $30. RMAA freeware can be upgraded to a pro version that includes a mono mode (highly useful for those tests of circuits where only one channel is built up), variable Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) size, ASIO compatibility, and better control of display and plotting parameters. Because of its popularity, there’s lots of support on various audio and home theater forums. However, for minimal effort and expense, the user can perform a predetermined test suite-noise, total harmonic distortion (THD), intermodulation (IM), swept THD and IM, and crosstalk-in a few seconds with the press of a button. It has a limited range of test signals, limited flexibility, and is not easy to customize. Rightmark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) is a popular freeware package, originally designed to benchmark sound card performance. Full reviews of each of these could fill entire articles (and perhaps will!), but I’ll give you some brief impressions after spending some time with each of these particular packages. As before, this isn’t a survey of all the available sound card-compatible software, but rather a sample of a few options that are representative of what’s out there. There are various freeware latency checkers - I have been happy with LatencyMon (pictured here).Ĭhoice of software is likewise broad, with a wide range of trade-offs between flexibility, userfriendliness, and cost. It is generally not a big issue in most audio measurements, but if you have a measurement where synchronous operation is critical, you should at least be aware of it. It’s a function of the computer’s speed and memory, as well as the specific software and hardware package used. That can certainly disrupt timing in overdubbing, for example. Think of it as a time delay while the computer is passing information from one place to another. “Latency” is a big deal for music production. Get a good charge then unplug your power brick. Much effort in reducing noise and ground loops can be avoided if the computer has no connection to the mains. ![]() If you’re using a laptop, the battery is your friend. If your computer needs to be used for other tasks, it may help to set up a dedicated boot profile which will disable any wireless or LAN adapters, and mail or antivirus programs on start-up. Having no interrupts or interference from wireless or antivirus or other unnecessary programs running in the background can save a lot of measurement frustration. Ensure that whatever software/hardware you use takes advantage of this!Ī dedicated computer is a good idea. They bypass the Windows layers between the sound card and the measurement software. :)Īudio Stream Input/Output (ASIO) drivers go a long way in helping you obtain top performance. Windows 10 will be released shortly (as of the time of this writing) and it will be interesting to see if it makes the audio amateur’s experience easier or more difficult. Reputedly, Windows 8.1 operates nearly identically and is probably easier to find in a new computer. At the moment, I have Windows 7 running on two different laptops and a desktop, and it’s been easy for even a computer novice such as me to get it to do what I want. As an OS, the support by different software and sound card packages is uneven. For those of us who don’t, it’s easy to spend hours wrestling with different menus to get the sound from where we want to generate it to where we want to measure it without molesting it too badly. XP, although commercially a dead issue, seems to be favored by people who have a good knowledge of operating systems. ![]() ![]() The IR's are great when you don't have the luxury of mic'ing or are just in a hurry etc.Photo 1: The M-Audio 192 PCI sound card features high-definition 192 kHz sampling rate, digital I/O, balanced analog I/O, and It took 15 minutes to set up those 5 mics to do the recording from scratch. ![]() I do add some in when I do remote recordings for clients and have never had any complaints.įYI. The room mic sound is always added judiciously. Any of those 3 close mics can be used on their own. I typically use 2-3 mics on a cab and adjust for the sound I want. It's my approach for mic'ing which is why I went that route. To do a more accurate comparison it would have been better to create a single stereo IR vs individual IR's mixed together. 3 close on the speaker and 2 mics further away in a Blumlein pattern for the room sound. Those comparison are not really the "best" examples but do give you the idea. The clean tones were just the guitar volume rolled back and the distorted tone was the guitar (Strat w single coils) full up. It's a BF Deluxe on 8 through a single 12" speaker. There is no compression on any of the clips other than what the amp naturally does.
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