My DIY Multi-Speaker / Multi-Sub auto optimizer

[dziemian]

You need to think about your price policy. Sure Dirac Bass Control and ART can run on expensive gear but it is also working as vst plugin with cheap pc. Dirac DLBC costs $300 and ART for PC would be available this year probably for a similar price. Their licences are lifetime with no additional costs for upgrades. Dirac is also established and well regarded company with thousands of users who proved their software working as intended. You plan to charge $999 for the same what ART does with yearly calibration access. For most of the users the choice would be obvious unless your software proof superiority over ART which is not the case at the moment. Dont get me wrong. I am glad you design this software and I am willing to test it but really rethink your pricing before you kill sale at start of the business. All the best.

 

[DWPress]

I looked over your website and read the online manual. Is there any sort of user input for a desired room curve? The only example seems pretty flat. 30-100 room measurements is a big commitment, do they all have to be done in one session?

I like the idea of 2 filter sets, my listening space is my studio where I move around and I've tailored the speakers and the space to a wide dispersion sound, but there's also a "sweet spot" and I currently switch between my own DIY filters for either working or critical listening.

 

[umamiaudio]

~ Got the basic P-Soup wizard working.
~ Got P-Soup to recognize/test the Umik-1 (some possible gain issues, but I deferred that bc of below)
~ Having trouble getting P-Soup to work nicely with the HW sound drivers.

ie I normally use WASAPI (successfully). However, P-Soup only enumerates ASIO for reasons I'm not clear on? And ASIO doesn't provide sound output on my HW for underlying reasons TBD.

For example, using my (stereo) HW with my other working configurations:

View attachment 525348

So, I'm at a dead-end due to these underlying IO issues.

Okay wait, please help me understand here because these screenshots don't seem to be from my software. Are you saying that the wizard works but the VST isn't working inside your VST host? What's your setup?

 

[umamiaudio]

I looked over your website and read the online manual. Is there any sort of user input for a desired room curve? The only example seems pretty flat. 30-100 room measurements is a big commitment, do they all have to be done in one session?

I like the idea of 2 filter sets, my listening space is my studio where I move around and I've tailored the speakers and the space to a wide dispersion sound, but there's also a "sweet spot" and I currently switch between my own DIY filters for either working or critical listening.

There will probably be some target presets later but now it just does flat. You can always stick an EQ on the input before the VST. Additionally you can try using our "secondary listening position" feature (in the measurement page of the wizard) to measure different areas in the room! Perhaps with this algorithm, a single calibration could satisfy your needs.

 

[umamiaudio]

You need to think about your price policy. Sure Dirac Bass Control and ART can run on expensive gear but it is also working as vst plugin with cheap pc. Dirac DLBC costs $300 and ART for PC would be available this year probably for a similar price. Their licences are lifetime with no additional costs for upgrades. Dirac is also established and well regarded company with thousands of users who proved their software working as intended. You plan to charge $999 for the same what ART does with yearly calibration access. For most of the users the choice would be obvious unless your software proof superiority over ART which is not the case at the moment. Dont get me wrong. I am glad you design this software and I am willing to test it but really rethink your pricing before you kill sale at start of the business. All the best.

I would say that is very speculative. I think it would be very easy for them to release a VST version if they wanted since the optimization is already done on the computer and they already have Dirac Live software (which internally already has all of the needed capabilities to load the filters and apply them) available as a VST. Also this is why I'm trying to get someone with ART to try it and do some measurements! Either way, I'm here to build long term reputation and will adjust pricing according to the market in a way that doesn't make the early adopters feel like they're getting screwed over. Currently I am considering extending the included calibration subscription period of the perpetual licenses to 2 or 3 years. There is also the subscriptions available as well, which I think I will turn into a "rent-to-own" model. Also, the idea behind the pricing model is slightly different -- when DIRAC comes up with new features / algorithms, they make it a new product. I intend on using all of the user feedbacks and measurements gathered to improve THIS product so if there are improvements to the algorithm, anyone can just create a new calibration using their existing measurements. I think a small fee for the subscription is a good way to support the development on a long term basis without forcing me to have to develop a bunch of gimmicky features to micro-charge for. I do appreciate your feedback though and will take it into consideration. At this point, pretty much nothing is final yet and the focus is on getting user feedback.

 

[dziemian]

Dirac live and its add on "Bass control" for multisub configuration is already available as vst plugin for pc so you can compare it with your measurements and outcome. ART as a vst plugin is supposed to be released this year. I agree that paying for software development is a must. Dirac gets extra money from add ons, Jriver gets small fee for updates every year but those updates dont limit the use of the previous versions. With subscription which prohibits future calculations without paying your software becomes useless the moment tou change position of the speakers or subs.

 

[umamiaudio]

Dirac live and its add on "Bass control" for multisub configuration is already available as vst plugin for pc so you can compare it with your measurements and outcome. ART as a vst plugin is supposed to be released this year. I agree that paying for software development is a must. Dirac gets extra money from add ons, Jriver gets small fee for updates every year but those updates dont limit the use of the previous versions. With subscription which prohibits future calculations without paying your software becomes useless the moment tou change position of the speakers or subs.

ART as a vst plugin is supposed to be released this year <== do you have a source for this information?

You're right about that but the entire pricing has to change and basically updates will have to be charged and basically have a similar pricing scheme to these other companies. For now all I can say is I will think about it becuase there is the fact that the algorithm has to run server side for the reasons I explained in my earlier post.

If you have a pricing scheme which you think could be better for both parties I'm happy to listen.

 

[umamiaudio]

As a mix engineer, this looks right up my alley. I'll give it a shot.

It's made by and for mixing / mastering engineers! It even has volume matched bypass!

 

[dziemian]

@Flak from Dirac spread some rumors about ART for PC available this year on another thread on ASR

 

[john61ct]

Make your pricing SIMPLE for the users

even if seemingly complex for you to administer - that's what computers are for.

Easy to drop pricing later, impossible to go the other way.

Early days ("Founder's Club" members?) get a refund when the future price drops in the form of credit toward the ongoing subscription whatever.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Are you saying that the wizard works but the VST isn't working inside your VST host?

The opposite. VST is fine. In my stereo setup using Windows with external USB sound card I can't currently take measurements without Wasapi support.

 

[john61ct]

The opposite. VST is fine. In my stereo setup using Windows with external USB sound card I can't currently take measurements without Wasapi support.

For accurate measurements wrt timing / phase use an XLR mic through the same interface used for output.

UMIK-2 is better than UMIK-1 for that, but relying on acoustic time calibration is still error prone.

 

[umamiaudio]

The opposite. VST is fine. In my stereo setup using Windows with external USB sound card I can't currently take measurements without Wasapi support.

What's your audio interface? You need a duplex device with an XLR mic. I'm not planning on supporting using separate input and output devices becuase I don't want people to blame bad calibrations on the algorithm (and then give my software a bad name) when in reality it was just some weird clocking error from using separate devices for input and output.

 

[john61ct]

Acourate has the same requirement

 

[umamiaudio]

Andddd we have our first review...

 

[tifune]

What's your audio interface? You need a duplex device with an XLR mic. I'm not planning on supporting using separate input and output devices becuase I don't want people to blame bad calibrations on the algorithm (and then give my software a bad name) when in reality it was just some weird clocking error from using separate devices for input and output.

Given the popularity of UMIKs, what is your recommendation for using them? Simply, don't?

 

[DWPress]

Umik's work ok for quick SPL sweeps and MMM measurements. It's the time domain stuff they suck at with variable latency depending on the OS and the lack of a common clock with playback device.

 

[umamiaudio]

Given the popularity of UMIKs, what is your recommendation for using them? Simply, don't?

If that's a USB mic then simply don't... unfortunately. They can be used for some other stuff but they are not a good candidate for this use case. Also, I know some of you probably have very impressive systems. Don't skimp on the mic! The entire system can only be as accurate as your mic.

 

[levimax]

Regarding pricing. I already have DIRAC live and DBLC which I am not crazy about but I do want to try ART which will cost $299. Since I already have ~$600 invested I am not going "switch" to another program for $999. Maybe you can consider a big discount for current DIRAC customers. In any case good luck.

 

[umamiaudio]

Regarding pricing. I already have DIRAC live and DBLC which I am not crazy about but I do want to try ART which will cost $299. Since I already have ~$600 invested I am not going "switch" to another program for $999. Maybe you can consider a big discount for current DIRAC customers. In any case good luck.

Yes that makes sense. I'll come up with a suitable discount.