Being SMAART with DAWs

by Andrew J. Horsburgh, BSc (Hons) www.ajhorsburgh.com

Introduction
This document follows a tutorial on how to set-up Rational Acoustics SMAART v7 1 and Logic Pro 92 (via Soundflower3). The purpose is to allow users to grasp the basic elements of system tuning and understanding of SMAARTs Real Time Analysis (RTA) function.

Version 0.1: October 2012

1 http://www.rationalacoustics.com/pages/Smaart_Landing_Page 2 Www.apple.com/ 3 http://cycling74.com/soundflower-landing-page/

Live Sound Systems

A live sound reproduction system is often a group, array, cluster or pair of speakers placed into an acoustic environment for amplification or 'reinforcement' of sound. This can be from a voice (conference, or public announcement 'PA') to large scale 100+ live inputs for 60,000 attendees. Each system, environment and operator has a different view of the perfect sounding live sound system. As a result several acoustical analysis software programs are on the market to help in the fine tuning of a reinforcement system. The measurement software available may work in conjunction with a PA system or as an independent tool, such as a Real Time Analyser (RTA) with SPL metering and impulse response capabilities. Each of these tools are available to aid an engineer in placement, calibration or fault finding within a system and shouldn't be taken as a replacement for listening during setup. In this tutorial, SMAART has been used in conjunction with Logic acting as the mixing console and speakers. Time addition would equal separation in distance from the source and received source. Reverberation and smearing of the sound image can also be replicated easily through digital effects. For the basics on SMAART check the Rational Acoustics official document: http://www.rationalacoustics.com/files/Getting_Started_with_SmaartLive.pdf

Software & Setup

As noted above, the software chosen for this tutorial is SMAART but there are other products available that can do more or less, for more or less money. As Sound Reinforcement at University of the West of Scotland uses SMAART it was the sensible choice! No cables are required for the hardware cofiguration of this demonstration. If your DAW does not support stereo output splitting (such as Logic 8), then the 16 channel version of SoundFlower can be used (further explanation is under the SF section).

Logic Settings
In Logic, any sample rate ( mine is 48kHz) will work with this tutorial. There maybe benefits to using higher sample rates but as no audio will be heard, higher sample rates will only increase the resolution of any processing done within Logic.

Change the System Preferences to feature in Output and Input Devices to be SoundFlower (2Ch). Then, create one audio track. Choose Input 1 and Output 2. This will allow for SMAARTs pink noise to travel through Logic and be processed whilst not causing feedback, or howlround.

The bus is featured in the above screen shot as an error. Previously, another method to add in more 'zones' of speakers was to use an auxiliary feeding a third SMAART RTA.

SMAART settings
SMAART is slightly more complicated to set up because the internal signal generator is being used and SMAART isn't defaulted to monitor inputs. Open SMAART and navigate to the 'Group Manager' tab. Choosing two separate inputs (Noise and System) allow for two traces to be displayed simultaneously. This feature is expandable to as many channels as inputs for large scale live sound systems that may have upwards of 6 measurement inputs to time align.

As the above image shows the input of these two channels are the CoreAudio SoundFlower 2-Channel Built-in Line Input. Ensuring that the Noise is on 1, and system on 2 (or vice versa) will ensure no digital crosstalk can occur. By mirroring the input the RTA graphs will be identical and of no use for comparisons. The Global Spectrum settings can be altered to 'taste', such as the FFT size and averaging. Figure 1 above shows my preferences for SMAART when doing system measurements.

Soundflower Settings
As per Logic, the sound card will be the virtual inputs and outputs of SoundFlower. The figure below shows that SoundFlower comes with two versions 2Ch and 16Ch. Using the 2 channel is recommended for Logic version 9 and above. If using a DAW where the outputs 1-2 cannot be separated, then the 16Ch is required. This transforms the inputs of SMAART to be Noise 1-2, and System 3-4 to ensure no crosstalk.

No other setup is required in SoundFlower.

Turn Up and Tune In

Now that Logic and SMAART are sending and receiving through SoundFlower all that is left is the operation of the oscillator within SMAART and any processing within Logic. The Oscillator requires it's output to be changed to SoundFlower 1. Choose Pink noise. An output is generally set to -18 to ensure that the gain staging can be kept under control in the early stages of setup. This system is very fragile and any sudden gain movements (fader or gain changes) will cause an instability and digital distortion quickly. If all has been setup correctly two traces will be visible on screen:

The corresponding EQ change on the blue curve (labelled system) is shown in figure 5, the Logic EQ window. The Green trace shows the pink noise throughout the system still remaining equal throughout the 1/48th octave trace.

The above figure shows a hi-pass filter at 126Hz, narrow notch at 455Hz, and a boost at 3.75kHz which is replicated on SMAART.

Conclusions
A quick tutorial has been given on how to combine SMAART with a DAW for classroom, or lab based, learning of the software. As SMAART is not generally encountered outside of the live sound environment time is well spent on learning the functions within the classroom. Having the ability to change time, equalisation and direct sound amplitudes through one package into SMAART gives infinite flexibility to see what happens to sound in an RTA. Any questions on this: hello@ajhorsburgh.com