AES Melbourne section presentation on REW

[John Mulcahy]

The good folk in the Melbourne section of the AES asked if I'd give a presentation on REW, which I did last week. You can find the presentation and a summary on their website. The recording of the session is linked below. It is rather long, but if you're having trouble sleeping it might be just the thing you need

 

[dotnet]

Thanks John, great talk. I really enjoyed that.

Regarding what was discussed right after the end of your slides around complexity vs user friendliness, I think the concept of workflows might help.

User might start by selecting a workflow that fits what they want to achieve (“I want to generate EQs for my listening room” or “I want to time-align my subwoofers” or “I want to design a crossover for my speaker” etc). The workflow could then step them through the correct procedure, selecting the right tools and suitable settings/parameters for them, and explaining what they need to do at each step.

 

[Sergejs]

Superb talk.

I was most touched by the Standards slide - I know how many audio professionals hold on to their favorite Matlab scripts from "back in the day" or some esoteric pieces of code that they believe produce "the right results". For a large part because of distrust in other code and understandable differences between software precisely due to lack of meaningful standards. The reference datasets as you pointed out are a must, how else can someone know that their interpretation is right or wrong. Finally pseudo-code or open-source examples are even better.

Also big thank you John for support of novice users. There are lots of amazing tools out on the Internet that are completely inaccessible to an average user or so poorly documented that even expert-programmers do not touch, but REW is really pleasant to use and your thoughts about use-case specific wizards sound like it could get even nicer

Of course the Free price point is what makes REW legendary and increasingly de-facto standard in the world (not counting hard-core scientists with their Matlab scripts and corporates with their AP, B&K, Listen Inc and other software sold through RFQs and purchase orders).

Thank you.

 

[FargateOne]

So great to add a face to the generous author of this amazing tool!