REW Beta Release Changes in REW V5.20 beta 9

[Chuck Zwicky]

You can select a secondary output on the generator if using ASIO drivers (image below) or use L+R as the output channels if using Java drivers. If that doesn't work let me know and I can restore the previous behaviour.

View attachment 13743

Hmm.. no difference.

If I change the generator output routing in the lower dropdown it changes the output in the first output stream menu in the preference pane. I'm not quite sure what "output stream" means, but I assume it' sthe assigned hardware interface driver?

 

[John Mulcahy]

"output stream" and "input stream" are device names assigned by the device driver or the OS, REW doesn't control those. As you are on macOS you are using Java drivers, the dual output pairing provided for Java drivers is channels 1+2. You should be able to use the output channel mapping control to assign your physical measurement and loopback channels (7 and 8) to logical channels 1 and 2 and then use 1+2 as the output channel selection.

 

[Chuck Zwicky]

"output stream" and "input stream" are device names assigned by the device driver or the OS, REW doesn't control those. As you are on macOS you are using Java drivers, the dual output pairing provided for Java drivers is channels 1+2. You should be able to use the output channel mapping control to assign your physical measurement and loopback channels (7 and 8) to logical channels 1 and 2 and then use 1+2 as the output channel selection.

Ah yes, that was it entirely..! Thank you so much for your patient guidance. After calculating all the driver's channel number offsets (for example the UA Apollo uses 1 & 2 as the monitor outputs, so the 8 patchable I/O are numbered 1-8 on the inputs and 3-10 for the outputs) I was able to map the channels .

 

[John Mulcahy]

That's good. I will restore the previous behaviour in any case, shouldn't cause issues as it is only when using loopback..

 

[Breeman]

When exporting an impulse response as .txt in the latest version and trying re-import it, REW gives an error as shown below. The same process works without issues when exporting in .wav format.

I have included both the .txt and .wav files for your reference here;
.wav file
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PB30_p9FPrttXRMtBUFMFDOGh62ILGsv
.txt file
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VoV6WGJHy_1_ROLNE2inbMDwqxHrmBtq

 

[John Mulcahy]

When exporting an impulse response as .txt in the latest version and trying re-import it, REW gives an error as shown below. The same process works without issues when exporting in .wav format.

The txt file option when importing impulse responses was added for COMSOL files, for REW files it is more efficient to use .WAV. I have added support for REW's text impulse response format for the next build though.

 

[Paul Kane]

Not a new issue, but would love to see a fix... On macOS/Mojave, open Signal Generator, then minimize it (click the yellow round button with a dash in it, at the top left). After this, no matter how I try to bring the generator window back up, it shows up briefly and then disappears. Doesn't matter if I do it from the icon in the tray, or from the REW Generator button, or from REW menu. The only way to get it back, it seems, is to exit and restart REW.

 

[John Mulcahy]

Not a new issue, but would love to see a fix... On macOS/Mojave, open Signal Generator, then minimize it (click the yellow round button with a dash in it, at the top left). After this, no matter how I try to bring the generator window back up, it shows up briefly and then disappears. Doesn't matter if I do it from the icon in the tray, or from the REW Generator button, or from REW menu. The only way to get it back, it seems, is to exit and restart REW.

News to me, so thanks for reporting it. I don't see that behaviour on my 10.14.4 installation though. Is there anything else you need to do beforehand to see that behaviour? What signal was selected on the generator? Has anything been captured in the REW log files?

REW saves diagnostic logs in the user's home directory, the location is displayed in the Help -> About REW window. The logs contain information from the last 10 startups, including any error messages or warnings that may have been generated. On macOS the logs are in the user library folder, which no longer appears in Finder by default. To display it either browse to ~/Library/Logs or open your Home folder in Finder (Shift Command + H), select View > Show View Options then select the checkbox to show the library folder.

 

[Paul Kane]

News to me, so thanks for reporting it. I don't see that behaviour on my 10.14.4 installation though. Is there anything else you need to do beforehand to see that behaviour? What signal was selected on the generator? Has anything been captured in the REW log files?

REW saves diagnostic logs in the user's home directory, the location is displayed in the Help -> About REW window. The logs contain information from the last 10 startups, including any error messages or warnings that may have been generated. On macOS the logs are in the user library folder, which no longer appears in Finder by default. To display it either browse to ~/Library/Logs or open your Home folder in Finder (Shift Command + H), select View > Show View Options then select the checkbox to show the library folder.

Nothing special needs to occur. Happens right away or in the middle of a session. The key is to minimize the Generator window. Here's a short screen recording, if you have Quicktime to watch it, starting from launching REW:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ygC_O8Xm2ZkbkqTvt3EXH1l-UpD0Q6yX/view?usp=sharing

Not much in the log file from the session in the video. Here's all there was:

May 05, 2019 12:03:12 PM roomeqwizard.RoomEQ_Wizard main
INFO: REW V5.20 Beta 9 running JRE 1.8.0_202 64-bit on OS X 10.14, en, UTF-8​

 

[John Mulcahy]

Very odd. You said "not a new issue", when did you start seeing that? Does it behave any differently if you change the state of the "Keep signal generator on top" setting in the View preferences?

 

[Paul Kane]

Very odd. You said "not a new issue", when did you start seeing that? Does it behave any differently if you change the state of the "Keep signal generator on top" setting in the View preferences?

That's it! If I turn off the setting to keep generator on top, the problem disappears. If I turn it back on, the problem comes back. This has been like this for many betas, which is why I said it's not a new issue with beta 9. Didn't realize there was such a setting, so at least I have a work-around for now

 

[John Mulcahy]

Until 5.20 beta 9 the state of the generator window has always been to stay on top of other windows, it doesn't have any odd effect on behaviour for me. Do you run any accessibility apps that might be a factor? Window managers and the like?

 

[Paul Kane]

Until 5.20 beta 9 the state of the generator window has always been to stay on top of other windows, it doesn't have any odd effect on behaviour for me. Do you run any accessibility apps that might be a factor? Window managers and the like?

Stock macOS, nothing special installed or running to manage windows. Just removed and reinstalled REW and did a reset settings to default, just to make sure. I still get the same behavior when minimizing with the "on top" setting turned on. Must be something with my computer, some setting or combination of settings that's peculiar to me if this is not occurring for anyone else.

 

[Paul Kane]

Until 5.20 beta 9 the state of the generator window has always been to stay on top of other windows, it doesn't have any odd effect on behaviour for me. Do you run any accessibility apps that might be a factor? Window managers and the like?

One more work-around and a possible clue. Seems that this macOS setting causes the problem when it's enabled. When turned off, the problem disappears:

 

[Ultrasonic]

Quick suggestion of a useful feature to consider for the future:

I've been playing about a bit with the Room Simulator and I think it would be helpful if there was a way to compare the response curves for two configurations. It would be ideal if this could be done within the Room Sim window but perhaps a simpler way to implement it in the software would be to make it possible to save the curves so that they could be loaded like measurements could be? So far I've ended up saving screenshots to compare results.

Just a thought.

 

[John Mulcahy]

I've been playing about a bit with the Room Simulator and I think it would be helpful if there was a way to compare the response curves for two configurations. It would be ideal if this could be done within the Room Sim window but perhaps a simpler way to implement it in the software would be to make it possible to save the curves so that they could be loaded like measurements could be? So far I've ended up saving screenshots to compare results.

They are both on the ToDo list for the room sim.

 

[John Mulcahy]

One more work-around and a possible clue. Seems that this macOS setting causes the problem when it's enabled. When turned off, the problem disappears:

Well spotted! I see the same behaviour if I select "Minimize windows into application icon". I've reported it as a bug against the Java runtime.

 

[John Mulcahy]

One more work-around and a possible clue. Seems that this macOS setting causes the problem when it's enabled. When turned off, the problem disappears:

Now confirmed by Oracle as a bug in java 8,9,12 and 13, so should see a resolution in due course. The fix might not be backported to Java 8, which REW uses, however.

 

[Paul Kane]

Now confirmed by Oracle as a bug in java 8,9,12 and 13, so should see a resolution in due course. The fix might not be backported to Java 8, which REW uses, however.

Thank you, John! I can't imagine how this hasn't been reported and fixed yet with so many apps out there using Java.

 

[Mikhail Naganov]

Hi John,

I think I've found a bug with filter IR export. I can reproduce it with REW 5.20 Beta 29 (and I first spotted it in REW 5.19, so it's not a regression). The bug is that "Export filters IR to WAV" always exports with "Generic" equalizer rendering regardless of which equalizer was selected during design.

For example, this manual filter:

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 17.50 Hz Q 0.707
Filter 2: ON LPQ Fc 21200 Hz Q 0.707
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 12000 Hz Gain 2.00 dB Q 1.600

Is displayed differently for "MiniDSP-96k" and "Generic" equalizers (pictures are with "Inversion" checkbox toggled off):

And regardless of which Equalizer is selected, REW always exports it the way shown on the second graph ("Generic" rendering).

This causes somewhat confusing UX because I might have spent time tweaking the look of the filter having non-Generic setting w/o realizing that it will look differently once exported.

Hope it's possible to fix that or make less confusing. Thanks!

 

[John Mulcahy]

I think I've found a bug with filter IR export.

What is the sample rate of the WAV file you are exporting? If you export a filter response for a 96k equaliser at a sample rate lower than 96k it will not look the same, that is the nature of sampled data.

 

[Mikhail Naganov]

Ahhh... sampling rate. Thank you very much for pointing this out! Indeed, exporting at 96 kHz brings up the same IR as in the filter design window. So that's why "Generic" and "MiniDSP-96k" also display the same filters differently. Good to know that!

I think, what can help to avoid this misunderstanding is to somehow indicate the sampling rate in the EQ designer window and display a warning when exporting the filter at a different sampling rate, similar to warnings that "Export to text" displays about insufficient PPO resolution.

 

[John Mulcahy]

I have added the sample rate in the title bar of the selector panel. It is quite common to export the filter IR at multiple rates so I don't think a warning is appropriate or needed there.

 

[Mikhail Naganov]

Great! Thank you very much, John!