V5.20.14 early access build

[John Mulcahy]

V5.20.14 has moved to a new look and feel, FlatLaf, for most components, to modernise the appearance and make it easier to adjust. That involved a lot of changes, as many REW interface components were heavily customised, so I'm making early access builds available to help pick up any interface issues ahead of the full release. If you spot any problems please post about them here.

V5.20.14 early access has ended. Future changes are in the V5.30 beta release.

Spoiler: V5.20.14 builds

Here are the builds: (updated 21st October)

PLEASE NOTE: Windows builds from ea57 (3rd May) onwards are signed with a new certificate. Microsoft SmartScreen will warn that the files are "not commonly downloaded" and ask you to confirm you trust the file before allowing it to run. That will continue until SmartScreen has seen sufficient downloads.
Windows 64-bit
Windows 32-bit
MacOS
Linux AMD64
Linux no JRE (for non-AMD64 linux platforms)

Aside from the appearance changes there are a few new features:

• Sample rates up to 1536 kHz may now be selected on macOS. The desired rate for devices must also be selected in Audio Midi Setup (before starting REW). Successful operation at rates above 192 kHz may be hardware-dependent. I have measured without issues at 768 kHz on an M1 mac mini.
• The All SPL graph controls have a new Cross corr align button, which time aligns the currently selected measurements by cross correlation of their windowed impulse responses (using the first of them as the reference). This may be useful to align measurements from a mic array or measurements of the same source from different positions prior to vector averaging.
• The EQ window now has a group delay graph showing the measured and predicted group delay
• A display of voltage gain has been added to the RTA THD info panel when the signal generator is playing a tone, it is only meaningful if the input and output voltages have been calibrated
• The spectrum peak value for tone burst signals is now labelled in the units of the RTA graph Y axis rather than being fixed as SPL
• Distortion percentage values in graph legends switch to scientific notation below 0.0001% instead of 0.001%

There are also some bug fixes:

• Bug fix: Voltages in the full scale voltage fields would be parsed incorrectly if their units were not V, mV or uV
• Bug fix: Names of highlighted traces could show an html opening tag
• Bug fix: Null pointer exception when importing sweep recordings
• Bug fix: input volume control could be briefly enabled on macOS after selecting an input
• Bug fix: FDW data could have a fractional sample offset after some trace arithmetic operations
• Bug fix: Imported frequency responses converted to min phase were shifted by -3 dB
• Bug fix: Cal files were not applied to burst decay plots
• Bug fix: Null pointer exception on the Captured graph
• Bug fix: Saving multi-channel RTA captures to individual measurements would cause an exception for more than 2 inputs

Further changes 5th&6th November:

The EQ filters panel layout has changed to a horizontal format with an image of the filter response in the select button and controls that can be revealed with left click and hidden with double click or right click. If the mouse is over a set of filter controls the response of the filter will be shown highlighted on the Filter adjust graph. Values in spinners and drop down boxes can be changed by using the mouse wheel, whether the controls are visible or hidden. For fine adjustment hold the Alt key while scrolling the mouse wheel.

Equaliser selection has been reorganised by manufacturer and model

There is a new "Extended" generic equaliser option with 20 filters which can each support a range of high order types including low pass, high pass and shelf filters with slopes up to 48 dB/octave.

There is a new "Customisable PEQ" generic equaliser option with a configurable number of filters, freq span, gain range and Q or bandwidth range.

A Linkwitz Transform filter option has been added to the Generic, Extended and miniDSP equalisers

The highlighted trace name says if the trace is above or below the graph range.


Further changes 15th November

The Measure dialog was becoming quite cluttered, so input selection and associated options have been moved onto a separate input selection dialog, as they are for the RTA.

By popular demand, there is now an entry in the Filter tasks pane to Measure with these filters, which makes a sweep measurement with the current filter settings applied to the sweep output. This may be convenient when using WASAPI exclusive or ASIO drivers which bypass software EQ, or when experimenting with crossover settings for a driver (since the Generic Extended equaliser offers a range of crossover filters). A small image of the filter response is shown on the Measure dialog along with the headroom the filters require. The response image uses the same dB axis limits as the EQ filters panel filter previews.

There is now a View preference to control whether mouse scroll adjusts controls on hover.

The RTA image capture dialog now has a button to insert the RTA settings in the graph comment

Pro upgrade

• UMIK-X module averages can now be shown on the RTA
• Averaging groups have been added to the Configure Averages panel allowing groups to be formed with any combination of the inputs for sweep and RTA measurements
• There are now check boxes for each input on the multi-input Adjust average dialog to provide a quick way to remove a measurement from the average (i.e. set its weighting to zero)
• If the mouse is over a weighting check box when viewing a measurement the response for that input is shown on the graph

Further changes 17th November

A navigator has been added to make it easier to move through impulse responses, especially at high zoom levels. It sits below the impulse graph, replacing the scroll bar, and shows the entire response with the currently displayed portion highlighted. The highlighted region can be dragged to reposition the view, with smooth scrolling even at very high zoom. Clicking anywhere in the navigator view centres the displayed portion on the click. If the mousewheel is used while the mouse is over the navigator the graph will be zoomed along its time axis, centred on the time axis position of the mouse pointer in the main graph.

There is an option to "Fill silence with dither" on the Measure dialog and the Measurement sweep panel of the signal generator. If this is selected the generator will replace silent parts of the sweep with 16-bit dither. This option is provided to try and counter aggressive output muting which some DACs exhibit when one of their input channels does not have any signal. There is some penalty in the impulse response noise level, though it is far below the noise floor for acoustic measurements, only potentially having an impact when measuring electronics. Nonetheless the option should only be selected if required to counter device behaviour.

There are now controls in the room simulator to set the SPL at the top and bottom of the response graph.


Further changes 20th November

Added an equaliser entry for the CamillaDSP IIR filters. Filter settings can be saved to and loaded from YAML files, the format used by CamillaDSP for its configuration files. The data to import must include the "filters:" tag at the start of the file. A range of single and multiple biquad filters are supported.

There is an additional timing reference option for measuring from file, a wired timing reference. When using the acoustic timing reference REW listens for the timing signal on the measurement input, where it will be picked up by the mic. That may not be suitable when measuring with direct connections to the outputs of a system that requires file playback as the timing reference must always be on the output being measured. In those cases the wired option allows a different input channel to be assigned for the timing signal, separating timing detection from measurement.

Further changes 29th November

Added a button in the Overlay RT60 graph controls to export the average of the selected traces, along with the standard deviation and number of measurements that contributed to the average at each frequency

Switched to a separate dialog for the soundcard preferences Check levels and Calibrate soundcard steps as the buttons on the help panel were too easily overlooked

Added an option in the filter adjust graph controls to highlight the target match range


30th November: Saving CamillaDSP filters prompts for a filter label

Changes 4th December

• Bug fix: Stepped sine THD measurements vs frequency could plot harmonics beyond their valid range
• Bug fix: Frequency band header could appear on stepped level measurements
• Bug fix: Try and fix missing dialog borders on Linux

Changes 5th December

Fixed a bug causing files not to be overwritten if they already exist
Added Cosine, Tukey 0.5 and Tukey 0.75 IR window options
Reverted window decoration to the OS for Linux builds


Further changes 20th December

• Added: Pro upgrade: The input selection dialog for multi-input capture now has an option to not generate an overall average of all the inputs
• Added: Support for d&b audiotechnik tuning filters
• Added: Hold the shift key when using the mousewheel to zoom the graph in the x axis only
• Added: Show a warning message if "Invert second output" is selected when measuring
• Changed: Allow Volts axis to go up to 1 kV (previous limit was 100 V)
• Fixed: Zero magnitudes could cause invalid results in a frequency-limited division
• Fixed: Only apply the Analysis preference to add FDW to measurements when they are made
• Fixed: Ensure dialogs are fully visible when they are displayed
• Fixed: High 2nd harmonic distortion could cause IR start time to be set too early due to treating harmonic image as part of the IR
• Fixed: Measurements using loopback as cal and timing reference would give an array index out of bounds error if the measurement end frequency was not above 1 kHz
• Fixed: The IMD DIN overall calculation used d2L and d3L twice instead of d2L, d2H, d3L and d3H
• Fixed: Deleting all filters on the EQ filters panel set any crossover filters to 1 kHz instead of clearing them

Further changes 21st December

• Added: View preference for which traces are selected when Overlays graphs first open, all or just the current measurement
• Added: Legend panel right click menu for overlay graphs has an option to replicate the All SPL graph selections
• Added: Legend panel right click menu for overlay graphs has an option to copy the selections to the other overlay graphs
• Fixed: The IMD TD+N figure omitted contributions after the highest test frequency in the IMD signal

Further changes 23rd December:

• Added: The option to copy selections to other overlay graphs is now also available in the All SPL graph
• Fixed: Saving peak from RTA when capturing multiple inputs would cause an error

Further changes 3rd January:

• Added: The alignment tool has a choice of phase or impulse alignment modes. Impulse alignment mode uses cross-correlation of 1/3 octave zero phase filtered impulse responses.
• Added: Impulse response window presets can now be generated and accessed through the IR windows dialog
• Added: The IR windows dialog now has buttons to apply the window selections to the measurements selected in the All SPL or Impulse overlay graphs.
• Added: The EQ window impulse graph can show step responses
• Added: Export impulse as wav has an option to place t=0 at a specified sample index, default is 256
• Added: Analysis preferences has an option to place t=0 for imported IRs at sample 256, so exports/imports with t=0 at sample index 256 will preserve t=0 timing
• Added: Trace arithmetic has an operation to divide the magnitudes of the traces
• Added: Trace arithmetic operations to invert magnitude (zero phase) and phase are now included, both can be restricted to a specified frequency range.
• Added: View preferences default trace colours panel has a button to set the original V5.20 default colours
• Added: There is a Fit Y to data button on the extents dialog and a Ctrl+Alt+Y shortcut to fit Y axis to data on graphs with a frequency X axis
• Added: There is an ALL SPL measurement action to make a copy of a response with an IR that is the smallest power of 2 that coves the windowed span
• Added: Comments and headers can be omitted when exporting measurements or impulse responses as text
• Changed: The choice of cycles or octave fractions for the frequency dependent window units is now in the Analysis preferences
• Changed: Changes to the IR window settings in the IR windows dialog are applied as they are made
• Changed: The default filenames for signals saved to file have more abbreviated signal names
• Changed: Do not force exported impulse responses to be at least 1 second long
• Changed: Do not set windows for imported IR beyond the range of the imported data
• Changed: When exporting an impulse response as WAV without windowing or setting t=0 at a specified sample index the peak is no longer placed at 1 second but left wherever it appears in the raw data
• Fixed: The measurement panel width was greater than needed to show the longest allowed measurement name
• Fixed: Selecting another measurement when the spectrogram Y axis was frequency could reset the frequency span
• Fixed: WAV files shorter than the FFT length dropped on the RTA caused an exception
• Fixed: WAV files dropped on the RTA could show artefacts at around -162 dB
• Fixed: Saving signal generator sequences with multiple repetitions as WAV in PCM24 format had discontinuities at the sequence boundaries

Further changes 8th January:

• Added a warning if the clock adjustment is more than 200 ppm
• When "Fill silence with dither" is selected and using the acoustic timing reference send dither on the output for approximately 3 seconds before starting to measure
• Fixed: Array index out of bounds could occur when importing sweep recordings

Further changes 9th January:

• Fixed: Window preset FDW widths were not restored properly on the next startup
• Fixed: Import sweep recordings could search too far into the data when looking for the first timing reference

Further changes 10th January:

• Fixed: Array index out of bounds when measuring with acoustic timing reference
• Changed: Faster loading of measurements that have filter sets

Further changes 14th January:

• Changed: Merging cal data into the IR takes account of the "Limit cal boost to 20 dB" Analysis preference setting
• Fixed: Merging cal with IR when using loopback as cal ref would give incorrect IR position if the left window was shorter than the measurement delay
• Fixed: Capturing an image of the waterfall or spectrogram graphs with "Include title" selected would cause an IllegalArgumentException

Further changes 18th January:

• Added: An indicator ("T") at the bottom of the impulse graph shows the position of the timing reference when the measurement was made (only for measurements made after this build)
• Added: Noise floor capture before a sweep measurement is now optional, controlled by a check box on the Measure dialog. Capturing the noise floor takes about 1.4 seconds.
• Changed: Minimum frequency for waterfalls and spectrograms is now the axis start frequency set in the View preferences rather than 10 Hz
• Changed: Merging cal data into the IR uses the whole IR rather than the windowed span
• Changed: If "continue anyway" is selected when REW prompts about the measurement input not having SPL calibration REW will not ask in future for that input device.
• Fixed: The signal generator waveform preview might not show a clipping warning when signal peaks exceeded full scale until the signal was played, though the level display would show peak above 0 dBFS
• Fixed: The sweep dither preamble started playing before noise floor capture had finished
• Fixed: Trace arithmetic, vector average and cross correlation alignment would fail if the responses were entirely in negative time

Further changes 19th January:

• Changed: Dither amplitude is increased for 24-bit test tones whose frequencies have integer sample periods to eliminate quantisation artefacts
• Fixed: Some generator signals incorrectly had low level dither applied (e.g. J-test)
• Fixed: Long IR windows could cause an error during measurements with merge loopback cal

Further changes 20th January:

• Changed: Merging loopback cal to the IR ignores the state of the Analysis "Limit cal data boost to 20 dB" preference. If boosting outside the range of the device being measured causes artefacts the measurement span could be reduced to exclude them.
• Changed: The reference measurement for loopback calibration uses data outside the nominal measurement range

Further changes 25th January:

• Added: Show a warning if the measurement and loopback input or output selections are the same when using a loopback as timing reference
• Changed: The maximum clock adjustment has been reduced to 400 ppm, adjustments larger than 200 ppm are likely to be due to dropouts or other measurement issues
• Fixed: Annotations (such as [FDW]) could appear in the measurement panel names

Further changes 29th January:

• Added: Hypex Input EQ equaliser entry
• Added: "Iron" colour scheme for spectrograms and waterfalls
• Changed: EQ filter frequency spinners accept k after the figure to denote kHz, e.g. entering 1.5k will set the frequency to 1.5 kHz
• Fixed: Copying All SPL selections to other overlay graphs did not immediately update the current overlay graph
• Fixed: Using loopback cal as ref could fail in some circumstances

Further changes 5th February:

• Added: pipeline entry in CamillaDSP YAML file that lists the filter names
• Added: There is now a V/sqrt(Hz) axis option for the All SPL graph, but only RTA spectrum measurements have valid V/sqrt(Hz) data
• Added: The Equaliser preferences now include a setting for the default target level
• Changed: When the V/sqrt(Hz) axis option is chosen only show V/sqrt(Hz) in the legend units if the measurement has a valid Amplitude Spectral Density value, otherwise show volts as the unit
• Fixed: RTA distortion panel N figure read low when the fundamental was close to the noise floor
• Fixed: UMIK-1 with USB-C connections and no volume control adjustment in Audio Midi Setup could read 3 dB high on macOS

Further changes 6th February:

• Added: Show a warning if the SPL offset is changed but the Y axis is not SPL
• Changed: Only scale up icons for retina screens if all the attached displays are retina
• Fixed: The configurable equaliser class definition had an error that meant it became incompatible with earlier builds in ea29, preventing mdat files saved by ea28 and earlier that used a configurable equaliser from loading. The definition has been corrected to be compatible with the ea28 and earlier builds but that makes it incompatible with the ea29 and ea30 builds. A workaround for those is to load the file in ea30, change to another equaliser then save it again.

Further changes 17th February:

• Added: Import sweep recordings can import all channels of a multi-channel recording, preserving their relative timing
• Added: Show a warning if impulse alignment in the alignment tool shows a response needs to be inverted
• Changed: Output channel mapping allows up to 16 channels to be mapped (was 8)
• Changed: The handling of SPL offsets and IR scaling for the results of a division have been changed to allow the resulting IR to be exported and used directly without normalisation or scaling, but note that float format should be used if exporting to WAV without normalisation
• Changed: Do not use rectangular windows for inversion results due to artefacts in subsequent processing, use Tukey0.01 instead
• Fixed: On Linux a USB mic may be detected but the cal file Sens Factor ignored due to no recognised USB mic

Further changes 18th February:

• Fixed: Exception when selecting ASIO drivers

Further changes 22nd February:

• Added: The filter adjust graph in the EQ window has a Graphical filter edit option that allows filter gain or frequency to be changed by clicking and dragging on circular filter handles and Q to be adjusted using the mouse wheel when the mouse is over the handle.
• Changed: House curve selection is now in the Target settings of the EQ window instead of in a preferences panel
• Fixed: The target and filters plus target traces on the filter adjust graph did not take account of the Y axis selection

Further changes 25th February:

• Added: "Show ISO3382 average" option on the Overlay RT60 graph to show the average of the chosen ISO3382 parameter for the selected traces
• Added: "Export all data" button on the Overlay RT60 data graph to export all RT60 data for the selected measurements
• Added: Grouping selector when exporting RT60 data from multiple measurements to allow grouping by measurement or by parameter
• Added: Preferences menu entry to save preferences to a file
• Added: A Startup argument -prefs to specify a preferences file for REW to use
• Added: Support for a roomeqwizard.vmoptions entry -Drew.preferences.file to specify a preferences file for REW to use (startup argument takes precedence)
• Changed: The default centre frequencies for filters are at one-third octave centres rather than all being 100 Hz

Further changes 5th March:

• Added: A 64k sweep option for faster response measurements at sample rates of 48 kHz or lower
• Added: Fractional octave filter controls on the Impulse overlay graph to allow all selected impulse responses to be filtered at once
• Added: The SPL & Phase, All SPL, Overlay SPL and Overlay Predicted SPL graphs have an IEC263 aspect ratio control to force them to a preferred ratio. If a ratio is selected the margins around the graph will be adjusted to achieve the specified dB/decade. At very narrow frequency spans the margins will be prevented from growing too large and the aspect ratio can no longer be maintained, the actual aspect ratio can be shown on the graph by selecting that option in the View preferences.
• Added: REW will look for a file called initialprefs.txt in the log files folder on startup and if found will initialise all preferences from it. Alternatively a -initialprefs argument or a -Drew.initialpreferences.file roomeqwizard.vmoptions file entry can be used to specify a file with the initial settings for preferences. The initial preferences file will not be modified.
• Changed: Made the period of dither played before a measurement sweep optional with a check box on the Measure dialog to select it
• Changed: Disable deletion actions while loading measurements to avoid measurements being deleted while still being loaded
• Changed: Use preferred octave fraction centre frequencies where appropriate when exporting distortion data as text
• Fixed: When using bars on 1/3 octave RT60 graph the lines between the 50 and 63 Hz bins were not vertical
• Fixed: An exception could occur if match target was used with a very narrow match range

Further changes 7th March:

• Added: Multiple selection is now possible in the file dialogs for import frequency response and import impulse responses, though drag and drop may be easier.
• Added: The span and aspect ratio of the Impulse graph magnitude view can now be configured in the graph controls
• Changed: A frequency span preset aspect ratio will only change the graph aspect ratio selection if the selection is not "As plotted"
• Changed: Apply a minimum span for fit to data
• Fixed: The IEC 263 aspect ratio preference key was not unique for the All SPL graph so the chosen ratio could be forgotten
• Fixed: The Java runtime default preferences store could override the file-based preferences

Further changes 10th March:

• Added: Double-click on graph brings up the Limits dialog
• Changed: Altered room sim to give more consistent response levels as room volume changes
• Fixed: Capture time needed to be longer when using 64k sweep with acoustic timing reference
• Fixed: Cursor value could change as graph was scrolled
• Fixed: initialprefs.txt in the REW log files folder was not used
• Changed: If rewprefs.txt is found in the REW log files folder it will be used to store preferences, unless the -prefs argument or -Drew.preferences.file roomeqwizard.vmoptions entry have been specified. That means switching to file-based preferences can be done quickly by saving preferences to rewprefs.txt in the log files folder and restarting REW. On Windows systems startup is faster with file-based preferences.

Further changes 17th March:

• Added: Airy and Morlet continuous wavelet transform modes for the spectrogram graph
• Added: Export buttons for the decay, waterfall and spectrogram graphs
• Added: Export IR as WAV option to export a specified number of samples
• Added: IR windows dialog display of number of samples the windows span
• Added: Mouse wheel can be used to adjust sliders for the alignment tool and t=0 offset
• Added: Recommend the 64-bit build on 64-bit architectures
• Fixed: Generator might not start when attempting SPL calibration

Further changes 18th March:

• Added: The impulse overlay graph has a "Remove IR delay" button which estimates IR delay and shifts the IR to remove it for all selected measurements
• Added: Export Filters IR as WAV has options to export a specified number of samples and place t=0 at a specified sample index
• Added: Noise floor data is extracted from imported sweep measurements if there is sufficient data before the timing reference
• Changed: Faster waterfall generation, especially for multiple cores, though speedup will be platform-dependent - much larger improvement on my Windows machine than my Mac
• Changed: Faster RT60 model calculation for multiple cores
• Changed: The position of the EQ panel divider is remembered and restored on startup
• Added: cjsound_x86.dll for possible WASAPI exclusive on win32, but untested as I do not have access to a 32-bit platform

Further changes 21st March:

• Added: Distortion graphs support Fit Y to data
• Added: Graphical filter edit shows filter settings
• Changed: Adapt the time span shown in the Alignment tool in impulse mode to suit the alignment frequency
• Fixed: StormAudio equaliser used the wrong number of filters
• Fixed: ASIO input channel names could be shown incorrectly on the Measure dialog
• Fixed: 64k sweeps at 44.1 kHz starting at 20 Hz and ending above 11.025 kHz gave incorrect results

Further changes 22nd March:

• Changed: Set USB mic to unity gain if volume control allowed, previously was only set to unity gain if gain was below unity
• Fixed: Distortion graph Fit Y to data did not take account of which traces were displayed
• Fixed: When MME was selected as the FlexASIO driver type the input and output boxes had entries for both MME and DirectSound
• Fixed: Array index out of bounds on startup when using ASIO drivers

Further changes 23rd March:

• Changed: Faster CWT calculation for systems with 2 or more cores and at least 256 MB memory remaining available for allocation
• Fixed: Deleting measurements caused animated list changes even if "Animate measurements list" was not selected in the View preferences
• Fixed: Changing the displayed parameter on the Overlay RT60 graph selected all traces
• Fixed: The Merge trace arithmetic operation tried to produce a result with an IR when one of the measurements being merged only had magnitude data
• Fixed: Impedance measurements with noise filter generated index out of bounds error

Further changes 29th March:

• Added: The RTA trace can be filled
• Added: The RTA distortion panel shows SNR and ENOB
• Added: The RTA distortion settings now includes options to choose whether and how many harmonic levels are shown in the distortion data panel and whether the higher harmonic distortion level is shown
• Added: Measurements saved from the RTA with data in the distortion panel can show the distortion panel on the SPL & Phase graph
• Added: There is now an option to show the data points for stepped level measurements on the distortion graph
• Added: There is now an option to go back one step and use a smaller step size if the distortion limit is exceeded during a stepped level test, allowing the limit to be determined more precisely
• Added: Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down select the previous or next measurement, in addition to Alt+Up and Alt+Down
• Changed: After the sweep ends play one second of silence (or dither if fill silence with dither is selected) to keep the replay channel active
• Changed: The Info panel is now resizeable
• Changed: The stepped sine dialog layout has changed and some distortion settings are replicated there for convenience
• Fixed: Minimum phase settings to replicate data and apply frequency warping were initialised incorrectly on startup
• Fixed: A null pointer exception could occur when using the alignment tool in impulse mode
• Fixed: Min phase version and Mic in box correction measurements did not have their date set
• Fixed: At very high middle-button zoom levels the Y axis minor grid plotting could get stuck in a loop
• Fixed: Changing the configurable equaliser settings did not update the EQ filters panel value formats
• Fixed: The graph zoom buttons were not rendered properly on retina displays
• Fixed: Estimate IR delay could give an incorrect result in some cases

Further changes 29th March:

• Fixed: NPE on starting up by double-clicking a measurement saved from the RTA with distortion data
• Fixed: File format error on opening measurements with distortion data saved from the RTA with ea46

Further changes 2nd April:

• Added: The RTA distortion settings have a control for the highest harmonic to include in the calculated THD figure
• Added: Averaging measurements averages their distortion data if they cover the same frequency range at the same resolution
• Added: There is now a help menu entry to generate a diagnostic file that zips REW's log files and a soundcard debug file
• Changed: When the distortion graph Y axis is dBr show the equivalent major percentage figures on the right hand side
• Changed: Added a checkbox in the generator playback panel to choose whether the signal should also be sent to the timing reference output (previously it went to the timing reference output whenever a timing reference measurement mode was selected). This setting does not affect sweep measurements, only the generator behaviour when not measuring.
• Changed: RTA THD figure shows which harmonics are included
• Fixed: X axis zoom buttons could stop working at very high time axis zooms
• Fixed: RTA distortion panel text did not update when distortion settings changed if the RTA was not running
• Fixed: Distortion graph THD subscript for harmonics showed the chosen calculation limit even if there were fewer harmonics available
• Fixed: Predicted group delay smoothing did not match measurement when filters changed

Further changes 2nd April:

• Fixed: Y axis zoom out did not work properly
• Fixed: Sine generator output could have harmonic artefacts at approx -178 dBFS

Further changes 7th April:

There is a measurement mode selector for SPL measurements to choose between single, repeated or sequential channel measurement

There is now a naming option to prefix the measurement name with the output channel

There is a mode setup button to configure start delay, delay between measurements for repeated measurements and the channels to measure for sequential channel measurements

The Measure dialog now has options to reduce the sweep level by 10 dB when measuring the LFE channel and to use a different end frequency when measuring the LFE channel. For Java drivers that means the channel whose name is LFE, for ASIO drivers it is assumed to be the 4th ASIO output channel if there is no channel with LFE in the name.

Other changes:

• Added: The delay between repeated measurements is set independently of the start delay
• Changed: The Measure dialog options to invert second output, fill silence with dither and play dither before sweep have been moved into an options panel
• Fixed: The polarity of filtered data could get out of sync with the invert controls during impulse alignment

Further changes 10th April:

• Changed: Remember the number of measurement repetitions
• Fixed: Signal generator option to send signal to timing reference output should be ignored when running Check levels
• Fixed: NPE could occur when using alignment tool

Further changes 14th April:

• Added: The SPL meter can change its background colour to show when a limit is being approached or has been exceeded
• Changed: Log and linear sweep start frequencies are no longer limited to 20 kHz
• Fixed: Input clipping detection was only active when making sweep measurements
• Fixed: A null pointer exception could occur when opening the RTA if it was in one octave mode and set to show noise curves with adjust RTA levels selected
• Fixed: Incorrect bandwidth could be set when stepping through the octave or 1/3 octave noise centre frequencies

Further changes 17th April:

• Added: The Impulse graph has a button to scale the IR data to apply a specified gain or achieve a desired peak value
• Added: Impulse import accepts ARTA .pir files
• Fixed: Frequency response import did not cope well with files whose spacing changed for part of the file
• Fixed: Group delay could be incorrect after toggling FDW

Further changes 22nd April:

• Changed: Expanded frequency range for setting LF rise and HF fall in Target settings
• Fixed: Scale IR data gain spinner ignored mouse wheel
• Fixed: ETC smoothing could get stuck in a loop if a very rapid series of changes was applied
• Fixed: Null pointer exception if selecting file playback when sequential measurement mode had been selected
• Fixed: Merge B to A did not work properly if the A measurement had a high start frequency
• Fixed: Merge B to A was affected by the "Show response below window" setting
• Fixed: Class cast exception from stepped sine silence spinner

Further changes 29th April:

• Added: The graph axes can be zoomed and their limits adjusted using the mouse wheel (or the scroll gesture on trackpads) by moving the mouse over the axis you want to adjust. Hold the Alt key for fine adjustment.
• Changed: Right hand Y axis labelling is no longer tied to the left hand Y axis grid lines
• Changed: Restored a Calibration files button on the Measure dialog
• Fixed: Null pointer exceptions could occur when measuring Dutch & Dutch 8c
• Fixed: Index out of bounds error

PLEASE NOTE: Windows builds from ea57 (3rd May) onwards are signed with a new certificate. Microsoft SmartScreen will warn that the files are "not commonly downloaded" and ask you to confirm you trust the file before allowing it to run. That will continue until SmartScreen has seen sufficient downloads.
Further changes 3rd May:

• Added: Show a warning message for imported audio data on the Filtered IR graph as filtering is not available
• Added: RTA controls now have an option for whether the fundamental frequency is obtained from the generator instead of the input signal when playing a sine tone
• Changed: Fit to data and Fit Y to data on the SPL & Phase graph put phase at the bottom of the graph (for wrapped phase)
• Changed: Only show low measurement level warning message once per session
• Fixed: Index out of bounds exception when viewing distortion graph for measurement saved from the RTA with fundamental too high for any harmonics
• Fixed: Sample rate selection from the Measure dialog sometimes needed to be done twice
• Fixed: Null pointer exception would occur when changing output device if the Measure dialog playback mode was from file

Further changes 6th May:

• Added: Trace options include a thick stroke choice
• Changed: Export impulse as WAV allows sample counts up to 4M
• Changed: Tweaks to delay estimation
• Fixed: RTA on/off button was larger than it should be on Retina displays
• Fixed: Graph zoom buttons were too far apart on Retina displays
• Fixed: Graph frequency axis preset buttons were too wide on Retina displays
• Fixed: Level meter text was blurred on Retina displays

Further changes 14th May:

• Changed: In impulse alignment mode the alignment tool will invert measurement B if required
• Changed: RT60 and impulse filtering choices are made via a combo box instead of check boxes for reverse or zero phase filtering
• Fixed: Loading a sweep file on the Measure dialog for file playback did not update the capture sample rate
• Fixed: Trace option thick stroke choice was not reflected on graph image captures
• Fixed: Sweep measurements of the LFE output used a 10 dB lower sweep level even if that option was not selected
• Fixed: Sequential measurements used the LFE end frequency setting even if that option was not selected
• Fixed: The LFE end frequency setting was only used during sequential measurements
• Fixed: NPE could occur when removing IR delay from filtered impulse responses

Further changes 20th May:

• Changed: Target settings room curve slopes can be up to +/-12 dB (previously +/-6 dB)
• Fixed: Vector averages used the Generic equaliser, it now uses the same equaliser and target settings as the first measurement being averaged
• Fixed: Making repeated measurements on macOS could stop while "waiting for timing reference" but the sweep would not play
• Fixed: Cancelling a measurement could result in some measurement processing still happening
• Fixed: Mouse wheel axis control did not work on the filter adjust graph

Further changes 29th May:

• Added: All SPL has two new averaging options, RMS + phase and dB + phase, which augment an RMS or dB average with phase data from a vector average
• Added: All SPL has a "Remove IR delays" button to remove the estimated IR delay from all selected measurements which have an IR
• Added: The IR navigator view shows the IR window
• Changed: Improved phase smoothing
• Changed: Improved delay estimation
• Changed: On the RTA distortion panel show when the fundamental level has come from the manual fundamental option
• Changed: If a mic cal file is being used the filename will be shown in the title of the RTA window
• Changed: If a virtual balanced input is being used show the input being subtracted in the title of the RTA window
• Fixed: WASAPI exclusive mode would produce no sound with some graphics card/AVR combinations on 7.1 systems
• Fixed: Array index out of bounds when using trace arithmetic operations with an upper frequency limit

Further changes 30th May:

• Fixed: Some actions could trigger repeated smoothing causing interface problems and lags

Further changes 3rd June:

• Added: Noise and distortion levels are now calculated for sweep measurements and displayed in the Info window
• Added: Noise and distortion are checked when sweep measurements are made and a warning is shown if either is too high
• Added: When a measurement is selected its trace is highlighted on any displayed overlay graph
• Added: Clicking on the panel for the currently selected measurement toggles trace highlight on any displayed overlay graph
• Added: The Ctrl+H shortcut toggles trace highlight for the currently selected measurement on any displayed overlay graph
• Added: Measurements can be disabled or enabled by right clicking on the measurement's thumbnail. Disabled measurements cannot be selected, are skipped when using the next/previous measurement shortcuts (Alt+up/down and Ctrl+up/down) and are not shown in the legends of overlay graphs. All measurements can be re-enabled via an entry in the right-click menu of graph legends or using the Ctrl+E shortcut. All selected or all unselected measurements can be disabled via entries in the right-click menu of overlay graph legends. The Ctrl+D shortcut disables the currently selected measurement.
• Added: The installer has a 3 GB memory allocation option

Further changes 10th June:

• Added: In the SPL & Phase graph controls there is an option to draw a line at phase zero, since that may not correspond to a grid line
• Added: Files can be dragged onto the Overlay window with the same behaviour as dragging them onto the main window
• Added: There is a view preference to control whether to show the names of highlighted traces
• Added: There is a view preference to control whether to highlight the selected trace on overlay graphs
• Added: The RT60 decay colour scheme settings have an option to control whether the top of the SPL axis is adjusted to suit the result
• Changed: The data offset of a dB or RMS average is the average of the data offsets of the measurements averaged. That has no effect on SPL values, but gives more comparable dBFS values.
• Changed: The auto/manual RT60 decay calculation settings choice is remembered for the next startup
• Changed: Disabled filters are sorted to the end
• Changed: The lower frequency limit of Wavelet spectrograms depends on the IR windows width rather than the spectrogram time span
• Fixed: Highlighting was not cleared when changing between graphs

Further changes 18th June:

• Added: Grouped trace highlight options together in the View preferences and added an option to control the yellow underlay
• Fixed: Predicted phase was sometimes not smoothed properly
• Fixed: Predicted magnitude could remain smoothed to 1/48 octave when smoothing was removed
• Fixed: Signal-to-noise ratio warnings should not appear for impedance measurements
• Fixed: Exporting selected measurements as text used the first measurement in the preview instead of the first selected measurement

Further changes 25th June:

• Changed: Checking levels on the soundcard preferences will send signal to timing ref output if the timing reference mode uses loopback
• Fixed: Disconnecting an EXCL device while it was in use could cause the JVM to quit
• Fixed: Array index out of bounds would occur if the loopback input channel index was greater than 16

Further changes 9th July:

• Changed: If a measurement is disabled remove transient data such as waterfall, spectrogram, decay and RT60 decay and reclaim the associated memory
• Changed: Set sys.ext.installerUmask to false for Linux installers
• Changed: Application categories changed to Audio; Engineering; Java for Linux installers
• Changed: If a Java device reports supporting 10,000 channels (Linux plug plugin) test channel counts from 16 down to 2 to see what comes back as supported
• Changed: Improvements to RT60 estimation for short sweeps
• Changed: rePhase equaliser option runs at the sample rate of the measurement rather than being fixed at 96 kHz
• Fixed: The WASAPI Exclusive driver might not generate an output with some devices
• Fixed: The View preferences font size settings were not applied to all components
• Fixed: Improved UMIK-1 detection on Linux
• Fixed: Filters with zero gain were not removed after target match unless Drop small filters was selected
• Fixed: The wrong measurement name was shown during Sequential measurements
• Fixed: When merging B to A where A has an IR but B does not set suitably long IR windows for the result
• Fixed: Smoothing measurements saved from the RTA (or other measurements without an IR) could not be fully removed
• Fixed: RTA spectrum ERB smoothing did not work
• Fixed: Legend right click menu showed invalid entries for graphs that are not overlays
• Fixed: The result IR from multiplying responses with different sample rates might not be long enough

Further changes 16th July:

• Added: There is a graph Actions button next to the graph Controls button for graphs which have actions to carry out on the data, including all the Overlay graphs, the SPL & Phase graph and the Impulse graph. The Actions button shows a panel with the action buttons and controls on it that can be repositioned, reducing clutter on the graph.
• Added: The impulse overlay graph has actions to export all selected IRs as WAV or text
• Added: The impulse overlay graph, phase overlay graph, All SPL graph and Impulse graph have an action to undo t=0 changes (e.g. time alignment)
• Added: The All SPL graph has actions to undo SPL alignment
• Added: The All SPL graph Measurement actions has a button to invert polarity
• Added: The SPL & Phase graph has an action to undo SPL alignment
• Added: The phase overlay graph has an action to remove IR delays
• Changed: Measurements saved from the RTA will be prefixed with the output channel if the REW signal generator is playing and the "Prefix with output" option is selected on the Measure dialog
• Changed: If the ETC Overlay graph has ETC smoothing active the smoothing will be applied to new measurements
• Fixed: "Keep notes for next measurement" did not work properly
• Fixed: A null pointer exception could occur when increasing the number of configurable PEQ filters with no measurements loaded
• Fixed: Measurements did not show they had been modified after Scale IR data was used
• Fixed: If sweep repetitions was set higher than one the soundcard calibration measurement would try and capture multiple sweeps
• Fixed: Very long cal file names caused formatting issues
• Fixed: Measurement peak levels could be reset to zero before they were checked, causing invalid level warnings to be shown

Further changes 13th August:

• Added: JRULTR subwoofer equaliser option
• Changed: The positions of the Measurement actions, Trace arithmetic and Alignment tool dialogs are remembered for the next startup
• Changed: Relax measurement SNR signal-to-noise warning threshold from 30 dB to 20 dB
• Changed: Another attempt to improve UMIK-1 detection on Linux
• Changed: Add "Fit Y to data" support for Clarity and RT60 graphs
• Changed: When alignment tool gains are adjusted the traces of the corresponding measurement are shifted
• Changed: Removed the measurement A delay control from the Alignment tool
• Changed: Provided coarse and fine delay sliders for the Alignment tool measurement B delay with a total range of +/- 1000 ms
• Changed: Provided coarse and fine offset sliders for the Offset t=0 adjustment on the SPL & Phase and Group Delay graphs and increased range to +/- 100 ms
• Fixed: Individual input voltage calibrations were not saved to measurements, the calibration for input 0 was used for all inputs
• Fixed: ArrayIndexOutOfBounds could occur when performing operations on multiple smoothed measurements

Further changes 16th August:

• Fixed: Switching from Java driver to ASIO driver for a multi-input device could sometimes cause a concurrent modification exception
• Fixed: Button to show graph scroll bars was missing
• Fixed: Alignment tool would hang if a measurement being aligned had unwrapped phase

Further changes 2nd October:

• Added: Measurements can be locked or unlocked by right clicking on the measurement's thumbnail. Locked measurements cannot be deleted, the delete button icon is replaced by a padlock. All measurements can be unlocked via an entry in the right-click menu of graph legends or using the Ctrl+U shortcut. The Ctrl+L shortcut locks the currently selected measurement. All selected measurements can be locked via an entry in the right-click menu of overlay graph legends. The Actions panels for overlay graphs have buttons to lock or unlock the currently selected measurements.
• Added: The SPL meter Leq figure can be selected as a rolling value with a period configurable from 1 to 1000 minutes
• Changed: The initial preferences file, if specified, is used to initialise those preference values it contains rather than to replace any existing preferences file. Any existing preferences that are not referenced in the initial preferences file will not be altered.
• Fixed: Dutch & Dutch 8c speakers were not detected when connected directly to a computer rather than to a shared network
• Fixed: Delete preferences and shut down caused an exception if using file-based preferences
• Fixed: Choosing a t=0 position for an IR exported as WAV that was past the end of the export caused an exception

Further changes 7th October:

• Fixed: Match response to target did not work with a configurable equaliser with fixed Q
• Fixed: Array index out of bounds could occur when exporting impulse as WAV with certain t = 0 index values and data lengths
• Fixed: The result of A/B trace arithmetic had a level shift if the SPL offset of measurement B was smaller than the SPL offset of measurement A

Further changes 21st October:

• Changed: Allow frequencies down to 1 Hz for custom dual and triple tone signals
• Changed: Show box volume with 4 decimal places on the TS params panel
• Changed: Show driver diameter with 2 decimal places on the TS params area calculation popup
• Fixed: Unwrap phase may not update some graphs
• Fixed: Scale IR data did not update the windowed IR if a frequency-dependent window was applied
• Fixed: Coherent averaging did not work well for tones that were not locked to the FFT length
• Fixed: Number of sweep repetitions for impedance measurements would be reset to 1 if the SPL measurement timing reference choice did not allow multiple sweeps

 

[sm52]

In terms of usage, I prefer the version before this one. In version 14, everything is too simplified. It becomes difficult to separate the different tabs or options with your eyes. Is it possible to apply bug fixes and improvements, new features without applying the new FlatLaf look and feel?

 

[Bernard]

Hello John !
My old eyes thank you.
The text and curves stand out better with the new layout.
That goes for a guy like me who has seven decades behind him ...
Cheers

 

[John Mulcahy]

Is it possible to apply bug fixes and improvements, new features without applying the new FlatLaf look and feel?

No, but the look is heavily customisable - see the FlatLaf demo, for example - so there is a lot of scope for addressing specific issues.

 

[ddude003]

I really like the new user interface... Clean and consistent... Having been in sw devo longer than I would like to admit, its nice to see you go in this direction with REW...

 

[John Mulcahy]

Thanks. I've gone through and cleaned up various small issues and tweaked the themes to improve visibility in a few places, adding back some gradient for buttons as completely flat buttons may be a step too far for many folk . The FlatLaf theme editor is a great tool, makes things a lot easier.

 

[John Mulcahy]

The builds have been updated with various adjustments to the colour schemes.

 

[hemiutut]

Thank you very much John for this new program interface, I really like it and it looks great.

I wish it were possible in future updates that the equalization would touch a little the response to the Impulse, etc, etc and thus be able to have a more powerful EQ in the future.

written with translator

Greetings

 

[ddude003]

The newest additions to your GUI look good John... Once you get over the teething of this new GUI library the ongoing maintenance of the GUI should be a breeze... If I am being picky, I don't like the semi-transparent Control panels... Did I miss an option under View to change that?

 

[thothsong]

The new file Open dialog box in Details view provides less room for the details than the old version. I can no longer readily see both full file name and date without both resizing the window and the Name column (resizing the window doesn't auto-resize the columns). Is there any way to tailor this persistently? I'd prefer to get Details view by default, and somehow be able to see longer file names plus dates without having to manually resize.

 

[John Mulcahy]

If I am being picky, I don't like the semi-transparent Control panels... Did I miss an option under View to change that?

I'll add an option for opaque control panels in the next build.

The new file Open dialog box in Details view provides less room for the details than the old version. I can no longer readily see both full file name and date without both resizing the window and the Name column (resizing the window doesn't auto-resize the columns). Is there any way to tailor this persistently? I'd prefer to get Details view by default, and somehow be able to see longer file names plus dates without having to manually resize.

Those were part of the customisations I applied previously, I can re-apply them with the new look for the next build.

 

[sam_adams]

@John Mulcahy, would it be possible to have the spinboxes for the delays in the Room Sim accept delays in tenths of a millisecond? Additionally; is there a way—in the room sim—to change the vertical axis scaling for the frequency response graph?

 

[John Mulcahy]

would it be possible to have the spinboxes for the delays in the Room Sim accept delays in tenths of a millisecond?

Possible yes, though a faff as the preferences are stored as integers. Is there much point though? Even at 100 Hz 1 ms is only 36 degrees.

Additionally; is there a way—in the room sim—to change the vertical axis scaling for the frequency response graph?

No. What range do you need?

 

[John Mulcahy]

A question about spinners (the components used to adjust numeric values): The buttons can be fiddly to access as they are quite small, a possible solution to that is to have them side by side instead of one above the other. Worth offering? Here is the difference:

 

[Bernard]

A question about spinners (the components used to adjust numeric values): The buttons can be fiddly to access as they are quite small, a possible solution to that is to have them side by side instead of one above the other. Worth offering? Here is the difference:

View attachment 56201

View attachment 56202

A seven-decade-old guy finds this layout more ergonomic. It's easier to aim two buttons side by side with each function rather than one button with the two functions on top of each other.
But that's just my opinion... Also, you should know that I work on a 14" laptop.
You can argue that I accumulate deficiencies, I don't I don't care a fig!

I take advantage of this interlude to point out a display problem that dates back to a few versions ago.
In the 'Make a measurement' menu, when I click on 'Check levels', the display is correct.
When I click on 'Start', the display looks sloppy and does not do justice to REW which always has an impeccable presentation.
This happens when you start a calibration in 'Preferences' which is normal since during the procedure REW switches to the 'Make a measurement' window.

Thanks John.

 

[John Mulcahy]

I take advantage of this interlude to point out a display problem that dates back to a few versions ago.
In the 'Make a measurement' menu, when I click on 'Check levels', the display is correct.
When I click on 'Start', the display looks sloppy and does not do justice to REW which always has an impeccable presentation.

That looks like a graphics driver issue Bernard, try running the installer again but with the option to use hardware graphics acceleration not selected.

 

[Bernard]

That looks like a graphics driver issue Bernard, try running the installer again but with the option to use hardware graphics acceleration not selected.

Hi John,
Thanks for the answer. That's what I thought too when it occurred.
I didn't select hardware graphics acceleration and display was always bad.
In any case, this small bad display is really a minor problem.

 

[dcibel]

I've been using REW for actual room EQ the past few days, and have a couple small suggestions for REW, unrelated to the new features but I thought this thread is as good as any.

In the EQ window, I think it would be real great to have a copy/paste function or a "copy to all" for the target settings, so I can easily apply the same target slope and room curve to all measurements, which can be useful when applying room EQ to say each speaker individually for 5 speaker surround.

In the EQ filter section, in my case I set the DSP system to "generic" since I am applying to a AVR EQ (Outlaw 976), but notice that the Q adjustment here has 3 decimal places of precision which seems a bit absurd to me. I see that the level of precision changes depending on the DSP system selected, but regardless of the DSP system does anyone really need .001 level of adjustment to filter Q? This level of precision makes it clunky to make fine adjustments to the Q value using the up/down arrows, I end up manually punching in values to make adjustment of 0.1.

Thanks!

 

[John Mulcahy]

In the EQ window, I think it would be real great to have a copy/paste function or a "copy to all" for the target settings, so I can easily apply the same target slope and room curve to all measurements, which can be useful when applying room EQ to say each speaker individually for 5 speaker surround.

Try right click on the target settings.

 

[dcibel]

Thank you, a bit of a "hidden" feature it would appear, as right click on any other element in EQ settings has no function, other than graph panning.

 

[John Mulcahy]

Also works on spectrogram, waterfall and TS params settings.

 

[John Mulcahy]

In the EQ filter section, in my case I set the DSP system to "generic" since I am applying to a AVR EQ (Outlaw 976), but notice that the Q adjustment here has 3 decimal places of precision which seems a bit absurd to me. I see that the level of precision changes depending on the DSP system selected, but regardless of the DSP system does anyone really need .001 level of adjustment to filter Q? This level of precision makes it clunky to make fine adjustments to the Q value using the up/down arrows, I end up manually punching in values to make adjustment of 0.1.

The resolution can matter at lower Q values. The spinners should accelerate when held down, but there is a bug in the implementation that meant the acceleration stopped too soon for small step sizes and small spans, it only really worked properly for frequency. I've fixed it for the next build.

 

[John Mulcahy]

It took longer than I expected to prepare the next update, a few tweaks to the equaliser filters panel turned into a complete revamp and the addition of some other equaliser features. Details are in the first post, which has been updated to link to the new files.

 

[dcibel]

The resolution can matter at lower Q values. The spinners should accelerate when held down, but there is a bug in the implementation that meant the acceleration stopped too soon for small step sizes and small spans, it only really worked properly for frequency. I've fixed it for the next build.

Thanks. I also had apparently completely missed the fact that the Outlaw 976 is in the equipment list, disguised as just "model 976", it appears you've corrected this in the latest preview to show the manufacturer clearly, so thanks for that as well.

 

[dcibel]

It took longer than I expected to prepare the next update, a few tweaks to the equaliser filters panel turned into a complete revamp and the addition of some other equaliser features. Details are in the first post, which has been updated to link to the new files.

The new EQ panel is pretty swanky. I do notice the width of the filter box changes when you select the dropdown which is a bit weird. I would suggest in the little EQ band preview, that the band frequency is considered to make easy visual of each EQ band, rather than centering each PEQ band in the middle of the box regardless of frequency.

If I could suggest something for overall UI behaviour, something I really like in VituixCAD is the ability to hover the mouse cursor over any value input and use the mouse scroll wheel to adjust the value up or down. I find this behaviour much preferrable over the tiny little arrow buttons. Just something to consider for the future.

I also notice that the latest build in Linux is providing anti-aliased fonts, which is a nice addition to UI behaviour as well. Good stuff!