AES PNW Meeting Report - Understanding and Interpreting Audio Measurement Tools in a Real Room with a Real System

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Meeting held Saturday September 22, 2012, Raisbeck Performance Hall at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle WA

AES PNW Section Meeting Report Understanding and Interpreting Audio Measurement Tools in a Real Room with a Real System Or What Is That Squiggly Line Trying to Tell Me and What Can I Do About It? with Dave Tosti-Lane Chair, Performance Production, Head of Sound Cornish College of the Arts

PNW Committee Member Dave Tosti-Lane explains the operation and interpretation of Smaart V7	Multiple speakers and systems were already in place for another Cornish audio class.	There was a good turnout for the Saturday session, held in the Raisbeck Hall.
Photos by Gary Louie

The PNW Section started its new season with a presentation of Rational Acoustics' SMAART v7 acoustical analysis software by incoming PNW chair Dave Tosti-Lane. Tosti-Lane is the Sound Design Area Head of Seattle's Cornish College of the Arts, and mere hours before had finished a comprehensive training seminar on SMAART in California.

Some 12 AES members and 17 non-members attended the meeting, held on a Saturday afternoon at Cornish's Raisbeck Performance Hall in Seattle. The hall is a converted historic landmark building with interesting acoustic challenges.

Several different speaker boxes and configurations were set up previously for a Cornish teaching event, including small, large, hanging and even defective boxes. The SMAART v7 screens were shown on a projection screen. PNW Committee member Bob Smith provided additional instructional materials.

Dave explained and demonstrated the basics of using such a test system with live sound in mind, generating test signals such as pink noise, positioning a test microphone, and observing the time and frequency analysis. He also discussed and showed using multi-channel arrangements to have reference signals for coherence and phase analysis. Basic microphone calibration, spectrum and spectrogram/RTA modes, were also discussed. One demo had the audience move out of, and back into the seating area to see the analysis changes.

Dan Spore won the door prize of a SMAART T-shirt featuring the 7 Bad System Dwarves, Tubby, Muddy, Boxy, Honky, Barky, Edgy and Sibilant.

Reported by Gary Louie, PNW Section Secretary

Last Modified 7/30/2015 17:45:00, (dtl)