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[Bob Hulme]

Yngve Hoeyland wrote on Tue, 02 January 2007 15:59

Thanks all, I'm opting for the -10db line-ins then. Yngve, (I hope I pronounced that right) Just make sure You have a laptop with a true stereo line in like Binks IBM T30 Seminars? I'd like to see that sometime. Check out the SIA website. http://www.siasoft.com/  There's tons of good info like power point presentations and explanations of what Smaartlive can do. Also as others have said do a search on here, another ton of stuff. Do they arrange seminars etc. around annual events like AES etc.? Thinking of going over the pond at some point to a convention or two.. Yes I beleive they do. Hope this helps, I'm going to Toronto next week for Smaartlive training myself.

Edited to add this link. http://www.siasoft.com/support/technotes.html Good stuff there also.

Take care, Bob H

[Douglas R. Allen]

Yngve Hoeyland

My first Smaart rig was with a IBM Thinkpad 380D. Although slow its stereo line I/O's worked fine. Now I use an IBM T20 and it works fine with its stereo I/O's as well. I use a dbx $100 mic for bar bands and its great.
Smaarts a great product. Recommended.

Doug

[Yngve Hoeyland]

Thanks all you guys.

I'll pick up a couple of decent mics then and just get started using Smaart. Thanks also for all the useful links, I'll be sure to read up on this when I find the time (when do we ever..)

I just thought of something though - to make this even more interesting.. let's say you are working a fairly large stadium gig. You've got your DSP control software running on your laptop, probably wirelessly. How nice would it not be if you could monitor your measurement mics wirelessly too? That way you could be in the "mic-end" moving it around yourself (and more importantly, listen to what it sounds like where the mic is).

Just a thought. Anyone using palm pc's or the likes for this?


EDIT: Bob, you're telling me make sure the laptop line-in is "true stereo". I'm guessing you mean unbalanced stereo - are there any laptops out there with balanced connections? Can you use the mini TRS as a balanced connection...? Confused now.

[Brad Weber]

It's being done already.

http://www.lectrosonics.com/WPapers-Magazines/SynAudConTM400 article.pdf

http://www.lectrosonics.com/PressReleases/dalailama/dalailam a.htm

[Michael 'Bink' Knowles]

Quote:

...are there any laptops out there with balanced connections?

None that I know of.

Quote:

...Can you use the mini TRS as a balanced connection...?

No.

-Bink

[Yngve Hoeyland]

Brad:

Sweet! But what about the other end - the laptop end? How do you stream audio TO a laptop wirelessly... in a practial manner?


(EDIT)

Bink: Ok, so laptop onboard I/O is unbalanced by nature...

Why then do I need a stereo input on my laptop for the mono unbalanced signal from the mic preamp?

[Mac Kerr]

Yngve Hoeyland wrote on Thu, 04 January 2007 09:03

Bink: Ok, so laptop onboard I/O is unbalanced by nature... Why then do I need a stereo input on my laptop for the mono unbalanced signal from the mic preamp?

Because Smaart uses 2 inputs. When you are doing dual FFT analysis like Smaart or SIM you are comparing a measured response through the mic to a known response which is directly fed to the analyzer. If you are using pink noise for instance, the noise is sent to your speaker under test, and the right channel of the computer input. The microphone goes to the left channel. If the sound picked up by the mic exactly matches the direct sound you will see a straight line in Smaart. Any difference between the two will show up as the frequency response curve of the system. Before making the measurement you will have to have Smaart measure the time offset between the two signals, and have it insert the correct delay in the direct signal to match the measured signal.

Mac

[Yngve Hoeyland]

Right...

I thought smaart would not allow a separate input for reference but only use its internal generator for reference...

So it makes perfect sense now.... thank you for clarifying.

[Mac Kerr]

It is important to have the external input as you can use any source material. You can play a CD as a test signal if you want. The important thing is for the signal to have plenty of energy in all bands. If there is no signal present Smaart can't measure it.

Mac

[Gabriel Duschinsky]

As for 'streaming' the smaart signal wirelessly to a laptop, the most common practice seems to be with 2 laptops.
We usually use one at mix position, along with pre's and stuff, then run Smaart and Real VNC off this machine. Then, using a (good) wireless router, we connect to the laptop, usually from a tablet pc.

There's a bit of latency, but nothing really annoying.