TOPIC: Can't load filters! SOLVED, but more to discuss

So I let the Dirac calibration tool do everything on auto, just used the suggested curve and clicked optimize to see where this would get me. But at the export stage I get an error message and it won't load the filters.

The calibration tool says: "Operation failed! (Result_kFailed)"

And the DDRC utility says: "The current FIR filter contains as much coefficients as the DSP allows."

Is the software calculating too many taps for its own DSP or what is going on here? What the hell..?

@ Beauvais,

Mmh, out of the many months we've been working with Dirac, I definitely say it's a first.. We'll need to get more information on how we can reproduce this.

1) Can you please email us your project file? We can try to reproduce the issue here.
2) Just to confirm, you've never had another Dirac software installed on your PC? i.e. PC version. I'm guessing that you're using the miniDSP Dirac Live Calibration tool (i.e. has miniDSP in top right corner).

If you can please start a ticket here (www.minidsp.com/support/contactus) it's easier for us to track the issue (forum isn't followed by our engineers).

Ohh another suggestion as we're just doing a wild guess..
please make sure to close the DDRC configuration plug-in (small little application for controlling the IR control). This app maybe interferes with the miniDSP Dirac Calibration tool as they are both trying to communicate with the device.

Keep us updated.

DevTeam

Thanks for your help! Just closing the DDRC utility app was the trick, now the filters load as they should. Duh, could've figured that one out myself, sorry..

A few things I've noticed using the software though. I don't want to start a thousand threads, so I'll post here:

IR-learning worked perfectly with the remote from an old DAT I never use anymore, but the last one on the list, "FIR bypass", what does it actually do? The light on the DDRC goes out indicating it's a complete bypass and my measurements suggest the same. But by its name I would have expected it to only bypass the FIR filtering but leave some IIR filtering active. Can you tell me what this actually does?

Then I don't get the difference (or just the workflow) with project vs filter set. When I generate several filter sets, I have to completely close the application and start from the beginning with a different filter set. I would have expected some sort of "open" dialog on the export page, so I can select different filter sets to copy to the DDRC. The way it is now, I feel is very cumbersome and it's kind of trial and error to see which filter set actually appears in the blue rectangle on top in the end. I really think one should be able to choose from all his filter sets on the export stage rather than having to close the application and start over for every filter set.

Also the application does not remember where I saved my project files or filter sets and always goes to its default location when using the open or save command. Not a deal breaker, but remembering this sure would make things a lot faster!

OK, so I've measured again and there does seem to be filtering applied when in "FIR bypass", as it measures differently than an empty slot. But I prefer the unfiltered one to the "FIR bypass" as the applied IIR filtering seems to be designed to work together with the FIR, just by itself it does strange things above 5kHz (magnitude and phase).

And I also read the manual again and according to it, whenever I hit "optimize" on the filter curve screen, this newly optimized filter should appear in the blue rectangle on the export stage, ready to be dragged in. This is clearly not the case as what ever I optimize, the blue rectangle is occupied by the filter set determined on start up. Is this a bug? Or am I misreading the manual? Either way the way it is now seems far from ideal.

Apart from that I'm quite happy and I realize this is a brand new product.

@ Beauvais,

Glad to hear that closing the app did the trick. It's a missing detail of the user manual, we must add it asap to make sure we don't confuse our end users. Thanks for the warning!

1. FIR Bypass: It will indeed bypass all filters including FIR and IIR. There isn't any more filters left as it's bypassing the whole Dirac section.
2. After clicking "optimize" button on the filter curve screen, this newly optimized filter should appear in the blue rectangle on the export stage, ready to be dragged in.We have tested and confirmed this on our side but maybe we're talking of something different here. Some screenshots would help.. Which platform is this DLCT runnning on? Win7or8? 32or64 bit?

Thanks for the info.

DevTeam

OK, thanks for clearing the bypass thing up! Don't know what I measured then..

Now regarding the filters on the export screen. I think we're talking about the same thing, it's just whenever I hit optimize for a new target curve, the filter in the blue rectangle doesn't update. This is on Win7 64bit. I'll try to make some screenshots, but it would really have to be a little movie to show how the two stages are connected (or rather not connected, that's exactly the problem).

OK, so I made a little video, but you can't really see anything. Hey, I tried..



Edit: the video doesn't show up as I thought it would, so here's the bare link:

Here's the thing: Whatever filter set I load and optimize, on the export screen the blue rectangle always only shows the name of the project, not the filter. However it seems to work fine in the background. I've loaded four different filters and one of them has a really odd frequency response to emulate the good old NS10 speakers. Now when I switch to that filter, I can clearly hear the loss of bass and highs along with the mid range hump. So apparently the Dirac software loads those filters correctly, but there's no way of telling because they're not labeled. Also now I have four filters in the four slots, but they all have the same name (the name of the project I saved). This is really inconvenient to say the least. It does appear to work, but please fix this, so that the label in the blue rectangle as well as when a filter is loaded in a slot shows the name of that filter!

The procedure I go through is to
- Load a saved project
- make changes to the frequency response window
- save the amended project with a new project name
- export the new filter, which will have the new project name, to an empty memory location

This way I have different project names for each filter which I can see in the 4 position filter window

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing as well. But certainly that's not the way it's supposed to be?!

As I said, it does work, just not very user friendly at all at the moment. I know, it's a brand new product, so I'm sure things will improve. But at the moment there's a couple of stepping stones that should be ironed out.

My old brain thought it was quite logical, and it forces you to save your work !

What are your comments and observations on the effect of Dirac on the sound quality of your system ?

My logic was/is, that a project is for a set of measurements for which you can set up different target curves. So I save a project and for that I have different filter sets I can save and load into the DSP. But hey, maybe it's my logic..

As to the sound quality, I'm quite happy. I'm using it for my studio monitors in an acoustically extensively optimized room, so there's not really that much to do for Dirac in the first place. But I feel it does improve things slightly, the sound stage is slightly better, the bass response is a little more even, but the difference is really subtle. I think the biggest difference is in transient response, must have to do with the changed impulse response. But same thing here as well, the difference is really quite small.

All in all, it's a small improvement, but for me it's worth it.

Did you find that you had to move the right hand upper frequency window boundary to the left to keep the treble transparent ?

I'm not sure I understand. You mean deliberately limiting the high end response? Why would you do that? In what way would that make the treble more transparent?

By moving the high frequency boundary to the right, you can limit the frequency range of the filter which Dirac creates. The frequencies to the right of the boundary are then left uncorrected.