https://www.facebook.com/illusonic

IAP Update 8.2

Feedback from our pro-audio plug-ins and a master diploma thesis on Clarity injected innovation into our IAP product line.

IAP 8.2 improves many “Illusonic” algorithms, such as depth, immersion, and clarity.

New ad hoc center gain feature allows to change gain of center, even without a center loudspeaker.

Input delay range has been increased to 300ms, satisfying even the most complex time alignment needs in home cinemas. Believe it nor not, a high end system with high end projector needed more than the previous maximum 200ms.

Besides that, IAP software has been internally modernized and runs now natively also on Macs with Apple Silicon.

Download the update here.

Farewell Concert Fabio Luisi

Opernaus Zurich, Saturaday June 19, 2021, 19:00

The livestream and video on demand will be available free of charge on the web link above from Saturday 19 June at 7pm until the end of June.

3D Sound

Viewers will be able to choose between stereo and 3D sound. The 3D sound is made for headphones listening. By directly controlling the listener’s ear input signals, an illusion of “being at the opera” is generated. Sound is recorded with an Ambisonics and other microphones and real-time processed with Illusonic’s microphone-to-3D-sound conversion audio processing software.

More details on the concert and its 3D sound can be found on opernhaus.ch

APEI Webinar

Remote Sound Tuning in Automobiles (video available)

June 9, 2021 
9:00 AM Pacific (12:00 PM Eastern)

Remote Tuning

Illusonic is maybe the company with most remote tuning experience. Almost a decade ago, we introduced the first Illusnoic Audio Processor. Shortly thereafter we introduced IAP Calibration software, with which Hi-Fi and home cinema customers measured their systems. With the same software we could remote-tune the custoomers’ systems.

Initially, remote tuning was done based on simulated frequency responses after tuning. Later, we added auralization and were so able to listen into customers’ listening room via headphones.

IAP Calibration software, specifically taylored for automotive is called CalibrationTool Automotive. It can handle up to 64 loudspekaer channels and 64 microphone positions.

Remote Tuning of Automobiles

We had already frequenty applied remote tuning to automobiles. It was mostly related to Immersive demos, for which we also linearly tuned the cars. Thanks to remote pre-tuning, we could minimize the time we had to spend with the actual car.

With the 2020/2021 Covid crisis and travel restrictions, remote tuning of automobiles quicly became a popular topic and we have seen a lot of traction in this direction.

Remote Tuning of Automobiles

During the webinar we show in real-time usage of CalibrationTool Automotive. It is shown by means of examples on how to remote tune based on data and graphs. The headphones auralization feature with head-tracking is also shown in real-time operation. During tuning, parameters are changed and simulated car sound in headphones changes immediately.

The test at Opera Zurich for stage monitoring (previous blog-item) currently can not be finished as the orchestra can’t play on-site.

A second stage inside the opera, called “Studiobühne” (“studio stage”), used for practising or performances with smaller audience, is often used with amplified voice and reproduced sound.

This room is not a lot acoustically absorbed, say, a bit more reverberant than ideally desired.

Thus ideal for a first live test of Clarity in the opera.

Will Clarity benefit reproduced sound here?

Will Clarity benefit live amplified voice?

As it is quite complicated configuring a workstation with plug-ins for minimum delay, we developed in the meantime a low-delay standalone macOS application with less than 3m total delay. This app can be used with (high quality) sound cards (analog, ADAT, MADI) and even Dante.

Michael Utz measured the studio stage with Illusonic CalibrationTool software (aka IAP Calibration) and tuned it with EQ and Clarity. Once ready, he invited us for subjective testing on-site. The real-time test was carried out with the low-delay macOS Clarity application, connected to the mixing console via Dante.

Clearly reverb in room is reduced, sound is more clear and more focused from the loudspeaker positions.

We tested speech with wireless microphones. Feedback threshold was significantly increased (4-7 dB) and speech was perceived as more clear.

That’s great! Hopefully a live-test ona real public-performance will be admitted soon! :-)

Introduction

Believe it or not, many of today’s state-of-the-art operas feature a monitoring system for the main stage, such that singers hear the orchestra more clearly. Not monitoring with visible loudspeakers or in-ear, but discrete loudspeakers for enhancing orchestra’s sound on stage for the singers and artists (not for audience!).

Opera Zurich uses four boundary microphones in the orchestra area to pick up sound, which is routed to some or all of the eight monitoring loudspeakers, depending on the stage design.

Micheal Utz from Opernhaus Zürich had been an Illusonic Test-Balloon Plug-Ins user for a while. When we released the first version of the Clarity plug-in, we received feedback from him on its application for dereverberation. We mentioned that this plug-in was designed for low delay and could be used for live applications as well. This was the start of a fruitful investigative collaboration.

While normally, the opera house stage is extremely busy and time-intensive testing is very difficult, the exceptional situation due to Covid resulted in that the stage was occasionally free for a few hours – ideal for testing! So far we accomplished three goals: 1 measurement of the eight monitoring loudspeakers at different positions of the stage, 2 tuning of the monitoring (EQ and Clarity), and 3 testing by playing back orchestra music. Point 3 turned out very well, everyone in the test agreed that sound everywhere on stage became more clear. A real live test with orchestra and singers is currently not possible, as due to Covid the orchestra can’t play on-site.

More details on points 1 to 3:

1 Measurement

The eight monitoring loudspeakers were measured at different positions on the opera stage with Illusonic CalibrationTool (aka IAP Calibration) software, using an RME Fireface UC interface with measurement microphone connected via ADAT to the monitoring system’s Yamaha mixing console.

2 Tuning

Using CalibrationTool and its headphones auralization feature, Michal Utz tuned the monitoring system via headphones and then tested and refined it with music playback on stage. Once his tuning and testing was finished, he invited us for a test together.

3 Testing

We played different orchestra music and listened from different positions on stage. A good test was also walking around on stage and listening.

Clarity made sound more precise everywhere on stage. There is now hope that with less level live amplified orchestra sound will be more clear for the artists. This would allow monitoring at lower level, which has many advantages, such as:

Less acoustic feedback

Less leakage to audience

Stay tuned for more news on this topic.

More than a year ago, we released IAP’s Immersive Upmix algorithms as a “Test Balloon Plug-In” for music producers and sound engineers. This plug-in works with workstations such as ProTools, Reaper, Cubase, and Logic.

The plug-in has been widely applied worldwide for things such as Dolby Atmos music production, applause upmix, film music, etc. The Test Ballon Plug-Ins Program has brought us a wealth of pro audio feedback. This feedback has allowed us to evolve Immersive Upmix to a great degree.

Now we deliver latest Immersive Upmix, same as in latest plug-in, to our IAP customers via IAP 8.1 Firmware/Software update. Free of charge.

Additionally, the update incorporates many more improvements and bug fixes.

Download the update here.

Change Log (since 8.0..4):

IAP Firmware:

major update to Depth

major update to Immersion

got rid of dry center

new mono upmix option

improved LRC quality

improved Clarity time resolution

IAP Configuration:

added new mono upmix option, and removed dry center

added volume and mute control

kept macOS minimum requirement at 10.6

IAP Calibration:

improved Clarity optimization algorithm

extended Clarity visualization,

added new mono upmix option, and removed dry center

dozens of small improvements

set macOS minimum requirement to 10.11 (from 10.6)

bug fixes
 

So far, DSP-based room adaptation has been limited to spectral modification. Or, in special cases, advanced room optimizers can reduce effect of earliest reflections, but limited strictly to a small sweet spot.

Illusonic Clarity 3 is an entirely new approach to room adaptation. It reduces reverberance of a room as if more absorbers were installed. Not only in a small sweet spot, but in the whole room. Bass is getting dryer and sound is getting more precise also at high frequencies. This is not only a marketing story. For the technically inclined, we have published an open access research paper on it.

All IAPs ever sold (since 2012) support this update. That’s what we call a time-less high-tech high-end product. Very rare species.

You can download this free-of-charge update here. All your IAP settings are maintained. Right away listen with improved quality after update. Get back to us for enabling measurement-tuned Clarity 3.

Besides revolutionary progress, IAP 8.0 features many other innovations and refinements:

improved remote-tuning, we can listen to your system realistically with headphones with headtracking

“talking display” makes IAP friends with blind people

Immersive greatly improved again

improved precision on many DSP parameters (delay is now sample accurate, …)

iOS remote control app support (via Raspberry PI)

improved multi-room and multi-zone support

improved automation over RS232 and network (via Raspberry PI)

see change-logs below for the many more refinements

Change-Logs (compared to previous latest version 7.1.3)

IAP Firmware & DSP:

Add Clarity 3 with Clarity Tuning

Improved Clarity without tuning (parameters, time-smoothing)

Improved Immersion (new decorrelator & reverb modules, randomization, pre-post processing)

Improved and renamed Immersion High and Size (to Tilt and RT60)

Added “Dry Center” option, to keep dialogue in stereo-movies dry (Depth and Immersion not acting on center and phantom center)

Added (USB) remote control commands for Ad Hoc Settings (balance, subsonic, sub gain, center gain, room mute, room gain)

Multi-room/zones improvements: room mute/gains are now stored permanently, added configurable room name, room mute: prevent that menu is entered unintentionally, during measurement now ignore room mute and room gain

Adhoc Center/Sub Gain: increased resolution from 0.5 to 0.1 dB

Bass/Treble Gain: increased resolution from 0.5 to 0.1 dB

Output Gain Trim range: increased from [-12..12] to [-20..20]

Output Delay Trim resolution: increased from 0.1 to 0.01 ms

EQ gain range: increased from [-18..6] to [-20..20] dB

Sub Overhead range: increased from [-10..20] to [-20..20] dB

Improved precision of all Illusonic algorithms by shifting operating range, such that the dynamic range of 32-bit float is more effectively used

Improved numerics on center extraction for better waveform quality

Added 3 new EQ types. IAP has now 27 different EQ types. The new filters are highpass with q-factor for raw bass driver equalization, and low/high shelving with q-factor for implementing smooth room curves with any slope

Increased Input Delay range to 0..200ms (from 0..100ms)

IAP Calibration control of IAP: all sound settings preset settings are now controlled by IAP Calibraiton (without overwriting any presets), previously only Gain/Delay, EQ, BMGT On/Off were controlled, this enables convenient listening and AB testing with now also Immersive

IAP Calibration control of IAP: “IAP CALIBRATION” is now shown on display while IAP Calibration controls IAP, and, except input and volume change, menus are disabled

Accessibility: added usb command to read out IAP display, updated iap library and iap_tool correspondingly

Improved reset command, such that no big clicks will be on loudspeakers (this happened when one would issue a firmware update without putting IAP to standby)

Improved microcontroller versioning, now pre-release versions are detected and user is prompted to update to final version

Phono in line-in mode now disables RIAA

Fixed input gain (was 2x in dB since IAP 7.1)

Analog-In now has always 20Hz low cut, to remove DC in input (on low levels this could freeze output-gain/volume, due to zero-crossing condition)

Fixed issue of temporary display freeze/corruption 1-2 seconds after IAP boot (with new network card)

IAP Configuration Software:

added Clarity 3 with Clarity Tuning

added Multiroom/Zones settings

added Ad Hoc settings (Balance, Center/Sub gain, etc.)

added support for 3 new eq types

increased input delay range to 200ms

IAP Calibration Software:

introduced dsp params presets, to quickly compare between any different settings

added new import config (.iap) function

added a new panel for Clarity 3 to tune it with measurement data

added Illusonic DSP along with gain/delay, eqs, etc. for real-time tuning

improved integration of Illusonic DSP with headphones auralization

added support for 3 new eq types

replaced phantom function with a more general sum function, to test phase consistency between loudspeakers

added “make mono” button to Auralization/Testing

added support for Bluetooth headtracking to Auralization

improved mean graph legends (now mean type is specified)

renamed Waterfall tab to Decay tab and increased number of range options

added correlation coefficient for crossover optimization

fixed bug, where tone control was not simulated when eq was off

fixed bug, where disable eq function did not work properly
 

IAP Control versatile remote control for our audio processors. Besides main controls (input select, volume, preset, mute), also detail sound settings can be changed. Changes done on IAP directly feed back to IAP Control.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/iap-control/id1455969349?ls=1

The application is optimized for iPhones and iPads.

We are attending Audio Engineering Society Convention this week. Looking forward to see you there!

AES New York 2019, the 147th Pro Audio International Convention is a R&D and end-user focused event.

Besides being member in several technical committees, we are presenting technical papers on two breakthrough innovations:

1
Science behind Clarity

“Modifying Audio Signals for Reproduction with Reduced Room Effect”
C. Faller, Wed, Oct 16th, 11am

2
Advanced VR-Audio A/B-Format Postproduction

“Spatial B-Format Equalization”
A. Favrot and C. Faller, Fri, Oct 18th, 245pm

If you are not attending, or want to know more details than orally presented, the papers can be downloaded from the AES E-Library:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/

Update:

We paid the open access fee for the Reduced Room Effect (Clarity) paper, you can download it for free from AES e-lib:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=20599

IAP 8.0 with eight major enhancements.

No one is left behind.

Stay tuned…

Introduction

We have worked a full year on this update and folded in more new features than we had imagined initially. A pre-release has been demonstrated at High End Munich 2019 and HKAVPE Hong Kong 2019 audio shows with great success.

After a few more weeks of tuning and testing, we are releasing IAP Spring 2019 Update (IAP Version 7.1) today!

Main points:

Need acoustic treatment but can’t do it? Try the updated Clarity feature!

A nice music collection has nice dynamic range. When listening casually, new “Dynamic Range” feature re-masters music/movies in real-time for casual/soft listening

From now on, updating IAP firmware is much easier, IAP Configuration software does it automatically

Download

IAP Version 7.1 can be downloaded here (for legacy “IAP 16 wide” and all current IAP models).

Details

Clarity has been re-developed from the ground up and is now patent pending. It precisely attenuates power in time and frequency such that after your room “is applied” the recording will be maintained more precisely, with less room interaction, in time and frequency.

Dynamic Range, technically speaking a multi-band expander-compressor with interband information exchange to prevent coloration, re-masters music and movies such that they have less dynamic range. Why would one want to do this? For casual listening, soft listening, less dynamic range reduces fatigues and prevents that you’d desire to change volume frequently.

Clarity and Dynamic Range are part of sound settings presets. Both work for stereo and multi-channel (movies) sources.

For long on our to do list has been to simplify upgrading of IAP firmware and software. Now IAP Configuration software automatically detects when IAP is outdated and allows to update IAP directly, while maintainning all parameters. Along with this, we were able to greatly simplify the IAP firmware/software package.

Detailed List of Changes

IAP Firmware

new version of Clarity (“Clarity 2”)

new audio processing feature “Dynamic Range”

moved Inputs Gain action to before other signal processing, such that dynamic range considers it and increased range to -10..20 dB

new audio processing “Clarity II”, replaces Clarity

depth/immersion updated, more clean sound (improved pre-processing, offset control)

prevent pop when changing phono type on mk2 main board

display sleep now works in preset changing mode

HDMI 2.0b improvements (firmware update)

modified factory default presets

save HDMI version in ROM, such that after failed HDMI firmware update HDMI board version is still known

implemented mute for dsp-generated SPDIF

modified mute time when changing presets (500ms => 300ms)

IAP Configuration Mac/PC software

add support for new feature “Dynamic Range”

increased Input Gain range to -10..20dB

new default presets

now force IAP to be powered on to work with IAP Configuration

update USB driver

add IAP firmware update feature

add .iap file name to window title

IAP Calibration Mac/PC software

add support for new feature “Dynamic Range”

added new Clarity for auralization

fix issue with Auralization presets

extend RIR range for auralization

improved auralization when 1 mic is used

changed default setup in off-line mode to stereo

update USB driver

fixed bug in 7.0.x, IAP calibration data were not read on launch

add .iapc file name to window title

auralization bug-fix (time domain plot filter was applied if enabled)

when reading eqs from IAP, irregular eqs are now deleted with warning

This year, we were exceptionally involved at the Klangschloss 2019 audio show in Greifensee Switzerland. The show takes place in a medieval castle embedded in a picturesque location at a beautiful small lake. The show is just 3km from Illusonic offices in Uster, our “home audio show”.

https://www.klangschloss.ch

On both days, we had two times one hour “Showcase” with Klangwerk, Zurich-based loudspeaker manufacturer and organizer of Klangschloss. We showed a 3.1 setup playing stereo music via a 3.1 loudspeaker setup. IAP converted stereo music to 3.1. Beautiful wall-mount Klangwerk loudspeakers were used. Sound worked especially well this time, despite of challenging castle acoustics. Was it Clarity II which made the difference? Or the on-wall loudspeakers with little back-reflection interferences? Or the nice closed-box subwoofer from wavecontrol.ch Daniel Müller? I guess a combination of things.

On Saturday I gave a seminar in Klangschloss’ conference room about stereophony and center channel/loudspeaker. I reached out quite far back in history, to first center channel proposals from Bell Labs in the 1930’s, to Klipsch three channel system 1950’s, and finally to Illusonic’s modern DSP-based stereo to 3-channel conversion.

Many thanks to Klangwerk and PSI Audio for their collaboration and support!
 

AES Convention is the preeminent bi-yearly gathering for professional audio research, education, and networking. If your interests include Studio Recording, Live Sound, Networked Audio, Broadcast & Streaming, Music Production, Post Production, Game Audio, Spatial Sound, Audio for AR/VR/XR and Product Development, AES Dublin is the place to be! Whether you are an end user, researcher, educator or student, the convention is the place to Listen, Learn and Connect.

We are giving two lectures:

Thursday March 21
Compact Stereo Loudspeakers with Dipole Processing
Christof Faller
http://www.aes.org/events/146/papers/?ID=6559

Friday March 22
B-Format Decoding Based on Adaptive Beamforming
Alexis Favrot and Christof Faller
http://www.aes.org/events/146/papers/?ID=6566

An interesting tutorial is held by Lasse Nipkow, comparing native 3D music production to upmixing:

Wednesday March 20
Strategies in 3D Music Production (Upmixing vs Productions Aimed for 3D)
Lasse Nipkow
http://www.aes.org/events/146/tutorials/?ID=6582

Come and listen to great native 3D music productions, and compare them to Illusonic Immersive Upmix!

Hope to see you in Dublin!
 

There are only limited possibiliites in post-production for live for VR recordings (A or B-Format).

Illusonic Spatial Equalizer inputs A/B-Format and outputs B-Format.

Different objects and instruments can be equalized separately, including changing their gain.

While scheduled for an IAP release 7.1, coming in Spring 2019 time frame, I got very impatient to try the new Dynamic Range feature under real-world conditions.

While we have had computational complexity in mind during development, Dynamic Range turned out a bit more complex than originally expected. Take the maximum-case, where a 7.1 movie is applied to it:

8 channels and 4 subbands makes effectively 32 audio channels to be processed. On a memory sparse DSP, a challenge.

Alone the crossovers need 96 biquad filters!

Additionally 16 filters are used for loudness weighting and another 24 filters for filterband equalization - a total of 136 biquad filters !!!

Besides of the filters, the expanders/compressors process the 8 channels of each of the 4 subbands.

Managed to get it to run on the second day of DSP integration work. Running IAP at maximum processing case (room eq, crossovers, bass management, 7.1-in 15.1-out immersive), the DSP has 74% and 96% processing load without and with Dynamic Range, respectively! IAP without Dynamic Range now requires a bit more processing load, since I had to move some memory from Immersion to slow external SRAM.

That is, without detail optimization, we just tightly made it! Plan to optimize a bit later, to get again more DSP margin.