Contents 6. Using ERGO in several DAW Environments ................ 26 6.1 Scenario 1 ..................................................... 26 6.2 Scenario 2 ..................................................... 27 6.3 Scenario 3 ..................................................... 27 7. Generic DAW Configurations ................................... 28 7.1 Using ERGO in ASIO Mode ............................ 28 7.2 Using ERGO in WDM Mode ........................... 28 8. Specific DAW Configurations .......
1. Introduction Thank you for purchasing the ERGO Room Correction System. Enhanced Room We appreciate your trust in us. ERGO (E Geometry Optimization) is an exciting product that enhances the performance on any loudspeaker/monitor system by digitally correcting your room’s acoustic problems. A few of ERGO’s bells and whistles are: ERGO doesn’t color the sound or produce an artificially sterile environment. So after using ERGO, you will hear the difference.
1. Introduction 1.3 How does ERGO work? ERGO takes a stereo audio stream from the analog or digital (SPDIF or FireWire) domain and processes it though a 96 kHz room correction algorithm. All incoming analog audio is sampled at 96 kHz, while incoming digital audio is sample rate converted up to 96 kHz for processing. If incoming audio comes in over FireWire, the processed audio is converted to reflect the output frequency of the ASIO driver, up to 192 kHz.
1. Introduction 1.5 System Requirements In addition, it is obvious that even if the greatest of care is taken over tweaking the system with cables, interconnects, power stabilizers, etc., none of that will never compensate for 10 to 20 dB peaks and dips in the frequency response. It’s clear that the room is the weakest link in the chain. In principle, if you strengthen the weakest link, then the entire chain is improved. In other words, improve the overall quality of your artistic projects using ERGO.
1. Introduction “The ideal response is flat and without reflections” is a statement you’ll hear if you ask people what the perfect sound would be for them. However, for various reasons, it is not ERGO’s goal to do this. Instead, ERGO is focused on making the room sound right, reflections and all. 1.6.3 Speaker designers obviously have an idea of how a loudspeaker should sound. ERGO strives to preserve the speaker’s identity, no matter what kind of room you’re in or how the speaker is placed.
2. ERGO Panels and Connections 2.1 Back Panel and Connections While ERGO can use a 6-pin FireWire port’s power for itself, many times this will be a bit “noisy.” If you find this to be true in your case and you think ERGO is not providing the best sonic quality that it can, go back to using the external power supply. Keep in mind, that you will always need to plug ERGO into the external power supply when using a mini 4-pin FireWire cable since it does not provide power like its 6-pin counterpart.
2. ERGO Panels and Connections Status LEDs • You have a complex or well-established FireWire configuration on your computer and don’t want to interfere with it. • You are using an analog console and mix “outside of the box.” Clip This LED illuminates when the incoming audio signal is 3dB from full-scale input, indicating a likely clip condition. This is used during the calibration process and when the incoming main output signal is inserted into the Input (Line In) jacks on the back of ERGO.
2. ERGO Panels and Connections Focus/Global ERGO has two modes of operation; Focus and Global. Headphone control On the right-hand side of ERGO, is a rotary knob that controls the headphone volume.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment It’s time to get ready to set up your mixing environment. This consists of 3 easy steps: Typically, back wall reflections are annoying because they arrive from the same direction as the direct sound from the loudspeaker. Side wall reflections are easier for the brain to cope with simply because they arrive from another direction and because of this, they are often regarded as adding ambience and localization clues.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment Two-Channel Set Up By shortening the path to the ear, the close-field monitor offers a tremendous amount of flexibility, allowing the sound to become less susceptible to differing room conditions. The ability to adjust the high characteristics is equally important to help compensate for room irregularities and achieve the highest sound accuracy.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment Adding a Subwoofer Begin by determining the best location for your subwoofer. If possible, the optimum set up would reflect that shown in Figure 3.2; however, this set up may not be practical, or possible, in your room. Once you have set up your monitors, listen to program material that you know contains low frequency information. If your subwoofer has a phase switch, adjust the subwoofer to provide the highest frequency setting possible.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment Set ting Up a 2.1 System with Two Full Range Monitors (Figure 3.4) Setting Up a System with Two 2.1 Configurations (Figure 3.5) Figure 3.4 Figure 3.5 Setting Up a 2.2 System (Figure 3.6) Configurations There are several possible ERGO configurations. These all depend on how you want to use ERGO in the studio.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment Using Analog (L & R) and Digital (SPDIF) Inputs Here are a few tips to keep in mind when dealing with Analog and Digital Inputs with ERGO. When using ERGO as a soundcard connected via FireWire to your computer, the FireWire audio stream is automatically selected as the input source. in the frequency domain, something which is almost insensitive to normal broadband background noise.
3. Setting up ERGO and your Mixing Environment Mac RoomPerfect™ can derive information about: 1. Insert the KRK ERGO Installation CD and double click the ERGO software installer. • Room acoustic properties and modes (peaks and dips in the room) • Power response throughout the room • Loudspeaker directivity • High frequency roll-off • Characteristics of low frequency roll-off 2. After the installation process is finished, the ERGO Calibration Wizard will start automatically. Follow its instructions.
4. ERGO Control Panel Description ERGO Info This is a read-only display that indicates the current system firmware revision, DSP firmware revision, and your FireWire ID. This section describes ERGO’s Control Panel including configurable parameters and system information. (Figure 4) SPDIF Status This display lights to indicate ERGO’s sample rate. Audio Settings Use the associated pull down boxes to select ERGO’s sample rate (Figure 4.1) and ASIO buffer size (Figure 4.2).
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) 5.1 ERGO Cal is your friend. Get to know, and love it. Set Up Are you plugged in? After you’ve plugged in your speakers and calibration mic, click Enter. (Figure 5.2) Double click ERGO Cal icon (located as shortcut in your desktop or within the Applications folder). Once you initialize ERGO Cal, the following screen appears (Figure 5). Figure 5 Figure 5.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) 5.2 Calibration Don’t be scared. Overwriting measurements helps ERGO clear its thoughts and prepares it to take new measurements. Selecting CANCEL sends you to the initial window. If there is something you want to reconfigure at this point, then select CANCEL. If not, click Enter to continue. (Figure 5.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) 5.2.1 Enabling Calibration 5.2.2 Adjusting ERGO’s Volume The next step is to adjust ERGO’s volume to a proper level, so it is adequate for the calibration process. If the Calibrate button is Off, check ERGO’s Back panel and press it (Figure 5.8). The Calibrate LED located on the Front panel will lit (green). There are two volume adjustments. The first ensures that you have the volume set so that ERGO can hear audio.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) • The length of each measurement depends on a combination of the measurement volume, and the background noise in your local environment. Typical measuring times for the low and high frequency measuring signals are 25 and 5 seconds, respectively. • If ERGO is unhappy with the measurement, an error message is displayed. Make any required corrections to your set up and follow the prompt to retry the measurement. Figure 5.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) One Mississippi, two Mississippi... (Figure 5.14) Tip If you see the Clip LED light up during this step, your volume level is probably just fine, and you should use this volume level regardless of what ERGO displays (Figure 5.16). Press Enter to continue. Figure 5.14 Well, how did things go? If the level did not fall within an acceptable parameter, ERGO will notify you. This doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) If the Focus measurement was Ok, ERGO will instruct you to place your measurement mic in Room Position 1, then click Enter. (Figure 5.18) For optimal room correction, make sure that the measurements are: 1. Performed more than 1 m (3 ft) away from the loudspeakers 2. Not performed behind the loudspeaker 3. Taken at a minimum of 50 cm (1.5 ft) between each measurement The following illustration shows the steps listed above. (Figure 5.19) Figure 5.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) 5.2.5 Room Correction Keep in mind that as long as Room Knowledge is 90% or greater, you are doing great! And, it can take you between 3 to 9 measurements before you get to 90%, so don’t be alarmed if it seems ERGO is asking for “too many” measurements. (Figure 5.21) The room correction score is a measure of how much processing is being performed in the room correction filters. To some extent, this reflects how audible the correction is.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) Then, click YES to store your measurements (Figure 5.23). Knowledge about the room is calculated and if the measurement positions have not gathered enough information, you can take further measurements until there is enough information present for a proper analysis. (Figure 5.24) Figure 5.23 Figure 5.24 If you choose to continue with more measurements, select YES and follow ERGO’s prompts.
5. ERGO Calibration Software (ERGO Cal) This will take you to ERGO Cal’s initial screen...and you’re done. (Figure 5.26) Figure 5.
6. Using ERGO in several DAW Environments • Reboot and power cycle your system If after configuring your system you find something is not working correctly, reboot your computer, and turn the power off then on to ensure that all changes take effect. The following are tips that you probably already know, but it would be a good idea to read them as a refresher. You know the old adage...better safe than sorry.
6. Using ERGO in several DAW Environments • What if you don’t have SPDIF Out? No problema, amigo. Just plug the outputs that are currently connected to your monitors into ERGO’s LINE Ins, then plug your monitors into the “A” speakers. Voila! That’s it! ERGO’s high-performance A/D converters will meticulously transform your signal into beautifully pure digital data, ERGO will work its magic and its amazing D/A converters will deliver the sonic goods in all their room-corrected glory.
7. Generic DAW Configurations Configuring ERGO Inputs and Outputs in Your DAW System 7. Open the Control Panel for ERGO and adjust the settings accordingly (this is found in System Preferences on Apple computers). ERGO inputs and outputs will appear as inputs and outputs in your DAW system. Set up is described later in this manual. Depending on your chosen application, these ERGO inputs and outputs maybe labeled as ASIO, WDM, (PC’s) or Core Audio inputs and outputs (Mac’s).
8. Specific DAW Configurations Below you will find information regarding integration of ERGO into various DAWs. 8.1 Pro Tools® 8.2 Cakewalk/SONAR™ If your Pro Tools hardware provides a SPDIF output, ensure that SPDIF is enabled in your Pro Tools hardware configuration set up. Please read your Pro Tools manual for more details. Cakewalk defaults to using WDM drivers. This allows multiple audio interfaces to be used in the program.
8. Specific DAW Configurations 8.3 Ableton Live™ 8.4 Nuendo® Access the Device Setup window and select VST Audio System in the Devices list in the left pane of the screen. (Figure 8.2) If this is a new installation and ERGO is your only FireWire interface, set Ableton for ASIO mode by going into the Options menu in the toolbar and selecting Preferences. When the screen pop-up window appears, select the Driver Type pull-down and choose ASIO. (Figure 8.1) Figure 8.
9. Troubleshooting Room Knowledge never gets to 100%. If you’re having trouble with ERGO, check out these tips. Power LED/knob LEDs do not illuminate when power switch is turned on. • Some things in life cannot be fully understood—like your spouse, for example. So, your room may be another one of these things. As long as Room Knowledge is 90% greater, your mixes will sound better. • FireWire port is not supplying enough power for ERGO. Use the 12VDC power adapter to power up ERGO.
9. Troubleshooting The Calibration Mic level is not loud enough. Using a Mac, I cannot see ERGO as a FireWire device. • Turn up the volume on your speakers. The speakers need to excite your room in order for ERGO to measure it accurately. • Turn up the volume on ERGO. The volume control should point to the word “Volume.” This is the 0 dB point for the volume control. • ERGO needs Leopard (10.5.x) or later. Check www.krkergo.com for detailed instructions on how to enable workarounds for other OS versions.
9. Troubleshooting While using ERGO in WDM Mode, I’m not able to select a buffer size value from the Control Panel. To contact KRK Service & Support, send an e-mail to service@krksys.com or call us at (954) 316.1580. • That is the expected behavior. To manually select a buffer size, select ASIO from the Control Panel. I’m having problems loading the necessary ERGO drivers. I’m using a Mac OS X running AppleFWAudio2.1.
10. Specifications Processing - Processing 400 MHz Blackfin DSP - RoomPerfect™ Algorithm Sample Rate 96 kHz - Room Correction Frequencies 20-500 Hz Audio Spec - Audio Spec A/B Speaker Select and Control Stereo Audio-In - SPDIF In (32 kHz-96 kHz) - 118 dB SNR and Dynamic Range - THD+N 0.
Appendix: Glossary of Terms A/D - short for Analog to Digital Conversion. The conversion of analog data or information into digital or binary form (See binary). Filter - A circuit that removes or acts on certain frequency signals above or below a predetermined point called a cut-off frequency. ASIO – Audio Stream Input Output. ASIO, developed by Steinberg, is a cross-platform, multi-channel audio transfer protocol.
Appendix: Glossary of Terms Sampling Frequency - The number of digital snapshots or samples taken of an analog audio signal in one second necessary to produce a digital interpretation of the original signal. The industry standard sampling frequency for CD-quality audio is 44.1 kHz. Also referred to as Sample Rate. Signal-to -Noise Ratio - A measure of how quiet an audio device is when no signal is present. Also referred to as Hum and Noise or Residual Noise. SPD IF – Sony/Philips Digital Interface.
Copyright © 2008 by KRK Systems, LLC ERGO is a trademark of the Stanton Group. RoomPerfect is a trademark of Lyngdorf Audio All other trademarks are property of their respective owners, who are in no way affiliated with KRK Systems or KRK products. All information included in this User Manual is subject to change without notice. http://www.krksys.