TECH TOOLS
By default, the AcoustiTools app comes with three essential tools: a full-featured decibel meter with both peak and average values; a real-time analyzer that lets you see the
frequency curve of audio playing in the room around you (or even outside); and an AR spatial module.
July/August 2019 | Residential Tech Today 69
method of whipping out a Radio Shack SPL
meter and a tape measure. And with my
subwoofers, its results were a lot more accurate.
By far the most useful tool in the AcousiTools
toolbox, though, is the add-on diagnostic
parametric equalizer (PEQ), which is a separate
purchase from within the app. Parametric EQ
can be an incredible tool, allowing you to tame
the acoustics of a space with surgical precision.
But it also can be a daunting tool, especially in
figuring out how to adjust settings like Q, which
is inversely proportional to bandwidth.
With AcoustiTools’ Diagnostic PEQ, there’s
nothing to understand, nothing to guess at, and,
indeed, nothing to worry about. Simply blast
pink noise through your sound system, tell the
app how many bands of PEQ you have available
via your sound system, and you get a completely
intuitive graph of center frequencies that need
to be either boosted or attenuated, by how much
(down to the hundredth of a decibel), with Q
values for each band. There’s even a handy pause
function that lets you lock in those values, in
case you need to walk back to your sound board
or preamp to adjust its parametric EQ.
Again, the intended application here is for live
sound first and foremost, but I was able to use
the Diagnostic PEQ to tame the performance of
that aforementioned preamp in my home
theater system with such precision that I’m
honestly not concerned with its lack of room
correction. In about five minutes, start to finish,
I had my media room’s speakers and subwoofers
balanced, properly delayed, and perfectly tuned
to my room.
What’s more, my wife – who was looking over
my shoulder the entire time – commented that
for the first time she thought she understood
what I was doing when I was “moving
microphones around and blaring static” in the
media room. There’s undeniably an educational
aspect to seeing room acoustics through the
magic of AR.
For Acoustic Masterminds Inc., however, all of
this is just the beginning. “We have several
different expansions in mind for AcoustiTools,”
Madsen noted, “and there’s another, separate
app in the works that’s designed to provide
advanced analysis for creating 3D models for
room treatments.”
That app, he says, will allow you to scan a
room – or studio, or live venue, or even a café or
restaurant – in three dimensions, upload the
results to the cloud for processing, and then see
an overlay of exactly where acoustical
treatments are needed for the space.
“We can actually show the before-and-after, as
well as the look of the treatments, and have a
new way of illustrating it instead of having to
take out a tape measurement and work up
drawings, and then still have to describe it to a
customer who’s unsure of what everything will
look like when it’s done,” Madsen explained.
What comes after that? If Madsen knows, he’s
not telling. All he will say for now is that his
company’s ultimate goal is to “revolutionize
acoustic analysis and make it a faster process.” If
this first effort is any indication, I daresay
they’re already well down that path. x