Waves Tract with Smaart System Calibration

[@gunnbrady]

I’m on the “damn I’ve been using it wrong” team. Just ordered the missing equipment and can’t wait to try it out the correct way. Much appreciated Joe!!!

[@joevegna]

Glad this might have cleared things up a bit. A lot of people have been struggling. But this should get you started and then I plan for a part 2 with more insights in how to get the most out of it.

[@brycehaney2497]

Hear me out.. I’ve been using tract the past 8 months or so. I originally set it up to use the RTA from Smaart. I received decent results with that. Always seemed awful bright tho. I was using the pre programmed target curves. But, I created a new target curve inside of Smaart that resembles to L’acoustics curve. I was able to save it as a curve inside Tract. (This took a lot of work to get it correct. I had to invert my capture inside Smaart and send it over a virtual interface into tract.) I also switched over to using the transfer function. The high range band is set to 0. And the low band range is set to -15. My range is 20hz to 20khz. frequencies. I use this on my master. It then goes into a Galileo for time alignment / any additional tweaks. I take the FIR offset and pull it down to where the “boosted frequencies” are at the 0 amplitude range. You would think that it would sound the same wherever the FIR is set to… it doesn’t. I’ve had great success doing it this way.

[@joevegna]

Well there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. You obviously put som effort into this to find a way that works for you. I agree that something close to the Lácoustic curve is the way to aim for. Right now I only use Tract as an EQ, I don't import anything from Smaart. I find it easier to do my measurements in Smaart, try to make some sense from the data and then apply EQ as I see fit. Nice to get some other perspective. Thanks for sharing.

[@gunnbrady]

Next round is on me, cheers 🍻

[@joevegna]

Yey, very generous of you. On my way to the pub now 😅

[@ledgersolutionsuk]

This is pretty much exactly how I use Smaart and Tract too. (Nice to know I’m not on my own, and that it’s about right!) Would be nice to see if anyone else has any system techs have some tips to get even more out of it

[@joevegna]

Yes hopefully there will be a part 2 to this with some insights from a system engineer. There is probably more to learn.

[@GbengaOgunbameru]

You are the best! God bless you.

[@JeffreyKok-ny4wc]

Hi Joe, question on your pink noise panned all the way. I remember the TRACT tutorial with Val, he mentions:”now you can capture several spots around FOH“ But that wouldn’t work if pink noise is panned hard left or right. I know you measure either left or right side of PA with just SMAART.

[@JeffreyKok-ny4wc]

Pink only send left or right will work with TF measurements, right? And sent to both L/R will help with EQ correction curve? Please, correct me if I’m wrong!!

[@joevegna]

Smarter people than me are welcome to weigh in on this. But the way I do it right now is that i only play pink in L or R. I take 3-8 measurement points, front to back, and then do an average. So far I have gotten quite good results doing it this way. But I'm sure the metode could be further developed. It's my 2025 project :)

[@JeffreyKok-ny4wc]

@@joevegna your first sentence is actually the reason why I was watching your video again and came to my question. All the help and suggestions are welcome!

[@joevegna]

I need to find someone who has more experience with this and do a proper video including everything you need to know.

[@karolpozorski6007]

Delay Finder in Smaart was wrong about 5ms. I always set the initial delay manually, later Phase alligment works better. Regards Karol

[@19deadmeat87]

no, Joe is using demo version of smaart that is limited with maximum 50ms of delay compesation.

[@karolpozorski6007]

@19deadmeat87 You're right, thank you for your message. Best regards

[@karolandres4195]

please make a video on processing main bus on Waves and vocal effects! :)

[@joevegna]

Absolutely. I'll add it to the list.

[@media11x]

What microphone is a good solution for live pa and smart tract to use?

[@joevegna]

Really any measurement mic, does not need to be a super expensive one. Just choose one that has a calibration file coming with it. Then Smaart can offset any nonlinearity in the mic. I actually use the Sonarworks mic since I already owned it. Works fine.

[@media11x]

@@joevegna what Waves TRACT System Calibration work mit microfon only or do we need also smaart ?

[@joevegna]

@@media11xSadly you need Smaart as well. So all and all it’s not a super easy setup. LV1 and Smaart running on separate computers and 2 separate networks.

[@HOANGANHSOUNDTECHNICAL]

Why not use soundgrid driver

[@joevegna]

Well you could. But I use a mac M1 for Smaart and the M1 does not play nice with soundgrid. And I have the external sound card anyways for other stuff. But you are absolutely right, you can use the soundgrid driver if you have a computer that is friends with soundgrid.

[@mikloskovacs3734]

@@joevegna great video! just to share my experience, the soundgrid driver works great for me on M1 and mac os monterey. with any macOS above monterey it's unusable, but with monterey it's been solid.

[@joevegna]

@@mikloskovacs3734 Thanks for that, that's very good information. Hope they will sort this out with the latest os.

[@hillde5699]

Another great video, thank you very much! I found an interesting one today. As i have another network with wlan-router for remote control anyways, i thought i could use this one for the connection between Smaart and Tract as well. So far so good. But when i disconnect my Smaart PC from the network, without closing Smaart before, (it doesnt matter if the connection is by wlan or lan) lv1 freezes and than crashes. If i turn off the router quick enough the software will come back, without crashing. If i close Smaart, so Tract shows no connection, i can disconnect the smaart pc from the network without any problems. If i connect the smaart pc to the host pc directly, without the router in between, everything works well. During the check there were no other devices connected to the router. Anyone noticed this too?

[@joevegna]

Thanks for the report. That’s interesting. I’ve never come across this but have not connected/disconnected things the way you described. Perhaps someone else??? My first guess would be that it’s a network problem, not a software problem. Do you use static IP addresses?

[@hillde5699]

@joevegna i used DHCP Mode and ive already done a request to Waves support and they said that this is the only approved way to do it.