About the Tutorial Process

Although MSO can be used for several different types of tasks, this tutorial will be concerned only with optimizing subs and their integration with one another, not with integrating subs and main speakers.

When working with MSO, you create an MSO project. An MSO project consists of a collection of MSO configurations. Each configuration can be thought of as an experiment or scenario, allowing you to evaluate a set of conditions in software. MSO accurately predicts what the measured end result will be under the conditions specified in the configuration.

In versions of MSO prior to 1.1.0, creating these configurations was a painstaking manual process. Starting with version 1.1.0, MSO provides two wizards for making this process much easier and less error-prone: the Measurement Import Wizard and the Configuration Wizard. This tutorial takes full advantage of these two wizards, allowing you to get your project up and running as quickly as possible.

The Steps You'll Perform

In working through the tutorial, we'll perform the following steps:

• We'll first look at some tips for exporting REW measurements, and for channel labeling in the miniDSP. Following these tips will make usage of the MSO Configuration Wizard easier, as well as help prevent errors when importing filter information into the miniDSP.
• Next, we'll import measurements into MSO with the Measurement Import Wizard.
• After the Measurement Import Wizard completes, it launches the Configuration Wizard. We'll use that wizard to quickly create our first configuration, specifying some configuration options along the way.
• After the Configuration Wizard runs, we'll optimize the resulting configuration.
• We'll learn how to get back our baseline data by using the configuration cloning feature to make an identical copy of the configuration we just optimized. We'll then use the filter parameter value reset feature to reset all filter parameters of this copy back to their default values. We'll name this configuration Baseline.
• We'll create a graph containing the data of both the optimized and baseline states for easy visual comparison.
• We'll critique the results of the first optimization, then create another configuration from the first one using the configuration cloning feature again. We'll name the original configuration Iteration 1, and the new one Iteration 2.
• We'll need to make some manual modifications to Iteration 2. To do that properly, we'll need to delve into some details of configurations.
• We'll apply what we learned about configurations to make these manual modifications to Iteration 2. Then we'll optimize Iteration 2.
• After optimizing Iteration 2, we'll learn how to use the Configuration Performance Metrics dialog to compare various performance metrics of Iteration 1 and Iteration 2 in an objective manner. These metrics include response flatness at the MLP and seat-to-seat response variation.
• We'll try to improve these performance metrics by creating another new configuration, Iteration 3, which we'll create by cloning Iteration 2 and putting some PEQs into the shared sub channel of Iteration 3.
• We'll optimize Iteration 3, and use the Configuration Performance Metrics dialog to compare performance metrics of Iteration 1, Iteration 2 and Iteration 3.
• Next, we'll run a filter report on Iteration 3 and discover a problem: there's a large gain mismatch on the four subs, compromising the maximum output.
• We'll learn how to use the Normalize Gains command. This will allow us to identify the sub with the highest gain, called the reference sub. Then we can constrain the gains of the non-reference subs relative to the reference sub.
• We'll clone Iteration 3 to make Iteration 4, then run the Normalize Gains command on Iteration 4.
• Next we'll constrain the gains of the non-reference subs of Iteration 4 so the maximum allowed gain difference between the non-reference subs and the reference sub is 10 dB. Then we'll run a new optimization with these constraints.
• After optimzing Iteration 4, we'll run a filter report on it, paying special attention to the relative sub gains. We'll confirm that the excessive gain mismatch problem has been solved.
• Then we'll do a comparison of the performance metrics of Iteration 1, Iteration 2, Iteration 3 and Iteration 4 using the Configuration Performance Metrics dialog.
• Finally, after having been satisfied with the performance metrics of Iteration 4, we'll export biquad files from MSO and import them into the miniDSP. Then we'll manually enter the sub gain and delay values that MSO determined.