New Features Overview

(a.k.a Smaart v9 for v8 users)

Copyright © 2022 Rational Acoustics LLC. All rights reserved. www.rationalacoustics.com

 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

This Guide – Start Here

This guide is a quick reference to acquaint you with what is new in Smaart v9 and is written specifically
for users upgrading from and/or familiar with Smaart v8 or previous versions.

If you are new to Smaart or have limited experience operating dual-channel FFT-based measurements,
we would strongly recommend also consulting the current Smaart v8 User Guide and other support
materials available at support.rationalacoustics.com, as well as the program’s extensive on-board help
files (found in the software’s “Help” menu).

While Smaart software can certainly be described to exist in a state of continuous development, the
work that comprises the v9 upgrade cycle represents a significant amount of effort in and of itself -
almost 3 years of focused development time (in the midst of a pandemic no less). With the initial “9.0”
release, you will find that a good deal of the measurement functionality and operational paradigms to
be much the same as those of previous versions – although with some interesting changes/additions.
This is specifically done so as not to throw away progress already made from past development, or to
invalidate any skills or capabilities we as operators have learned over time.

Much of the development work in this upgrade cycle was dedicated to structural, “under the hood”
improvements. Coding work that was far too involved, too foundational and/or time consuming to
undertake within our standard ongoing “update” cycles – work that may not be initially obvious, but the
stuff that makes the future of the platform possible. This document takes you on a tour through all of
that which v9 development comprises, the obvious and the less so. Of course, we know our users (and
ourselves) and many of you are already diving into the software, or already skimming looking for
graphics (this is already the 4th paragraph, after all, so congratulations for reading this far). If that is the
case, we highly recommend at least jumping to the last two sections of this document, “Refine” and
“Enhance, which will help you get your bearings for navigating the new features and paradigms in v9.
You can catch up on the rest of the document later.

Also, please be aware, while the initial release version 9.0.0 includes the features and functionality
detailed here, new v9 “update” releases will be published regularly over the coming weeks and months
to add new features and mature the platform, as well as to address the inevitable “undocumented
features” (a.k.a. bugs). These “after dot” updates are free to all registered v9 licensees and can be
accessed from within the software or from your license account at my.rationalacoustics.com. These
periodic releases will be announced on our website and via our newsletter (which if you have not
already done so, we would highly recommend signing up for on our site.) Moreover, all licensed v9
Smaart users are invited to participate in beta testing new features as they are developed, prior to their
official release. These “Beta builds” are also available from your license account.

One final note, please feel free to contact Rational Acoustics at support@rationalacoustics.com for help
with any Smaart issues, to report software bugs or to suggest/request new features and functionality for
future updates.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Table of Contents
This Guide – Start Here .......................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................. 3
Smaart Version 9 ................................................................................................................... 5
Updates vs Upgrades – the Smaart Development Process ...............................................................5
Updates ................................................................................................................................................. 5
Upgrades ............................................................................................................................................... 5
The v9 Upgrade – the Why and What .............................................................................................6
Refresh / Rebuild – Strengthening Our Foundation ................................................................ 6
The Refresh/Rebuild Bullet List ......................................................................................................8
Restructure – Adapting Smaart to Our Users/Markets ............................................................ 8
Subscription Licenses .....................................................................................................................9
Smaart’s New Edition-Based Product Structure ............................................................................. 10
Complexity vs Usability? .....................................................................................................................10
Smaart Editions ...................................................................................................................................11
Refine – Making What We Have Work Better ....................................................................... 12
Separation of Measurement and Graphing Controls ......................................................................13
Changes to the Menus.................................................................................................................. 13
Preferences and the “Advanced” Tab .................................................................................................14
GUI (Graphical User Interface) Changes ........................................................................................ 14
View Controls ......................................................................................................................................15
Controls in the Plots ............................................................................................................................15
Graph Settings ............................................................................................................................................... 15
Smoothing / Banding ..................................................................................................................................... 15
Weighting ....................................................................................................................................................... 15
Add/Subtract Plot .......................................................................................................................................... 15
Axis Labels ...........................................................................................................................................16
Mode Buttons .....................................................................................................................................16
Reworked Configuration Flow ......................................................................................................16
Measurement Engine Singularity ........................................................................................................16
New Measurement Config Dialog .......................................................................................................17
Drag and Drop ................................................................................................................................................ 17
Phantom Engine ..................................................................................................................................17
Engine Right-Click Menu .....................................................................................................................18
New Engine Detail ...............................................................................................................................18
Updated Measurement Controls ..................................................................................................18
Tracker Function .................................................................................................................................18
Pause ...................................................................................................................................................19
New Group Measurement Controls .............................................................................................................. 19
New TF Averaging Depth Setting ........................................................................................................19
IR and SPL Mode Updates ............................................................................................................ 20
Enhance – Adding New Capabilities...................................................................................... 20
Enhanced Data Structure.............................................................................................................. 20

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Larger Live FFT’s Available in RT mode ...............................................................................................21

Single FFT and MTW Always Calculated .............................................................................................21
Use MTW Coh Option .........................................................................................................................21
MTW+ Replaces old MTW...................................................................................................................22
Expanded Output Capabilities ......................................................................................................22
Output Presets ....................................................................................................................................22
Timer (Macro) Function................................................................................................................ 23
Parting Reminders ............................................................................................................... 23

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Smaart Version 9

Updates vs Upgrades – the Smaart Development Process

The Smaart software platform has been in constant development since 1995 – over 27 years! (Longer
than some of our users have been in development.) Over time, this dev process has taken the form of
two distinct modes: (minor version) Updates and (major version) Upgrades.

Updates
The minor version UPDATES – the “numbers after the dot” releases – are published periodically
throughout the year and constitute the ongoing feature additions, refinements and reworks that come
as we expand and refine our applications and processes for using this tool. Commonly referred to as the
“dot releases,” this continual update process is critical for maintaining the code, addressing bugs and
adapting to changes in the hardware and Operating Systems we depend upon.

The update process uses relatively short development cycles which comprise their own major and minor
release components. The main update releases, the first number after the dot (i.e., v9.X) generally take
upwards of 6 to 9 months of development and testing to produce (although some have taken
significantly longer), and generally contain a few major feature additions and a whole bunch of minor
ones. Each of these major updates is normally accompanied with an update to the software
documentation – the program help files, the User manual and support materials – and is always
announced on as many communication channels as we can (see previous note about signing up for our
newsletter.)

The minor update releases, the “second dot” or the “number after the dot after the number after the
dot” (i.e., v9.1.X), come at a more frequent and slightly erratic pace, as they usually comprise bug fixes
and minor feature tweaks. These updates release as necessary with very little fanfare - so before
reporting a bug, check to see if an update has already been published (pro tip).

During the development process for updates, licensed Smaart users can actively take part in the beta
testing of new features. Users who wish to participate can download the current beta versions from
their Smaart license accounts and can actually have both the released and beta versions installed and
usable under their same license.

Updates are offered at no cost to licensees of the current version and can be automatically checked for
and loaded from the software if you have an active internet connection while running the program.

* Of special note to 9.0 users, the initial three months of the major release is called the “early adopter”
period and represents a time of significantly rapid update releases.

Upgrades
The major version UPGRADES – the primary "number before the dot" releases, the “version number” –
happen on a less frequent basis (5- or 6-year cycles) and constitute a much more significant undertaking.
While the update process modifies and expands the existing codebase, the Upgrade build generally
addresses structural issues on a deeper level and represent a major overhaul and rebuild of the

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codebase and its underlying development environment. Whether this is to address changes in
underlying technology, operating systems, or addressing previous limits due to our own past coding
decisions (self-inflicted limits?) the version upgrade process normally involves breaking everything and
then putting it back together - hopefully fundamentally changed and prepared to take on the future.

With Smaart, Upgrades of standard, “perpetual” licenses are a paid cost. This is how the continued
support, maintenance, and development of the platform are funded. In the case of subscription licenses,
these costs are translated into a yearly ongoing fee, and no specific Upgrade cost is required.

Owners of previous version perpetual licenses are not required to upgrade to the new version – your old
version will continue to operate as before. However, once a new version has been released, all new
feature development for Smaart is focused only on, and offered only for, the current version platform.
We actively develop and maintain only one version of Smaart at a time. No new updates will be
released for the previous version. Rational Acoustics does take seriously our commitment to supporting
your old license’s use and installation – in other words, we will still help you with maintaining
installations of your old version licenses for as long as they will operate under your computer’s current
OS. But if a new OS breaks your old version, we will not be spending development resources to fix it
(maybe tread lightly when updating your OS’s if you plan to keep running old software?) Also, Rational
Acoustics will not be offering sales of new license seats for old versions. For further information
regarding these policies, consult our website at RationalAcoustics.com, or email us at
sales@rationalacoustics.com.

This release, Smaart v9.0 is an Upgrade release. Let’s dig into the details of Why we needed to build it,
and What we did.

The v9 Upgrade – the Why and What

Updates are driven by the desire to add functionality and refine operation. Upgrades are driven by the
fundamental need to change the structure of the program to make Updates possible, now and in the
future. There are four fundamental drivers for the v9 upgrade:
1. Refresh/Rebuild – our codebase and our development tools and environment
2. Restructure – our products to better fit our markets and our users’ requirements
3. Refine – the continual need to refine and evolve the Smaart measurement environment
4. Enhance – our measurement capabilities and data structures to allow for cool new stuff

Refresh / Rebuild – Strengthening Our Foundation

Over 27 years of development, this part of the Upgrade process has truly proven critical. We do not
create the environments and tools we use to create and execute the code that is Smaart software.
Because we have chosen to offer Smaart as software (which provides many benefits to the user and the
product), instead of as a program/firmware operating on locked-down hardware with a fixed OS, we
have chosen to build a house on an ever-shifting foundation. When Smaart was first developed, it was
designed to run under Windows 95 on 33 and 66 mHz 486 and Pentium processors! After 12 years of
development and 5 major versions - Smaart, Smaart Pro, Smaart Pro 3, SmaartLive 4, SmaartLive 5 (we
don’t talk about 6) - the program was an industry standard, but its codebase was a hideously tangled,
inflexible, single-threaded mess. Pushing Smaart forward required a serious rethink. In 2008, after
founding Rational Acoustics, we switched development environments and completely rebuilt Smaart

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

with a modern, object-oriented architecture that could make use of the modern multi-core CPU’s and
multi-channel IO devices on multiple OS’s.

This v9 development cycle, as v8 had before it, began with the essential task of updating our
development environment, its tools and of course the FFT libraries we rely on, to assure that Smaart
would be fully compatible with current 64bit operating systems and CPU chips (like the new Apple M1
and M2 processors). In effect, before renovating the house, we started by shoring up the foundation.

We updated our development environment. Our compilers. Our dev computers. How we stored and
updated our source code. How we tracked our work. We took the time to rethink and retool how we did
everything.

One nice benefit of this work is that the IO devices that Smaart relies upon have now become truly
“plug-n-play.” Up until now, Smaart would only discover connected IO devices on boot-up. This is why
standard practice has been to connect your IO device first, then start Smaart. Now if you forget to
connect before starting the program, no problem – just plug it in and Smaart will find it, no need for re-
boot.

Also, speaking of re-booting, one of the great side benefits of the code refresh and rebuild is that Smaart
now boots significantly faster and loads configurations (or restores defaults) in seconds, and without
requiring a program re-boot.

It also gave us a second chance to remake some fundamental decisions made early on that are limiting
us now. Things like, limiting Smaart’s generator output to 2 channels (there were only two possible
when we made that decision). Or reinitializing the audio drivers whenever we made a major (or minor)
program change – this is why Smaart’s generator pauses sometimes when you are doing stuff that has
nothing to do with the Gen like changing the plot layout (?!?). Why did we do this – I guess it made
sense then, so we’ve had to live that nonsense ever since.

The v9 Rebuild & Refresh provided an opportunity to address a significant list of past coding decisions
and “solutions” like these – issues that were so deep in the program that changing them would take
more time than we wanted to give at the time and messing with them might break a bunch of other
stuff too, so we decided it was better to live with them and not poke the bear. Well, since we were in
there breaking everything else anyway, now was the time to go after them.

However, by far, the most arduous/daunting task of this Upgrade “Refresh & Rebuild” process was
updating our rendering systems. A major part of the Smaart software involves plotting massive
amounts of data in real time. Oftentimes, when users were maxing out their computer resources, it
wasn’t the CPU (Central Processing Unit) that was the limiting factor – it was the GPU (Graphics
Processing Unit). We are often plotting many multiples of data traces, with upwards of 16,000 complex
points apiece (ok, yeah, 16,384 for the geeks out there) into plot areas as small as 480 x 190 pixels!
Somebody has to reduce that data and make it fit, and that fell on the GPU. Put simply, the more data
we wanted to sling, the more attention we needed to pay to our rendering systems.

In 2008, when we began the first “Rational” rebuild of the Smaart code to create Smaart v7, we chose to
use OpenGL for our graphics rendering. This was a great choice at the time because were also beginning
to develop for multiple platforms (Windows and Mac OS), and OpenGL worked great for both. Fast-

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

forward to the 2020’s, and our rendering requirements have continually increased, but OpenGL is now
being deprecated* in macOS, and gently put out to pasture in Windows.

*DEPRECATION, IN ITS PROGRAMMING SENSE, IS THE PROCESS OF TAKING OLDER CODE AND MARKING IT AS NO LONGER BEING USEFUL
WITHIN THE CODEBASE, USUALLY BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN SUPERSEDED BY NEWER CODE . (THANKS INTERNETS)

So yeah, this meant our current OpenGL-based code would still run, just less and less well over time.
This left us with the awesome “opportunity” to completely rewrite Smaart using THE new, modern,
massively capable, preferred rendering engines for our target OS’s – Direct X for Windows and Metal for
Mac. To be honest, it is a significant improvement and does provide some great benefits (like iOS uses
Metal – so creating apps would be easier), but so does rewiring your whole house’s electrical system
and bringing it up to code. Beneficial, yes, but definitely not a weekend project. And we are certainly
still on a learning curve with our rendering right now.

In summation, we broke and rebuilt Smaart – and to be honest, there may be a few things left to be
rebuilt in a dot release, but the result is a clean, stable, refreshed codebase that will allow us to build
and maintain Smaart into the future (when we all will probably be wearing one-piece body suits and
living in bio-domes or on starships).

The Refresh/Rebuild Bullet List

So, here is the dev environment Refresh/Rebuild part of the v9 Upgrade process in an “easy to skim”
bullet list: (AKA – “What did our programmers do for their first year of the pandemic”)

• Updated our Dev environment and tools

• Made sure we were fully 64bit OS compatible
o And Apple silicon (M1 / M2) compatible
• Fixed some deeply imbedded past bad coding decisions
• Faster program boot and configuration loading
• Actual Plug-n-play for IO’s
• Updated our rendering systems to DirectX and Metal
• Re-Built our licensing systems to add Subscription Licenses (See “Restructure” below)

Restructure – Adapting Smaart to Our Users/Markets

Another of the primary goals of the v9 Upgrade cycle was to rethink, and as needed restructure, our
Smaart product offerings to address our users and markets. Over ten years ago, we began offering the
ability for users to expand their licenses with additional “seats.” It was the natural response to business’
requests to add more installations without having to manage multiple separate licenses and accounts.
Soon after we added the ability for users to purchase and manage license seats themselves directly from
within their Smaart license accounts.

As it turns out, license seats were extremely helpful and a big success, particularly with larger companies
who were managing and fielding a significant number of Smaart rigs. With the advent of the v9 Upgrade

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development cycle, we again asked ourselves “Are we making Smaart products that fit our current
users’ needs?”

Our answers led us to undertaking two initiatives:

1. Offering subscription licenses
2. Creating a revised, “Edition-based” Smaart product structure

Subscription Licenses
Up until v9, Smaart software has always been offered only as a perpetual license, where users pay once
for their initial version license - either as a new license or as an upgrade from a previous version – and
then any updates to that version are made available at no additional cost (see previous section “Updates
vs Upgrades” for more discussion). The software itself basically continues to function in perpetuity – at
least until it is no longer supported by current operating systems. This is the classic model where the
software purchase is directly analogous to buying a piece of gear, and it is the model that software
companies have used for years to pay for the ongoing development, maintenance and support costs
associated with offering a software product.

Over the past decade however, made increasingly possible by the ubiquity of internet access, another
software licensing model has gained favor with software companies and users – the subscription license
model. Here the user pays for access to the software via a periodic (yearly or monthly) subscription
charge. When the user stops paying their periodic fee and the subscription lapses, the user loses access
to the software. This licensing model does require that the computer running the software have at least
periodic access to the internet for subscription verification (sometimes a deal-breaker for mission-
critical show computers), however in most use cases, this does not present a significant barrier to
viability.

On the positive side, the subscription license model provides a few unique benefits to both the user and
the software company:
• The user always operates on the current software versions (no upgrade/update costs)
• The initial cost of access to the program is significantly lower
• Subscription fees are consistent and budget-able for the user and the software company

On the negative side:

• When then subscription runs out – user loses access to the software
• Program must have periodic internet access
• Initial and Ongoing (Version Upgrade) costs higher in the short term

In many ways, it is like the difference between purchasing and leasing a vehicle.

Over the past decade, as subscription models for software have become more common, Rational
Acoustics has consistently heard two comments from our Smaart users.
1. “Please do NOT go to a subscription model!” – very common particularly early on
2. “Can we license Smaart as a Subscription” – becoming more and more common

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

The answer to these statements/questions is YES – Smaart v9 will be available via subscription license
AND as a classic perpetual license. One or the other - choose the licensing model that best fits you.

One of the biggest projects during v9 Upgrade project has been the rebuild and expansion of Smaart’s
licensing system to allow for subscriptions. For more information on Smaart subscriptions as well as
general license pricing, please consult the Rational Acoustics web site.

Smaart’s New Edition-Based Product Structure

Complexity vs Usability?
As we teach in our fundamentals class, Smaart is simply a tool. Albeit a complex one that sometimes
requires advanced understanding to wield, it is, in its essence, a measurement tool like a voltmeter that
an audio engineer uses to ask and answer questions as they make decisions and perform their jobs. The
engineer is the analyzer – they define/configure their measurements (ask the questions), read and
interpret the data, and ultimately decide their actions based on its data and their knowledge of their
task. Smaart’s job is to perform the measurements and feed the resulting data to that analyzer
(engineer). A great deal of Smaart’s feature set is specifically focused on prepping and presenting its
measurement data in a form that is usable by the engineer – to provide actionable data.

As we have previously stated, Smaart has been in active development now for almost three decades.
Over that time, it has consistently gained in features and functionality. Often that increase in capability
has also come with a corresponding increase in complexity - which in turn has sometimes decreased its
usability as a tool for some engineers. And here then is the primary conundrum in building a
measurement tool like Smaart, does an increase in capability result in a decrease of usability?

A great deal of development effort has been spent over the course of Smaart’s growth to balance that
trade off. A lot of work has gone into adapting the software’s GUI to hide complexity at times to keep it
from interfering with common workflow, but to make it readily available when it is needed.

The balance between capability and usability is an important concept here – to be a powerful tool, it has
to be usable. Many Smaart users operate it in environments under very tight time constraints.
“Unwieldy (slow) but powerful” may often equate to simply “unusable.” There are many, very
experienced users, “power users,” that only use a fraction of Smaart’s capabilities and functions. There
are others who couldn’t do their jobs without some advanced features that most users might call
esoteric. Usability and power then are all about the user, and what they need, and less, maybe, about
raw feature count.

Over the past 5 years, Rational Acoustics has dedicated a large amount of development time to
significantly enhancing both Smaart’s IR mode and SPL mode. That work represents a great deal of
added capability – and yet, there is a large percentage of our userbase that never uses either of those
modes, and others that use only one of them exclusively (like users who only use the SPL mode, but
none of the measurement and analysis capabilities in Real Time and IR modes.)

The primary question for a user then becomes, “What is the right feature set and complexity for me?”
Or to look at it from the perspective of someone purchasing a license, “Why should I pay for features
and functionality I never intend to use?”

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

To help answer these questions, Rational Acoustics has adopted an Edition-based product structure for
Smaart software.

Smaart Editions
With the release of v9, Smaart is moving from its old version-based product structure to a new, more
cohesive edition-based one. This means, instead of maintaining multiple separate products, with
separate but related code bases, each at different release versions (i.e., Smaart v8, Smaart Di v2, Smaart
SPL v1), there will now be only one master version of Smaart (v9) that is available in several different
editions.

By standardizing all editions of Smaart on the same version code base, we can ensure that all editions
share the same fundamental GUI, the same command and control structure, operational paradigms, and
are cohesive down to the hotkeys. The only difference between the editions is their feature sets. This
means, learning to navigate and control one edition should translate to all.

The 4 editions of Smaart available with the release of v9 are:

Smaart Suite is the full-featured, flagship, edition of Smaart v9 which includes all three
of Smaart’s measurement modes (Real-Time, Impulse Response, and SPL) with no
functional limitations. Smaart Suite is the analog to the comprehensive functionality
currently found in Smaart v8 and is designed for professional users who require (or
desire) access to the full feature set available across all three of Smaart’s measurement
modes. Basically, it’s everything in v9.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Smaart RT (Real-Time Edition) is Smaart Suite's Real-Time Mode as a stand-alone

edition. It comprises all of the core multi-engine FFT-based measurement capabilities
that professional audio engineers have come to rely upon from Smaart over the past 27
years – RTA, Spectrograph, Transfer Function and Impulse Response measurements, all
harnessed in a work environment developed to fit the workflow and task critical
demands of modern audio engineering. If you hear an engineer talking about using “Smaart,” they are
probably talking about the RT mode. While it does include IR measurement and basic single-channel SPL
monitoring capabilities, Smaart RT does not include Suite’s acoustic analysis focused Impulse Response
Mode or the fully featured SPL monitoring tools of SPL Mode. Smaart RT is designed for users who
simply require the complete advanced functionality of the Real-Time Mode.

Smaart LE (Light Edition) is a simplified, streamlined version of Smaart's Real Time

Mode with many of the advanced settings, adjustments and tweaks for the Spectrum,
Transfer Function and IR measurements pre-set and fixed – in effect, just like operating
RT on its default settings. All the power of RT without all of the variables. While it does
not include many of the advanced user functions included in Suite and RT, it does still
allow for Smaart’s unlimited multi-engine measurement configurations. Moreover, because it uses the
same GUI and command and control structure as RT and Suite, it serves as a great gateway to the
Smaart measurement platform. Smaart LE contains the core, essential functionality for Smaart’s
spectrum and frequency response measurements and is a great choice for users just starting out on the
Smaart platform, students, and those who want quick, simple, solid measurement functionality without
the bells and whistles.

Smaart SPL (SPL Edition) is the power of Smaart Suite’s SPL mode as a stand-alone
edition. Smaart SPL includes all of the multi-channel, remotely monitorable, SPL
metering and logging features found in Smaart Suite, in a simplified, purpose-focused
package. Often a perfect solution for installed level monitoring systems, Smaart SPL is
ideal for applications that don't require any of the Real Time or Impulse Response
measurement functionality found in other editions of Smaart.

Refine – Making What We Have Work Better

A significant portion of the development work in all Smaart update and upgrade cycles is focused on the
continued evolution of the established measurement environment. The extension and refinement of the
current version, its functionality and operational paradigms. How can we now take it further – improve
what we have, make it easier to use, more intuitive – less clunky?

Moreover, how can we flatten the learning curve for new users, make Smaart more intuitive and easier
to learn – and relearn. After all, a large portion of Smaart users are not using it every day, or even
weekly or monthly. For many, it’s a tool in their toolbox that they take out when they need it – but there
can be long stretches of time between uses.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

When considering the refinements, we want to make in our upcoming development cycle, we ask
ourselves a series of questions:

• Are controls and information where they need to be? Are they where you would expect them to
be? Is their placement intuitive.
• What functions are useful but are non-intuitive to operate.
• How are features actually used as opposed to how they were originally designed to be used?
• Does the work process using a feature flow smoothly, or is it clunky?
• What are functions that you use frequently that take too many clicks to access or activate? Can
we get to that function faster?
• Are the tools in place for you to adapt Smaart to your workflow?

Many of these questions may seem obvious, but it is surprising how often we adapt to how features
function instead of adapting the feature function to how we need it to work.

The following section documents the changes and “refinements” that have been made to Smaart Suite
and its three modes in V9. All functionality from the previous version Smaart v8 has been retained -
except where noted. Controls and control placement for some functions however may have changed.

Separation of Measurement and Graphing Controls

While virtually all functionality and controls have been retained, a specific effort was made to separate
the controls that effect the actual calculation of the measurement data from those that effect the
display/graphing/presentation of that data. For example, controls such as FFT size or Averaging Depth
actually change the measurement, whereas trace Smoothing or spectrum data Banding simply change
how we view the data. While Smaart has historically conflated these two types of controls, in v9 we
attempt to separate them and their controls appropriately. This organizational change can be seen in v9
with the separation of the old Spectrum and Transfer Function options dialogs into separate Graph
Settings and Measurement Settings dialogs for each.

Access to the Measurement Settings dialogs can be gained from the measurement type label at the top
of the Control bar, via hot key, via the options menu, or via a button in the lower left Graph Settings
dialog. Likewise, the Graph Settings dialog can be accessed via the “Cog” button located in the lower
right of the plots, via hot key, via the options menu, or via a button in the Measurement settings dialog.

Changes to the Menus

On the whole, the menu structure in V9 remains mostly the same as it was in v8. The biggest changes
can be found in the Options menu with the Graph and Measurement settings dialogs discussed above,
and the addition of a Tabbed Preferences dialog

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Preferences and the “Advanced” Tab

The Tabbed Preferences Dialog houses many of the
Options dialogs that previously populated the main
v8 options menu. The dialogs that have been
placed in the new Preferences tab are basically
ones that effect general program settings that are
usually set once and forgot, or more often, simply
left at default. This dialog also houses the
“Advanced” tab. Originally named the “TBD” tab
(There Be Dragons) during development, the
purpose of this tab is to hide advanced
functionality that could be confusing or distracting
to users who do not understand the features. As
history has taught us, many (most?) of our users
will activate a feature/control even if, or
specifically because, they do not know what it
does. This in turn becomes a support liability
relatively quickly. To decrease the temptation,
controls enabling some advanced functionalities are and will be housed here. (Much of the planned
advanced functionality that is planned for v9 has not yet been published in a released or beta version.)

GUI (Graphical User Interface) Changes

At first glance, the GUI for v9 is very similar to that of v8, particularly in general layout. In v9, the main
GUI is divided between five main areas: (clockwise from the left) the Data Bar (left), the Tab/Title Bar
(top), the Control Bar (right), the Command Bar (bottom), and the Plot Area (center). As in v8, each of
the four “Bars” surrounding the plot area can be hidden to allow more room for the plots. The Data bar
can also be widened to expose more area to display longer data names.

One change from previous versions, the indication for which data plot has operational focus is now
achieved with a simple “highlight” border around the plot with focus. As before, the user can adjust the
colors used for the GUI in the “Skins” options located in the Preferences tabs.

On closer inspection, a few significant changes to the GUI in v9 become obvious:

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

View Controls
Critical to an engineer’s ability to read and analyze measurement data is the ability to set and vary the
layout of the plot areas and program bars on the screen. In the past, the primary way of controlling the
plot layout in Smaart was via the preset view controls in the View menu and by
memorizing and using the hot keys for triggering them. Smaart v7 and v8 also had
buttons in the Control bar that triggered some view functions, but they were far
from comprehensive controls, and in many ways, a bit confusing. With most users,
those controls were primarily used for triggering either the standard “Spectrum”
view (a single RTA plot) or the standard “Transfer Function” three plot view (Live IR
over Phase over Magnitude). In v9, those view control buttons have been replaced
with a much more comprehensive View control, pop-up area. This control area
brings together much of the view control functionality that was spread throughout
the menus and GUI into a single control area. Of course, it contains the old
controls as part of it, and all the old menu-based and hot key-based view controls
are still in place. In fact, two of the buttons on the command bar have been
assigned to triggering the Spectrum and TF views, just in case you missed them
from the top level of the GUI.

The View control Pop-up is accessed from the View button on the Control bar just
above the generator controls. Clicking on the view button again, or outside of the
pop-up, will lower and hide it again.

Controls in the Plots

In order to make controlling Smaart more intuitive, particularly for newer users, a significant effort was
made to put controls near what they controlled. This became particularly useful with the functions that
controlled how we viewed our data.

Graph Settings
Access to the Graph Settings for a plot type (Spectrum or
TF) can be accessed via the “Cog” icon in the lower right of
the plot area.

Smoothing / Banding
Smoothing and Banding controls are also located in the
lower right of the plot within the actual graph area.

Weighting
Weighting controls, once weighting has been applied to a trace, appear in the upper right of
the plot, directly below the Trace name and dB offset value.

Add/Subtract Plot
Adding an additional plot to a single-plot layout or subtracting a plot from a two-
plot layout was previously a bit of a convoluted process with the old view
controls. Now adding and subtracting plots is straight- forward using the in-plot
controls in the lower left corner of the plot area.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Axis Labels
Ok, this one was way overdue. Somewhere during the process of building v7 we stopped labeling the
Units on our plot axis (i.e., Frequency (Hz), or Level (dB). This continued through v8, but they are now
back in v9.

Mode Buttons
Because it has all three measurement modes (Real-Time, Impulse and SPL), Smaart Suite’s GUI has mode
buttons in the upper right corner of the main GUI to select the active mode. An option in the
Preferences: Advanced dialog sets these controls to create a
new window for each mode when it is accessed via these
buttons so that a user can operate multiple modes
simultaneously.

Reworked Configuration Flow

Measurement engine configuration and management has once again been refined in v9. Refining this
functionality, because it is so fundamental to defining and managing our measurements and workflows,
makes it one of the key areas that we focus on in the upgrade process.

Measurement Engine Singularity

The most significant change in the configuration process is the adoption of what we call “engine
singularity.” This is a formal way of saying that once you create/define a Spectrum or TF measurement
engine, it is available for use in any work tab within the program – you don’t have to create clones of
that engine for use in separate Tabs.

While this may sound like an obvious way of working with multiple measurement engines, the reality of
how engine management has worked in Smaart in previous versions has not been so straightforward.
When we created Smaart v7, we had never worked with managing the configuration and operation of
multiple measurement engines run simultaneously. Our first attempt at a solution involved creating
Groups of TF and Spectrum measurement engines that the program could switch between. (This is why
the hot key for accessing the measurement configuration is still Option + [G]). While functional, this
system proved to be extremely clunky and time-consuming to configure.

When v8 was introduced, a major enhancement was the addition of Tabs to manage workspaces and
measurement engines within Smaart. This change represented a huge leap forward in usability and
configuration speed. However, because the “Measurement Groups” concept had been so fundamental
to the v7 code, the choice was made during the v8 Upgrade development to modify the measurement
groups to create v8’s tabs. The resulting byproduct was, that while easier to configure and manage,
using the “same” measurement engine in multiple tabs still required creating and managing clone
engines – effectively, the measurement engines were still “owned” by the Tab (Group) structure.
Deleting a Tab effectively deleted the engines within it.

In undertaking the current Upgrade, we have finally dug down and undone our measurement engine’s
existential attachment to the Tabs (Groups). Now in v9, you configure engines and choose to use them
or not in your active Tab. Once you create them, they are available in the program until you choose to
delete them. Deleting a tab has no effect on the configured engines. Sounds simple? In concept, yes,
that’s the point. It just that getting here was a rather circuitous path.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

New Measurement Config Dialog

V9 features a new Measurement configuration dialog that expands out from the left of the Control Bar.
The new Measurement Configuration dialog does not have Measurement settings

(those are in the “Measurement Settings” dialogs) or Tab information. It simply details the currently
configured engines and allows you to add or delete them or access the individual engine detail tabs by
double-clicking on a given engine. Access to the Measurement Configuration dialog gained via the
Config Menu, hot key (Option+[G]), or with the Measurement Config button:

Drag and Drop

Two cool new applications of “Drag n Drop” controls with engine management:
1. The order of the engines on the Control bar can be changed
2. Engines can be added to the active Tab’s control bar by dragging them from the Measurement
Configuration dialog.

Phantom Engine
Located at the bottom of the engine controls section of the Control Bar. Users can create new engines
by clicking this button. This navigates the user to the create new engine dialog. (Same
as the hot key Cmd + [S] or [T])

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

A very handy addition to the New Engine dialogs is the “Create +” button which allows a user to save a
newly defined engine, and then immediately begin configuring another without closing the dialog.

Engine Right-Click Menu

In order to reduce the navigation time to access certain
engine management feature, a new engine options menu can
be accessed by right-clicking on a given engine. This is
extremely helpful for changing engine color or for removing
an engine from the active tab.

New Engine Detail

The new measurement engine detail dialog. Once opened, users can switch between the detail for
active engines by clicking on the engine in the control bar. (Note that the dialog separates
Measurement and Display settings)

Updated Measurement Controls

Some new/enhanced functionality has been added to the standard measurement controls in v9. These
changes modify the existing operation of some key, established features.

Tracker Function
As anyone who has attended a Rational Acoustics’ Smaart Operator Fundamentals training has probably
heard numerous times – “remember to turn your tracker off.”

Setting your measurement delay using the tracker function is an extremely quick and convenient way to
speed up / streamline your measurement process. Unfortunately, once you have acquired that delay

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

time, and assuming it is stable (issues like wind or a swaying speaker are good examples of factors that
create an unstable/varying measurement delay), leaving the tracker running can only serve to frustrate
you later. Particularly when making measurements to determine relative system timing, keeping your
measurement delay (your timing reference) fixed is critical for comparing timing data. As you turn on
and off sources you wish to time, leaving the tracker engaged will allow it to change your measurement
timing – often resulting in useless measurements and foul language. Hence the constant comment in
class to remember to turn off the tracker!

Now in v9, the Tracker function has been fundamentally updated to address this issue. Now when you
engage the delay tracker, the tracker indicator in the engine will light up yellow as it acquires and sets
the delay. Once it has found that delay and it remains stable over a few measurement cycles, the tracker
will turn off automatically. If instead you wish to keep the tracker engaged, like in the case of an
unstable delay time, simply double-click the tracker button and it will be locked on as before and the
indicator will light up orange. The tracker can then be disengaged but clicking the tracker button on
more time.

Pause
Years ago, when beta testing v7, we asked our users what they felt the default behavior should be when
turning off a measurement engine. The answer came back pretty consistently that the data buffer
should be kept (paused) and trace on the plot should be hidden. Them to view the data of that paused
engine, the user simply clicked the show/hide button in the engine (currently displaying an “X” on it) to
display the paused data.

Now in v9, we have added a “pause all” button to the group measurement controls in the control
bar. Pressing this button stops all currently running measurement engines but does not hide their
traces.

New Group Measurement Controls

The group measurement controls for v9: (left to right, upper to lower)
Run All, Stop All, Pause All, Track All, Timer Function, View Measurement Config

New TF Averaging Depth Setting

The averaging settings for Transfer Function measurements have become an interesting list of choices
over the past two versions. The selections available offer a mixture of FIFO and Integrating averaging
choices. (2 FIFO, 4 FIFO, 8 FIFO, 16 FIFO, 1 Sec – 10 Sec, Inf, Fast and Slow), however at this point, all of

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

those names are misleading. The FIFO averages are based on our standard 24 measurements/sec
operation rate instead of simple end-to-end or set-overlap FFT’s. This means that Smaart’s FIFO
measurement settings do not in any way correspond with that of other dual-channel FFT system’s
averaging. 16 FIFO in Smaart is more averaging than 2 FIFO in Smaart, but there is little correlation
between 16 FIFO in Smaart with 16 FIFO in another system.

Moreover, with changes we have made to enhance our integrating averagers (1 Sec – 10 sec), the 1-10
number is basically just an indicator of how much (8 sec is more than 2 sec averaging) but the actual
integration time varies by frequency for a given setting.

The issue here then is that the names of the averaging depths (beside Infinite, Fast and Slow which do
have established definitions) carry very little rigorous meaning. To be honest, the most important issue
is just the depth of averaging (how much) and not the method. We have always arranged our averaging
selection lists primarily by effective depth, from less to more.

Now with v9, we have jettisoned the old averaging depth names, and just settled on a simple 1-10 (+
infinite) scale for the TF averaging setting where 1 is the least amount of averaging, and 10 and infinite
are the most. Want to increase stability and reject noise better? Increase the averaging depth. Want
more responsiveness? Lower it.

IR and SPL Mode Updates

A great majority of the update work for the IR and SPL modes was actually completed and released as
part of the v8.4 and v8.5 upgrade cycles. These changes are documented in the v8.5 Smaart User
Manual released earlier this year.

In the v9 upgrade, the most significant enhancements to these two modes in the update of their GUI’s
to match the v9 style and in-plot controls.

Enhance – Adding New Capabilities

Arguably, this section represents the primary reason for the v9 upgrade cycle. Much of what we have
spent our time working on in the v9 upgrade cycle has ultimately been towards making enhancing the
Smaart platform possible. There are many features on our (always expanding) wish list of cool stuff
we/you want to do with Smaart that require significant reworks to the code to make them feasible. The
features that are covered in this section represent only the beginning of what is intended for v9 in the
coming months and years. And quite honestly, if the past 27 years is any indication, there will probably
be just as many that we don’t know we intend . . . yet.

Enhanced Data Structure

In earlier versions of Smaart, there were features we did not implement because they required working
with FFT’s and correspondingly large data sets. As is the way of computers, what once was prohibitively
large has now become reasonable and manageable.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

A major undertaking in Smaart v9 has been to overhaul, and in most cases significantly increase the
measurement data we are acquiring, working with and storing.

Larger Live FFT’s Available in RT mode

At one time, the thought of running a single 16k FFT as part of a real-time measurement
was quite daunting. For the last ten years, we had found that a 32k FFT was useful
upper size limit. Now in v9 we have increased that upper limit for real-time (24
measurements per second) application in Smaart to quadruple that at 128 k. This is
particularly interesting as we begin regularly using higher sample rate data – to
effectively keep the same FFT Time Constants when you double (48 to 96 kHz) the
sample rate, you need to double the FFT size (32K to 64K).

Make no mistake, these new increased FFT sizes (64K and 128K) can pose a significant
challenge our CPU’s and GPU’s – particularly in older computers. But this increase does
open up some interesting development possibilities.

Single FFT and MTW Always Calculated

An issue we ran into during v9 development was that, when looking at adding some new measurement
capabilities, there are unique benefits to using MTW FFT’s as well as to using single FFT’s for our transfer
function measurements. There are many reasons why we have standardized on MTW for our
measurement default in Smaart. However, there are some extremely interesting measurement
capabilities we wish to add into v9 that specifically require the use of a single FFT data.

MTW or single FFT? We believed ourselves to be at development fork in the road.

So we took it.

For v9 TF engines, we decided to always calculate BOTH an MTW and a single FFT version of our TF
measurements. In many ways, we have been close to doing that already in v8 when we run the LiveIR
and a MTW transfer function simultaneously. While this decision means we are adding some additional
calculation and data management costs for each engine we run, our modern computers can definitely
handle it, and they are only getting more capable each year. In return, by creating a full set of both
single-FFT and MTW–based measurement data, this creates a much more complete data set to work
from and opens up some very interesting feature possibilities.

Imagine if we decided not to keep the Spectrograph data buffered because it ate up too much RAM
(over 64Mb!!!).

We do still have some issues to solve regarding how we select and control which data set to display.
Currently, for each engine and each captured v9 reference trace file (.trf), the data displayed will match
the current global FFT setting specified in the Measurement Settings dialog. Both sets are there, it is just
down to refining how we choose which one to use. For now, operation will feel much the same as
things worked in previous versions.

Use MTW Coh Option

One of the distinct advantages of using MTW for your TF measurement is that the COH trace is much
more sensitive to reverberant energy and faulty measurement timing at higher frequencies due to the

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

progressively shorter FFT time constants used in the HF measurements. This in turn is very useful
information when using COH to provide an indication of proper measurement delay setting as well as an
indication of system direct to reverberant ratios and intelligibility.

By calculating both MTW and single FFT TF, regardless of what FFT type you have selected in TF
Measurement settings, v9 provides an option to always show the MTW COH trace.

MTW+ Replaces old MTW

Another part of v9 development that overlapped with the last releases of v8, the enhanced MTW
transfer function (MTW+) was created to remove any data time gaps (gaps between subsequent FFT’s)
in the HF and VHF. Standard Smart real-time operation runs the FFTs used in our measurements 24
times a second – or about every 42 milliseconds. In the high and very high frequencies, the FFT’s being
used in the MTW TF are shorter than that 42 ms in length, and so the HF and VHF measurements had
some time gaps – they weren’t effectively continuous. These gaps do not pose a problem with the
accuracy of the response measurement, however it does create a situation where it could miss short
transient (distortion) events.

MTW+ runs the FFT’s in the HF so that they are effectively continuous. The MTW+ routine developed
during the last year of v8 effectively replaced the old MTW in v9.

Expanded Output Capabilities

Previous versions of Smaart have been limited to
a single mono output signal sent on up to two (2)
output channels. When playing stereo .wav files
from Smaart’s generator, only the Left side of the
signal would be played.

In v9, this limitation has been removed. Smaart’s

generator output can now be set to send signals
out any and available output channels.
Moreover, as Smaart’s generator expands to
include stereo and multi-channel playback and
noise sources, so will the output routing.

Output Presets
Pre-set output configurations can be configured and stored in v9’s I-O
Output Config. These output pre-sets can then be selected from Smaart
signal generator control area at the bottom of the control bar to switch
between your pre-set output drive configurations.

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 WHAT’S NEW IN SMAART 9.0

Timer (Macro) Function

SmaartLive v5 had a timed measurement function that has always been earmarked to make its way back
into the current Smaart products. Version 9 marks its re-introduction.

The basic operation of the Timer function is that when you activate the timed
measurement, for all actively running measurements Smaart:
• sets its average type to “Infinite”
• flushes out the averaging buffers
• averages new data for the specified length of time (specified in
seconds)
• captures the data
• resets the average type back to its previous setting

This little macro function represents a quick way of collecting measurement

data. In some cases, most notably some cinema tuning processes, it was used to
do thirty-second-long walking averages with spectrum measurements –
basically walking the microphone around through the listening area of a theatre
while the sound system is energized with pink noise.

With the original Timer function in v5, we eventually added options to include a countdown before
starting the measurement (so the engineer could activate the function and still have time to get into
place for the measurement), and the ability to turn on and off the generator (so the engineer is aware of
when the measurement has started and has ended).

One of the major goals for v9 is to introduce user definable macros into the Smaart toolbox. It has been
an often-requested feature for a user to create macros to automate some configuration and
measurement processes that they perform repeatedly. This Timer function represents our first foray
into this user definable macro capability.

The Timer macro is relatively simple with a few basic options to modify it. The configuration of the
timer is done via the timer configuration pop-up in the control bar. Besides the basic functionality
detailed above, additional steps can be added to the process.
Those optional steps are (in order of execution in the macro) - for each active running measurement
engine:
1. Count Down [specified in seconds]
2. Turn Generator On
3. Set Measurement Delay (uses the find function – TF measurement only)
4. Track Delay (locks tracker on – TF measurement only)
5. Perform Timed Average (see above process)
6. Turn Generator Off
7. Repeat [X] times

Parting Reminders
For questions, comments, bug reports, feature requests, or anything Smaart related, contact:
SUPPORT@RATIONALACOUSTICS.COM
Also, remember the help files! Thank you.

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