Feed The Brain. The primary job of a measurement rig is to acquire electrical and acoustical signals and feed them to the processor so that it can analyze, compare, slice, dice, fold, spindle and mutilate those signals and produce multi-colored charts, graphs and the all-important squiggly lines.

“But my software can produce squiggly lines all by itself without all those bothersome wires, preamps and microphones. Isn’t that enough?”

Maybe.

It depends on whether you are getting paid to pose or produce results.

We shall assume that you fall into the latter category, and therefore, the reason you have employed an analyzer is to measure your system and learn something about the signals passing through it, and in turn, what your system is doing to those signals as they pass through.

Your job is to decide what you want to measure, and from that, determine what measurement signals you need.

The point here is, the effectiveness of an analyzer is tied directly to its ability to acquire the measurement signals you need — and of course, those signals must be of a usable quality* (see note) and format.

With this basic functionality in mind, and for the purposes of this discussion, we shall divide our measurement rigs into three basic parts: probes (signal acquisition), preamps (signal transmission) and processors (signal analysis).

Probes (Signal Acquisition)
Put simply, our probes (sounds so scientific) are where we grab our measurement signals. We can split this group into two types: electrical and acoustical.

Electrical Probes
Once we have determined what electrical signals we want to grab — the points in the system signal flow we want to use as measurement points – accessing those electrical signals is basically a wiring exercise, generally accomplished via patching into device outputs or by splitting the signal path.

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This is why the measurement rigs for engineers who work on many, varied systems normally include a wiring kit with a healthy selection of adapters, y-cables, impedance matching connectors and other wiring knick-knacks/doohickies (pardon the technical jargon).

When grabbing electrical signals, it is important to note that, while standard practices of splitting the signal path and routing it into your preamp/audio I/O normally does not produce noise issues (worse case: noise introduced into the signal path), it is a good idea to always be aware of system grounding and is often a good idea to carry some isolation transformers in your bag o’ tricks just in case.

Acoustical Probes
OK, microphones. There, we’ve said it.

Microphones are a critical part of our measurement rig. They are our analyzer’s window onto our acoustical environment and the signals that are arriving at our audience, artists’ and our own ears.

As tiny transducers, they are also the most variant component in our measurement rigs; from mic to mic, and also over time.

In a perfect world, our microphones would act as completely neutral acoustical probes — perfectly omni-directional with razor-flat frequency response from DC to light and 200-plus dB of dynamic range.

In the world in which we actually live and work, this is sadly not the case. It is only the ideal to which our mics aspire. So let’s get real about our measurement microphones.

The short take on the measurement mics we use for our rigs is that we need need to be honest about how close to our “ideal” mic we actually need.

It is relatively simple (and inexpensive) proposition in this day and age to produce a microphone that has a good free-field, omni-directional pattern with a respectably flat frequency response between 50 Hz and 5 kHz (and reasonably flat from 20 Hz to18 kHz), and with a dynamic range that is generally usable for measurements between 30 dB and 130 dB (SPL).

For a large number of our real-world applications, that may be all you require for your rig (and you can save money to spend on other cool gear.)

The microphone costs start increasing when you:
* expand the flat FR (particularly in extending and flattening the VHF response)
* extend the dynamic range, either raising the max SPL or dropping the self noise
* require tighter overall sensitivity ranges (mic to mic)
* require exactly matched responses
* require individual measurement plots for every mic
* increase the ruggedness and environmental capabilities
   
All of this is to say, you always can spend huge money on a measurement microphone if you so desire, but you may not need to for every single application.

Preamps (Signal Transmission)
This section should really be called, “Preamps, Cables and Audio I/O” - but that would defeat our cute alliterative naming scheme.

Also, while “signal transmission” includes all the connecting cables in your measurement rig, we will, for the purposes of this discussion, assume they are of professional quality and functioning properly (but don’t just go making that assumption in practice — check ‘em), and focus on the preamps and computer audio I/O (interface.)

Often these two functions are combined in one device, but not in all cases. Here, we shall address the two functions separately. (Also, please read this signal path quality note.)

Measurement rigs require preamps to perform four critical tasks:

1. Allow adjustment of incoming measurement signals to appropriate levels for our computer audio interface. In determining choices of preamps, we must consider what type/level of signals we will be accessing (mic, instrument, commercial line level, pro line-level), and what type of connectors will be needed (XLR, 1/4-inch, RCA, BNC).

2. Allow adjustment of measurement signals for appropriate levels for our measurement purposes. Throughout the course of standard measurement processes, it is often desirable to be able to finely adjust the levels of multiple measurement signals relative to each another.

3. Allow measurement signal selection and routing. In many cases, you may be using multiple mic and line signals which you need to select from over the course of your measurement sessions. While one can employ the old stone-knives-and-bearskins approach of just re-patching cables on the fly, multiple, routable preamps (mixers, switchers) make the job easier, cleaner, and less error prone.

4. Provide phantom power for measurement microphones.
   
There are many ways that these preamp requirements can be met. In touring and permanently installed systems, it may be beneficial to build the measurement preamp requirements into the system’s existing signal preamp and routing scheme (i.e., feeds directly from the mix console or system DSP units).

It’s important however to remember requirements 1 and 2 above, and make sure that the “built-in” measurement signal feeds have their own, separately adjustable levels apart from the main system drives — we can’t very well go asking the mixer to turn up or down during a performance just to make our measurement signals happy.

Computer Audio I/O
Once we have our measurement signals, the final step along the signal transmission path is the analog to digital conversion (A/D) and the journey into the computer processor (sorta sounds like an Orlando theme park ride).

The big question: “How do we get there from here?” The most convenient path is to use the converters built into the computer, their stereo line-level inputs, however, over the past 10 years, most PC laptops have dropped that input from their built-in components in favor of a simple mono-mic input (Mac laptops still have them standard.)

If one is available to you, it is certainly a viable option as those inputs usually meet/exceed our humble requirements (again, see the note on measurement system signal path quality.)

In the all-to-frequent case that your laptop does not have a stereo line-level input, or where your measurement rig requires more than two input channels, the standard solution is an external audio I/O unit.

Over the same past 10 years (not coincidentally), there have been a number of computer audio interfaces that have come on the market that satisfy our requirements — most of which including our required preamps.

When considering an audio I/O unit for a measurement rig, the primary concerns (apart from preamp requirements) in general are:

* Physical Connection Format - USB, USB 2, FireWire (IEEE1394) 400, FireWire 800, PCMCIA card, dixie cups on strings? The question is which is easiest, any will it carry the number of signals you need. USB (1 and 2) are the most commonly available connections built into laptops and are generally the preferred connection type for simple two channel (stereo) input. USB 2 and FireWire connections are required for multi-channel input (3-plus channels).

* Audio Driver Format - Just because the signals get into your computer doesn’t mean your measurement software can use them. It’s very important to determine what driver formats your program can access (i.e. wav/wmd/mme, ASIO, coreaudio). This issue is further compounded by OS version issues and is the source of severe headaches for users and developers alike.

* Powering Mode - bus-powered or externally powered. Simple stereo USB units often utilize the buss power available via the USB connection (500 mW max). This is extremely convenient as it adds portability (no need to plug in to AC) and ease of set-up to your rig. It’s also a great feature when traveling between countries that use different standard AC voltages because the bus-powered unit gets its power from the computer, which normally utilize auto-ranging power supplies. Once you are into multi-channel I/Os, it’s pretty much guaranteed that bus power will not suffice and it will need to be plugged into local AC for power.

* Form Factor - simply put, what type of audio connectors does it have and how big is it. For those of you who need an extremely portable measurement rig, rack-mount gear is most probably too big for your requirements. A corollary to this issue then is ruggedness/roadability — sure it’s portable in size, but is it really built to withstand the transportation demands/conditions placed on it?
   
The proper choice of audio I/O and preamps is truly defined by the intended use for the measurement rig — what systems are going to be measured, under what condition and whether or not (and how) the rig is going to be transported. No one solution works for every user and use case.

Often, it’s preferable to field a basic set of stereo preamps and I/O, and then supplement that with additional preamps and signal routers (mixers, switchers) when the complexity of the rig and system requires.

Jamie Anderson is a founding member of Rational Acoustics, which provides training courses, hardware products/packages, and professional consulting for sound system measurement, analysis, and alignment. He has been teaching and working in the field of sound system engineering, measurement and alignment for almost 20 years. During his career, Jamie has worked as a technical support manager and SIM instructor for Meyer Sound Laboratories, as a system engineer on tour for A-1 Audio (kd Lang) and UltraSound (Dave Matthews Band), and most recently, as a product manager and instructor for SIA and EAW. Also check out the Rational Acoustics Store for a selection of many of the components discussed in this article.