Valencia, Spain-based consulting firm Brusi Acoustics has announced the availability of PAcalculate, a free multi-lingual, multi-platform mobile app with calculators as well as other information and utilities for audio and lighting professionals.
PAcalculate can be installed on iOS (Apple), Android, Windows-Phone 8 and Blackberry devices from their respective app stores. The application uses responsive design developed to work on screens that range from a classic Blackberry to a large tablet. Both metric and English units are supported.
Audio and PA-related calculators include SPL, SPL addition, ceiling speaker coverage, air absorption, time to distance (and vice versa), frequency to wavelength (and vice versa) with full and half lambda options for arrays, Q factor to bandwidth conversion, dBu-dBV-Volts and speaker cable losses (low and high impedance).
For lighting, a DMX calculator as well and RGBW and CMY LED emulations are provided. Calculators provide comprehensive options as well as built-in help.
Other calculators are not directly related to the industry, but will nonetheless be useful: Ohm’s/Joule’s Law, KVA, BPM to time and conversion of weights and measures.
In addition to calculators, pin assignment information is provided for some of the most common audio and lighting connectors. Lastly, an inclinometer utility rounds up the feature set.
PAcalculate is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Simplified Chinese language sets, and the developers are seeking collaborative translations to other major languages; translators will be listed on the credits. They estimate the app, which can be used without an Internet connection, will be installable in 94 percent of smart phones.
“We tried to pack an extensive bunch of tools that could be useful for sound reinforcement professionals doing live or fixed install work, plus some lighting ones too,” explains senior consultant José Brusi. “While there is no rocket science involved in the calculations, some can get cumbersome, specially in the field, and others can get very complicated very easily (such as calculating time delays taking into account the effect of temperature, which can be critical for delay synchronization).
“Others, like KVA calculations or unit conversions are not specific to our industry, but will nevertheless be useful to have under the same roof, without the need to exit the application,” he continues.“We’ll be listening carefully in the future and adding new tools and contents based on users’ feedback.”
Links to the app for the different platforms as well as a full list of features can be found here.
