Beta9b is now available on the website at http://www2.empeg.com/upgrades/. This should nail quite a few of the synchronisation problems and adds a few new features.

Please read the release notes carefully before installing.

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)

Hey everyone...

I have to state publicly that the Parametric EQ feature in 9b is insanely cool. Up until this release, 4-channel mode on my car stereo was only barely viable due to the strange way I'd set up my system- five bands per channel didn't seem like enough. Now that all of those bands are parametric, I can do more with those five bands than I could have done with ten, or twenty, or fifty.

Although I haven't done a lot of testing on it yet, the synchs seem a lot more stable to me. I encourage everyone to try 9b and do some synchronizations.

There is a new "search by source" (at least I think it's new in this version) where you can now search for an album title.

Also, finally having the search results sorted alphabetically is great. One thing that I didn't understand (until Mike explained it to me) was how the number keys on the remote control work when you're in search mode. When you hit the "8" key, it lists all the titles starting with "T". But when you hit "8" again, it does not give you the "U"s or the "V". It works differently than that. Each letter you hit is a letter in the word you want to spell out. For example, to search for "Rush", you would press "7874". Mike's example was "Abba": You would press "2222". Of course, if you did that in my car, I'd then be required to kill you...

Oh, and the new visualizations that Hugo hinted at aren't in there yet, in case anyone was wondering.

Kudos to the Empeg guys for a great software release!

-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Tony, (or somebody else),

Can you explain parametric equalisers? I don't have the faintest what exactly they are. I know how ordinary equalisers work but not parametric.

Calvin

Can you explain parametric equalisers? I don't have the faintest what exactly they are. I know how ordinary equalisers work but not parametric.

I knew this one would come up. Since I'm the resident "EQ Poster Boy", I'll take it upon myself.

Parametric equalizers are usually only found on extremely high-end audio equipment. A parametric equalizer allows you to control, for a given band, not just how much louder or softer that frequency is, but also what the frequency is and what its bandwidth or "Q" is.

So, for example, instead of a given band being fixed at 50hz, you could make that band be at any frequency you wanted, from very low to very high. That is one of the parameters, hence the name "parametric".

The other parameter, the "Q", controls what kind of frequency slope surrounds that frequency center. For example, as you adjust that gain for that frequency up or down, it's going to drag some of the surrounding frequencies with it. The farther away from that center frequency, then the less it will be affected. Imagine that each band is surrounded by a "bell" of intermediate bands- the relative "pointyness" or "bluntness" of that bell is what the "Q" parameter controls.

On the Empeg, the "Q" is, by default, automatic. They automatically narrow the bandwidth as you get farther away from 0db. But a couple of presses of a button on the remote, and you can edit the Q instead of it being automatic. This was actually necessary for one particular thing I did... I needed to override the automatic setting because it was too agressive about narrowing the bandwidth for what I was doing. Once you know what you're doing with it, an adjustable Q is very powerful.

I'm pretty sure that higher "Q" numbers result in a more "pointy" slope (although I always seem to forget and have to do trial-and-error adjusting).

The amazing thing about the Empeg is that every band can be parametric now. Most hardware-based parametric equalizers only give you one or two bands to play with. For someone like me, who's used to seeing hardware like that, 20 fully parametric bands is just mind-bogglingly powerful. It's like driving a Yugo every day and suddenly somebody handing you the keys to a Ferrari. It's almost more power than you know what to do with.

Like I said to Mike, it's going to look great on the spec sheet. Audiophiles or sound engineers who know about parametric EQ's will do a complete double-take when they see it. I swear, they'll call up Empeg and ask if it's a typo.

The best part is that John (that's who did the work, right?) implemented it in such a way so that the EQ still behaves the way it always did, only now you can hit one extra button to edit the Q and the frequency. Very slick.

A word of warning: If you don't have a use for a parametric EQ, or you don't understand its operation, then don't mess with the feature because it could possibly tweak your sound in ways that you don't like. Like the Ferrari, just because you can drive 200mph doesn't mean you should.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

Of course, if you did that in my car, I'd then be required to kill you...

Aww, no - you mean you don't like "Super Trouper" or "Does your Mother Know?"

Actually, I've just realised that I actually do have both ABBA and Rush on the empeg, including "Moving Pictures" (My all-time Rush favourite).

How embarrasiing!

Do I still qualify as a true empegger, or do we have to huff and puff about who has the lowest serial number?

Nah, it's not embarassing. The fact that MP is on there is the redeeming part.

/me goes off, humming "Dancing Queen"...


-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.

We can always list what sad we have:

Abba, Yes, ELO, OMD, Depeche Mode, Sisters of Mercy, Dustin (a puupet of a turkey you get on RTE), Christina Aguilera, a lot of Gaelic stuff, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Mission, Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds, Pink Floyd, a whole load of cheesy 80's stuff.

David (in need of serious help).

Sounds like a cool collection to me. 'Cept for the Abba, of course. :-)

That's the beauty of the Empeg. You can have a very eclectic collection of all different types of music, right at your fingertips. I especially like being able to shuffle-play the whole hard disk and having such a wide variety of music mixed together. One moment, you're listening to James Taylor, and the next, Nine Inch Nails.



-- Tony Fabris -- Empeg #144 --
Caution: Do not look into laser with remaining good eye.