Auto-capture

• Auto-capture is part of AudioMap Standard and Pro, and of the trial. In other tiers the button is dimmed, and pressing it shows Upgrade Required: “Auto-Capture needs Standard or Pro.”
• It needs an audio device, and more than one speaker or more than one microphone.
• Tracking solves the mic position from the speaker positions in your project, and the targets come from the coverage settings on the setup wizard’s Coverage area page.
• Stop playback first. The Auto-Capture button is disabled while playback is running.

1. On the Measure tab, press Auto-Capture, or press A.
2. A countdown ticks (5 seconds by default). Then the test signal starts and AudioMap spends a second locating the mic.
3. Walk the mic to any target. The plot shows Move the mic to a target and how many are captured so far.
4. Inside a target, hold still. The plot shows Hold still and a bar fills over 4 seconds.
5. Each speaker then plays its sweeps in turn (Capturing <speaker>). Keep the mic still. When the sweeps end, the plot shows Captured while the mic is still on that target.
6. Move to the next target. Repeat until every target is captured; auto-capture then stops on its own.

You hear a tick for each second of the countdown and a tone when it ends. A chime plays when the completion window opens.

While you walk, every speaker plays pink noise at once. AudioMap measures the arrival time from each speaker and solves where the mic is, updating every 50 ms. The position holds still while the sweeps play.

Under Mic tracking in the settings (gear button), the choices are Simultaneous (recommended), the default, and Alternating, which has the speakers play pink noise one at a time instead.

There is always one target at the listening position, and the other targets are laid out around it. You set them on the setup wizard’s Coverage area page:

• Coverage area radius: how far the rings reach from the listening position.
• Measurement Density: 13 levels, from a single point to 61 points.
• Extend coverage toward the speakers (off by default) and Coverage Breadth: add points beyond the listening area, toward each speaker.
• Shape coverage by stereo pairs (on by default): the area follows your left/right pairs. On a symmetric sound system the points are exact mirror images.

You can also change them later on the System tab: in the left sidebar, click Edit on the Coverage area line for Area, Pts, Extend coverage toward the speakers and Breadth.

A target captures when the mic stays within 0.2 m of it, seen from above, for 4 seconds. Leave the circle and the count starts again. There’s no separate level or stillness test before the sweep, so do hold still.

With Sweep (the default), a speaker whose sweep doesn’t measure cleanly is swept again (Measuring <speaker> again). If that sweep fails too, the target stays open (<speaker> wasn’t measured here). With Pink noise, a capture that comes out noisy is thrown away and tried again at the same spot (Noisy capture). After two retries it is kept, with a note to check the mic and its level.

Open the settings with the gear button next to Auto-Capture.

• Measurement: Sweep (recommended) or Pink noise.
• Sweeps (with Sweep): 1 to 8, default 2.
• Length (with Sweep): Short (about 0.5 s), Medium (about 1 s, the default) or Long (about 2 s).
• Countdown: 1 to 10 seconds, default 5.

During a run, click any target that hasn’t been measured (in the 2D top view or in 3D, or right-click it) for its menu:

• Capture this target now: captures straight away, without waiting for the mic to be inside the target.
• Skip for this run: leaves the target unmeasured. A skipped target still offers Capture this target now. The next run offers it again. Skipping the last open target ends the run.

The menu’s last line names the target: Target info: T3, for example, or Listening Position. Where a click reaches the menu, the plot adds Click a target to capture or skip it. The menu isn’t offered while the run is paused.

• Pause (the same button, or A) stops the test signal. Captured targets and skips are kept.
• Resume plays the countdown again and carries on.
• While paused, Finish with N of M ends the run now. Targets you didn’t measure stay open for your next run.

With two or more targets measured, or when your layout has a single target and it is captured, the Measurements Complete window opens (Your system is measured). It shows each speaker’s response: the average across the positions you measured, or the one position.

• Tune & Listen → runs the alignment if your edition includes the Timing tab. If you don’t have a tuning yet, it sets Correction mode to Minimum phase and builds a tuning from the average. Then it turns correction on and takes you to the Tuning tab.
• Close just closes the window.

What it’s doing. At the end of a run AudioMap:

• builds a Listening area average from the targets inside the listening area, plus a Coverage area average from every target if Extend coverage toward the speakers is on. Both are RMS averages with level matching: magnitude only, no phase. See Averaging;
• creates the tuning set from the Listening area average, if every target was measured;
• solves the alignment when the run ends, if your edition includes it.

If any source has an active alignment delay that the setup wizard didn’t just set, AudioMap asks before the run, because the captures would include those delays:

• Disable Alignment for This Capture measures the raw response and restores the delays when the run ends.
• Continue Anyway measures with the delays in place.
• Cancel doesn’t start the run.

On the first run after the setup wizard sets the delays, they are bypassed for the capture without asking.