AudioMap Bridge & AudioMap Control

The AudioMap installer puts these down:

• An audio device called AudioMap Bridge. It’s a two-channel output your Mac can play to. It only appears in your device list while the menu-bar icon or the engine is running, and it leaves the list when both have quit.
• AudioMap Engine. The correction engine: a background process that takes what the Mac plays, applies your correction and sends it to your interface.
• The menu-bar icon and the AudioMap Control window, for turning correction on and off and adjusting it.

To remove them, see How do I remove it? in the FAQ.

Playback through AudioMap Bridge needs Standard, Pro or a trial.

1. In AudioMap, press Launch engine in the footer’s LISTEN row. The engine starts and the AudioMap icon appears in the menu bar. (See Mixer & playback.)
2. Click the menu-bar icon and choose Correction. AudioMap starts the engine if it isn’t running and switches your Mac’s output to the AudioMap Bridge device for you. The first time, macOS asks for microphone access: allow it, or correction is silent.
3. Play something. The status line under Correction shows the speaker and tuning that are playing.

Turning Correction off bypasses the EQ, tilt and target, but your audio still runs through AudioMap. Crossover filters, time alignment, polarity and levels keep playing. To hand the output back to your interface, choose Stop using AudioMap for audio. Quit AudioMap Control in the same menu also puts your previous output back.

Under Settings in that menu are Start correction automatically, which is off until you turn it on, and Launch at login, which is on from the first launch.

If the engine is running with no tuning loaded, the menu shows Set up correction… in place of Correction. It opens AudioMap.

The engine is a separate process from the AudioMap app, and it keeps running while the menu-bar icon is running. Quit the AudioMap app and the AudioMap Control window’s profile reads AudioMap closed — still correcting.

Quit AudioMap Control in the menu-bar menu puts your previous output back. The engine then shuts itself down once nothing is using it.

Your Mac’s volume keys and mute key keep working. They set the level of the AudioMap Bridge device, and the engine applies it after the correction. While your Mac’s output is the AudioMap Bridge device, the engine sets your interface’s own volume to full, and puts it back when that stops.

Choose Open AudioMap Control… from the menu-bar icon. Along the top are the Correction and Speakers views, the Profile menu, one status line and the power button.

The power button turns system-audio correction on and off. While AudioMap is playing through the engine, the Correction button in AudioMap’s footer switches the same correction.

The status line reads, for example:

• Correcting · <profile> (or Correcting when nothing names it)
• Idle — nothing is playing
• Off — your sound is unchanged
• Not running — turn on to start
• Playback needs AudioMap Standard, Pro or a trial. Your sound is unchanged. Your audio passes through uncorrected. The Upgrade… link under it opens the pricing page.
• Microphone access denied — correction is silent. The link under it, Open Privacy & Security → Microphone…, opens that setting.

Profile

While AudioMap is open, the profile follows the project you have open, live (live from AudioMap). To play a saved correction instead, choose Open a saved profile… and pick a correction profile (.amcp) or an AudioMap project (.json). An imported file is a snapshot: it doesn’t change when you edit the project.

The plot shows your correction from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, with chips to show or hide each curve: Measured, Inverted, Tilt, Applied and Corrected, drawn the same way as the chips on AudioMap’s Tuning tab. Input and output meters sit either side of it. If the profile has several sources, a menu picks which one the plot shows.

The controls to the right, top to bottom:

• Wet/Dry: blends from uncorrected to fully corrected. It starts at 100%, and a double-click puts it back there. In Minimum phase, Mixed phase and Linear phase it has no effect, and says so (No effect in Linear phase.).
• Target: As saved plays each speaker’s own target from the file. Linear Tilt, Baxandall Tilt and Harman In-Room replace it. The line underneath tells you which target the file had and whether yours replaces it. A Target or Tilt change here also becomes the open project’s target in AudioMap: the last change wins, whichever app you made it in.
• Tilt (±12 dB) shows with Linear Tilt. Baxandall Tilt shows Bass and Treble instead, and Harman In-Room shows neither. Under As saved, the knobs follow the file’s targets.
• Correction mode. When the engine reports it, the delay the mode adds is shown beside the label.

The note under Correction mode, and each mode’s tooltip in the menu, describes the mode in the window’s own words:

The mode is shared with the AudioMap app: a mode picked in either one is picked in the other. A mode the engine can’t run is greyed out, and its tooltip says why.

When correction is off, the controls are dimmed until you turn it back on.

• Output: the interface that feeds your speakers, with its sample rate. AirPlay outputs are marked higher latency.
• Input: System audio (everything the Mac plays), or an input under Live input (low latency) or Other inputs (standard latency).
• One row per speaker: what it’s fed (Play L, Play R or Play L+R), a level fader, a mute, and the output channel it plays on (the Ch columns).

The view reads Level is your listening balance. Calibration stays in AudioMap. If the profile needs more output channels than the device has, it says how many it needs and how many the device has.

The menu-bar menu names the problem and offers a fix:

• AudioMap Bridge audio device not found: choose Reinstall….
• <your interface> isn’t connected: plug it in, or choose Choose Output….
• Correction stopped: choose Restart.
• Correction is off (your Mac’s sound goes to AudioMap, so nothing plays): choose Turn on Correction, or Use <your speakers> instead.

About AudioMap Control in the same menu lists the state of each part, with a Copy Diagnostics button. Paste that into your message when you contact us.