# Bug with SPL meter in REW?



## lovingdvd (Jan 23, 2007)

Using 5.11 on Windows 7 x64.

- Start REW. It automatically loads with last saved preferences, including Soundcard Output and Input sections, as expected.

- Open SPL tool/meter

- Red button is grayed out. Mousing over top section of meter says "This SPL reading is not valid unitl it is calibrated against an external SPL meter reading". Even though it was loaded at startup with a UMIK-1 calibration file that has SENS data. Seems something is not right here.

- Click on Calibrate on SPL meter and says "Please select the audio input for the SPL meter" - even though its already selected (because that's how preferences were left after last running REW). Seems something is not right here.

- Go to Preferences->Soundcard. Everything looks as expected. Mic/meter tab shows proper calibration file.

- Change Input from "UMIK-1 Gain 18 dB 1" to "UMIK-1 Gain 18 dB 2" (second choice in dropdown). This then "wakes up" the SPL meter and the red button becomes red instead of gray.

- Just as a santity check, click Calibrate on SPL meter. This time says its not required because sensitity data is in calibration file (as expected).

- Switch back to "UMIK-1 Gain 18 dB 1" option on input.

- Everything fine after that.

Is this a bug? I'm using HDMI with ASIO4ALL v2 with UMIK-1 mic.

Thank you.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

FWIW, I'd say it's a bug.

5.11 is hardly usable in my situation ( on a borrowed XP SP3 machine ) .

JAVA drops the internal audio streams after mere seconds of usage ( & I'm quite adept at re-establishing these flakey handshakes ) .

The use of a local ( rather than global ) JAVA approach seems to be the culprit .

All other versions of REW have been removed ( including Java 6 & 7 ) .

I'll be trashing this local JAVA 8 ( & reinstalling older, global JAVA ) to see if I can get back to where I was ( stable usage ) with this release ( before giving up & rolling back to an older, more stable version of REW ) .

BTW, JAVA 8 is not recommended for XP machimes ( so I don't understand it's inclusion as a "one size fits all", windows install ) .


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Try 5.12.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

JohnM said:


> Try 5.12.


5:12 is not a fix to these type of problems ( but thanks for trying ) .

Java is having an impossible time maintaining the digital streams ( I average about 10 seconds before this flash screen shows up indicating that JAVA has dropped the lines ). 










I can ( of course ) "temporarily reconnect" by forcing the lines open ( by say, switching sample rates back & forth ) . ASIO connections are particularly fragile & drop faster than JAVA connections . The most stable ( & usable ) are with the onboard soundcard . I've tried some older ASIO versions of my usb soundcard ( Focusrite 2i2 ) but they are not any more stable .

Sadly, my own experience is that once 5:11 ( or 5:12 ) has been loaded into a Windows computer it corrupts/conflicts with some older resident Windows Registry file ( & then there's no recovering or rolling back to an older version to restore stability ) .

( Due to that ), I have to recommend against even trying out these last two versions .


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## lovingdvd (Jan 23, 2007)

Earl I believe he's referring to the bug this tread is about. 

John - thanks I'll test tonight and let you know if it's fixed.


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Hi Earl,

If the offline installer has been used it provides a local JRE. Nothing is changed in the registry, the JRE is only used for REW and doesn't affect anything else. To remove it and revert to whatever Java version is installed look for C:\Program Files\Common Files\i4j_jres, you can remove that directory to remove the jre, and check in C:\Program Files\REW for a jre directory, you can also remove that if it is present. I'll add a note on the web page that the offline installer is not recommended for XP.


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## EarlK (Jan 1, 2010)

Hi John,

Thanks ( for all that ) ! 

Late yesterday,I discovered that Java8 can be disabled ( within the 5.12 ) folder by simply relabeling it to "jre8" .

REW won't recognize the relabeled folder as useful , complains with a flash-screen & asks for JAVA to be installed .

That experience allowed me to postulate that I ( or anyone ) can drop their own jre folder ( into the master 5.12 folder ) for use by 5.12 REW . I simply "copied" a working ( blessed ) install of Java7_u79 from the windows Program Files .

I've deleted the original JAVA7 ( from referenced Program Files & rebooted a couple of times ) & ascertained that 5.12 will run with a local version of JAVA7 .

That's were I'm currently at, in my experimenting .

cheers <> Earl


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## lovingdvd (Jan 23, 2007)

JohnM said:


> Try 5.12.


Thanks John. I'm happy to report that the issue I reported to open this thread (SPL meter issue) is fully resolved with 5.12. This could be the fastest fix in software history.  Thanks again.


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