Need help hooking up your receiver or other devices?

[ArchiMark]

@ddude003

Wow! Brilliant idea to use AI! Thanks for doing this.

If you mean I can use a USB flash drive, yes, I can use one and stick into my receiver and see what happens...

And just to eliminate variable, I picked a new USB C cable at lunch to try with microphone....at least we'll know if that's an issue or not.

And btw, decided to do something weird, and looked at the REW manual regarding setup and levels...

Onward and upward.....

 

[ddude003]

I have found that all of the popular AIs know about REW, Room Correction, Digital Room Correction and can guide one through many setups and trouble shooting... I have even used AIs to comment on REW sweep SPL graphs... Just upload the graph and ask for a diagnosis...

REW Generator will create Sweep Tones with a Timing Reference that will create a .wav file that you can xfer to a USB Flash Drive and plug into your A/V Receive... Play through your kits signal chain... That is how I do it... That means that you only have a single cable between your Mac Laptop and the UMIK-1 Mic... You can literally walk aground the room and sample from anywhere although its best to use a pro level Mic Stand...

wow you are RTFM...

I am now wondering what/how you are going to do Room Correction... Horses for courses...

 

[ArchiMark]

I guess it makes sense that AI would know about REW....while I might have thought about asking AI questions, I probably wouldn't have though about asking it to comment on graphs....great idea!

And certainly like the benefits of using only a mic cable and eliminating need for the RCA cable to receiver, another great idea!

Actually, I quick scan of parts of the manual before, but found UMIK's page on setting up Mac and mic with REW quite helpful overall.

I need to get doing speaker frequency graphs down first before I graduate to Room Correction!



Thanks again for all your helpful support, Really makes a difference when dealing with a new world like this!

 

[ddude003]

Your welcome @ArchiMark... The first 30 days of tipping your toes into REW and Room Correction is like a sip from a fire hydrant... Welcome to the test...

 

[Keith_W]

Unfortunately, don't have another computer to use right now...although I do have Win11 running in a VM on my Mac, don't know if that would make a difference.....

It might. If it works on Win11 and not on your Mac, that will tell you that it's some kind of setting in MacOS that is preventing REW from properly seeing the microphone. I would also try a different USB port, sometimes ports go bad.

When troubleshooting problems, always draw a map of all the possible points of failure and then exclude them one by one. Start at the mic, then the cable, then the port, then some kind of OS setting. If it's not an OS setting, sometimes it's another program requesting exclusive use of the mic and thus making it unavailable to REW. Go through all the free options first before you spend any money (e.g. on a new USB cable or mic!).

I had a maddening issue a few years ago where I would take one measurement and it would look fine, but the next measurement barely registered. I eventually traced the problem down to a faulty XLR cable. I am too cheap to buy an XLR cable of the proper length, so I make up the length by joining multiple XLR cables together. The intermittent nature of the fault meant it was a real oopsy do to diagnose. I tested the cable with a multimeter and it was fine. I bought a new microphone and the problem recurred! So I tested the cable again. I eventually isolated the problem down to a single cable. When I dismantled the connector, I saw that a stray wire was making contact with another terminal, causing a short. It would only happen if the connector was twisted a certain way (which is what might happen if it's a microphone XLR cable!). This was after I made a fool of myself on the RME forum because I suspected the interface was faulty after my initial cable test was fine.

 

[ArchiMark]

@ddude003 You got that right....feel like I went down a deep and wide rabbit hole....hopefully, I'll climb out eventually.....

@Keith_W Excellent points, thanks!

Can relate to the intermittent issue....many years ago, late 60's (dating myself now...) I was in a rock band, got a solid state amplifier that worked great but once in a while, out of the blue, the sound cut out...right in the middle of playing. Tried unsuccessfully, to identify what was causing this but never tracked it down. My father worked for an electronics company and he brought the amp to one of the testing guys...he kept amp for a while but could never trace it. Fortunately, it was a rare occurrence but when it cut out it was very embarrassing....luckily, it would come back on after a short time....

 

[ArchiMark]

UPDATE

Unfortunately, been super busy on work and personal fronts the past 2 weeks. So, didn't get a chance to try another cable and wav file on USB stick until now.

Another cable didn't make a difference.

I was able to get the wav file to play on my Yamaha receiver. That's the good news...

I'm still having issues with REW. Somethings not right with the setup still.

I'm attaching some images so you can see a bit of what's going on.

Would appreciate any guidance on getting REW setup correctly to work with the UMIK-1 mic and REW on my MacBook Pro.

Mark

 

[Keith_W]

I'm sorry, your screen shots are really fuzzy and I can't read anything. Don't Macs have screen capture?

 

[ArchiMark]

OOPS, my bad.....sorry, not thinking clearly, been a bad week.....

Here's a few screenshots, one of Audio MIDI Setup and others of REW.

Thanks!

 

[ddude003]

What version of REW are you using? Are you getting the latest beta release found here?

REW Beta Release Thread 'REW API beta releases'

Jan 3, 2024

This thread is for V5.40 beta releases, which include the REW API. Here are the download links (updated 6th April 2026):

Windows 64-bit
Windows 32-bit
MacOS
Linux AMD 64
Linux no JRE

For other changes in these V5.40 beta builds see What's new in REW V5.40.

The API is REST(ish) with webhooks. Here is the online help. The API documentation is served by swagger-ui and can be accessed by browsing to localhost:4735 after starting the API server, either from the Preferences API tab or by launching REW with the -api argument. The OpenAPI...

• John Mulcahy
• Replies: 1,841
• Forum: Official REW (Room EQ Wizard) Support Forum

• 
• 

 

[JStewart]

It looks like the mic calibration file is also being used as a sound card calibration file. Not sure if that will cause the low input level message but it would certainly cause a measurement to be wrong had there been one.

 

[Keith_W]

Yeah apart from what @JStewart said, I don't see any issue with the way you set up your preferences. At this stage, all I can suggest is that you try another computer (excludes a problem with your hardware and any software conflicts) or try another UMIK-1.

Also make sure that there are no other programs open that have exclusive access to your mic.

Maybe @John Mulcahy has some other ideas?

 

[ArchiMark]

What version of REW are you using? Are you getting the latest beta release found here?

REW Beta Release Thread 'REW API beta releases'

Jan 3, 2024

This thread is for V5.40 beta releases, which include the REW API. Here are the download links (updated 6th April 2026):

Windows 64-bit
Windows 32-bit
MacOS
Linux AMD 64
Linux no JRE

For other changes in these V5.40 beta builds see What's new in REW V5.40.

The API is REST(ish) with webhooks. Here is the online help. The API documentation is served by swagger-ui and can be accessed by browsing to localhost:4735 after starting the API server, either from the Preferences API tab or by launching REW with the -api argument. The OpenAPI...

• John Mulcahy
• Replies: 1,841
• Forum: Official REW (Room EQ Wizard) Support Forum

• 
• 

I'm using the latest beta version, thanks.

 

[ArchiMark]

It looks like the mic calibration file is also being used as a sound card calibration file. Not sure if that will cause the low input level message but it would certainly cause a measurement to be wrong had there been one.

Oops, wasn't thinking clearly, when doing that setup...thanks!

 

[ArchiMark]

Yeah apart from what @JStewart said, I don't see any issue with the way you set up your preferences. At this stage, all I can suggest is that you try another computer (excludes a problem with your hardware and any software conflicts) or try another UMIK-1.

Also make sure that there are no other programs open that have exclusive access to your mic.

Maybe @John Mulcahy has some other ideas?

Unfortunately, don't have another computer now...nor another UMIK....only thing I could try is Win11 but it's in virtual machine on my MacBook Pro....

Can check if other programs have access to the mic, I doubt it though.

 

[ddude003]

Just trying to grasp what you are actually doing here... You have recorded a sweeptone with a timing reference using the REW Generator and saved it to a .wav file... Then moved the .wav file to a jump drive and are playing it from your Yamaha receiver...
You have the UMIK-1 connected to your MacBook via a USB port... You start a REW measurement and play the sweep tone from the Yamaha receiver and you can hear the timing reference tone and then the sweep??? And REW does not recognize the timing reference or??? Maybe you need to turn the volume up at the Yamaha receiver? You will probably want 70db to 75db... Oh and your Mic is in the listening position pointing in what direction? Using the correct calibration file to Mic opeintation?

Lets test that the UMIK-1 is working by running the RTA function of REW... Just plug the UMIK-1 into the USB port and run the RTA and talk, yell, whistle close to the Mic and see if you get a signal...

 

[ArchiMark]

Just trying to grasp what you are actually doing here... You have recorded a sweeptone with a timing reference using the REW Generator and saved it to a .wav file... Then moved the .wav file to a jump drive and are playing it from your Yamaha receiver...

Yes, I recorded a sweeptone and timing reference and saved as a .wav file and copied to my jump drive and inserted it into USB slot on Yamaha receiver. I have been able to play the sweep through my speakers and hear it.

You have the UMIK-1 connected to your MacBook via a USB port... You start a REW measurement and play the sweep tone from the Yamaha receiver and you can hear the timing reference tone and then the sweep???

Yes, UMIK-1 is connected to MacBook via USB port. Yes, I can play tone with timing reference on Yamaha and hear through my little JBL speakers.

And REW does not recognize the timing reference or???

It seems to recognize it but it is very faint and get the error message about low signal.

Maybe you need to turn the volume up at the Yamaha receiver? You will probably want 70db to 75db...

I tried that....even much higher volume but made no difference.

Oh and your Mic is in the listening position pointing in what direction? Using the correct calibration file to Mic opeintation?

I have the Mic pointing straight at the speaker about 8" away. I'm using the calibration file for Mic being pointed straight onto the sound source.

Lets test that the UMIK-1 is working by running the RTA function of REW... Just plug the UMIK-1 into the USB port and run the RTA and talk, yell, whistle close to the Mic and see if you get a signal...

EDIT / UPDATE

I tried connecting UMIK-1 again and checking settings and adjusted volume again. Then tried speaking into Mic and checking response in REW in Levels and RTA.

Got response!

Please see attached screenshot.