What is EASE?

Q: Can you give a brief overview of what EASE is and what it can do for me?

A: EASE is an electro-acoustic simulation software program that allows the creation of 3D acoustic room models complete with their associated sound system.

First the geometric data for the room is entered, then data for the acoustic absorption of the materials that are on the walls and other surfaces is added. From this, the room’s reverberation times and other acoustic parameters can be computed, and the model can be used to simulate the effect various modifications to the room will have on the acoustics.

Next, loudspeakers can be added to the model at various locations. Data for the 3D frequency response is provided by loudspeaker manufacturers, and is part of the EASE database. With this data, a complex impulse response can be computed from any loudspeaker or system of loudspeakers to any point in the room. In addition, the response of the system can be computed for a grid of points of interest (for example, audience seating and a stage). It is thus easy to study the uniformity of distribution of sound over the listening area, as well as how much sound returns to the stage. And since the acoustics of the space have been computed, predictions of speech intelligibility can also be mapped.

Finally, it is possible to compute the binaural impulse response for a human listener as a .wav file and convolve it with a .wav file of music or speech. The resulting .wav file can then be played through headphones and used to study or demonstrate the effects of various modifications to the acoustic or electro-acoustic design.

Note: For more details, please take the EASE/EARS Interactive Tour

Licence Stability - Licence Stability regarding OS Upgrade

Q: I have EASE 3.0 and would like to upgrade from Windows 98 to XP. Will I have a license problem or can I just upgrade without any problems?

A: The license control program used with EASE links your license key to your computer and its operating system and any change to either will break the link. Upgrading from Windows 98 to XP will definitely break that link and cause you to loose your license key.

To avoid losing your key, before upgrading either export your license key to a different computer or terminate the license key and send the termination key to ADA (licence@ada-acousticdesign.de). If you use the terminate method,after you have finished the upgrade request a new license key from ADA. Refer to pages 13 to 15 in your EASE 3.0 Users Manual & Tutorial for further details.

We recommend using the terminate method as it seems to be the less prone to errors.

Have you considered upgrading to 4.1? Licensing has been simplified dramatically. In your case, for instance, you would just connect to the internet, upload your license key, upgrade to XP and then download the license key again.

Q: I lost My EASE (EASE JR) 3.0 License Key. What do I do?

A: All license keys are issued by ADA, so you will have to contact them to obtain replacement keys. ADA can't issue you a license key without a Reference Key that identifies your computer to the licensing program. It's not a policy or ownership issue, the software for generating the license keys uses the Reference Key. Please do the following to replace your lost EASE licenses.
Reinstall EASE 3.0 from the CD first. This will generate a new Reference Key for your current configuration. Do not use Add/Remove programs to uninstall first. Let EASE uninstall itself during reinstallation.

1) Insert the EASE 3.0 CD

2) If AutoRun is turned on skip to step 4

3) If the CD does not AutoRun, browse to the CD drive and start Setup.exe

4) Select Program Only install.

5) When prompted, uninstall the previous version of EASE.

6) When prompted, OK to remove all shared components.


EASE will update all of its components and a new reference key will be generated.
Here's how to request replacements for lost licenses.

1) Start EASE on the computer that you would like to add the license(s) to.

2) Select Help and then Register. Click on Yes when asked about open windows.

3) Click on the Order New License button.

4) Fill out the form completely just the way you did when you first registered the software.

5) When the form is completed, the traffic light will turn green, save it as a text file by clicking on the File button.

6) Attach the text file to an e-mail to licence@ada-acousticdesign.de. (Yes, the previous link is spelled correctly.) In the body of the e-mail explain how you lost the licenses and how many you lost.

You will also find in your Windows or Windows NT folder on your hard drive an "EASE30lc.log file. This file should also be attached to your e-mail.

Q: Why do I get the message: "Asymm Speaker model used in Symm Room"? or have a RED light in the speaker's properties?

A: Most likely you are using a loudspeaker that has either Asymmeticral data or an Asymmetrical case. To get around this, you can simply turn off symmetry in your project.

Another solution would be to edit the loudspeaker data to make it symmetrical. This would cause the loudspeaker to become unauthorized.

We recommend turning off symmetry in your project.

Q: Why when I check my Room RT does it show nothing?

A: When the room is considered "open", it cannot have an RT value. You must close the room for Ease to calculate an RT value. Go to Edit>Room Data to uncheck the Room Open option.

Another possibility is that you neglected to choose wall materials for the Faces as you entered them into the project and all the Faces were entered with Absorber as the material. When all the Faces are “absorbers” there are no reflections and no RT times.

Reinstall Room symmetry

Q: After I completed my project on a symmetrical base I had to modify it again. I released the symmetry to allow the new data to be entered. As a result of the calculations I found it necessary to include some more symmetrical walls. So I reinstalled the symmetry. My problem is, all of the faces and other items seem to appear twice. Is this a program bug?

A: It’s not really a bug, but it is the way the program works. If you decide to switch on symmetry again, the program has to make the room symmetrical again. Therefore, the program will automatically create a symmetrical twin for every item in the project. The result is that every item is duplicated.

That is why our recommendation is: Once symmetry is off - leave it off. Because of this, many users will do a “Save As” before turning symmetry off, so they can always go back to the original model if they decide they need to add more items using the symmetrical mode. This is not a bad habit to get into before you make any major changes in an existing model.

Another way to accomplish the same thing is to use the Mirror Insertion feature of EASE. This feature is covered on pages 91 to 94 in the EASE 3.0 Users Manual & Tutorial and on pages 134 to 136 in the EASE 4.0 Tutorial.

Add Speaker models to database

Q: What is the recommended way to add or change a manufacturer's loudspeakers and get them into the database. I have the data files on disk but I am unsure how to load them into the manufacturer's data base without interfering with the existing data?

A: If you don't want to touch existing data, go to the Speaker Base main directory (GlobalSpeakers30) and create a subdirectory like Speakers_New. Copy the new data to this location. To use these loudspeaker models in a project go to Select Speaker Models, browse to the new file you created and then "Add" the loudspeaker Models you want to use. After you have done this,if you hit F2 after having picked a loudspeaker under Edit Project, the list that appears will contain all of the added loudspeaker models.

Printing Images

Q: Printing from Eyes or other modules - won't fit on printed page. When selecting file-print, printed results run-off the page and do not fit.

A: The EASE 4.0 menu item Print under the File pull down menu assumes the ability to print screen size/resolution graphics to a printer that matches these settings. If the default settings do not match these settings, the results may run off the page or seem to be cut-off.

To work around this, select “Send Picture To" from the File pull down menu and either use the ‘Clipboard” to copy it into another graphics application or the "To File" option to save it and reopen it in another graphics application, or use the "Ease Page Designer" for a quick print/preview ability.

Q: How do I add materials to the database?

A: Adding materials to the database is easy:

1) Start EASE and select File > Main Databases > Wall Materials.

2) In the Material Database window, select File > New Wall Material and enter a name when prompted. This is the name you will see in EASE.

3) Click on the Coefficients tab and enter the values you have; typically octave bands from 125-4khZ. Use .99 for values of 1 and up.

4) Select Edit > Interpolate Absorption. In the window that opens, select the bands for which you have not entered data. Click on OK and the intermediate values will be calculated and entered.

5) Select File > Save Wall Material and save it to the data base.


If you have AURA and want to use the Scattering Wizard:

1) Select Edit > Calculate Scattering.

2) Select the type of surface.

3) Enter the dimension required and hit Apply; you'll see the recommended scattering coefficients graphed in the window.

4) Save the material as above.

Note that it's usually best to assign scattering to the surfaces in a model, rather than to the materials, as the scattering is very dependant on application.