Clearroom 1.0 · macOS

The reference.

Everything the app asks of you, in the order it asks. Words in a box are quoted exactly as they appear on screen. New here? Start with the manual — the screen first, then the things you’ll actually do.

1 · Before you start

For a room you need an audio interface (USB — not the Mac's built-in audio, AirPods or anything Bluetooth), a measurement mic with its calibration file, a mic stand, and about fifteen quiet minutes. The guide covers the common mics and where their files come from.

For headphones you need none of that. The correction comes from the catalogue.

Runs on

macOS 12.3 or later on Apple Silicon · macOS 10.15 or later on Intel · native on both

Plugin

AU / VST3 today · AAX (Pro Tools) coming

Licence

One licence activates on two Macs. A trial is one Mac.

Sample rate

Profiles are made at 48 kHz and work in any session rate.

2 · Install

1. 1
   Quit your DAW. The plugin is replaced while it is closed, and an earlier beta plugin is removed.
2. 2
   Open the DMG and run the installer inside. It asks for your administrator password and installs four things, with no choices to make: the Clearroom app, the Clearroom Audio device, and the Clearroom AU and VST3 plugins.
3. 3
   If Clearroom is running it closes during the install and reopens at the end. Your audio pauses briefly while the system audio engine restarts.
4. 4
   The plugin appears in your DAW's AU / VST3 lists after its next rescan.

Updating

Download the newer DMG and run its installer over the top. Running the same build again does nothing — the installer checks the version first and leaves everything as it is.

Where things live

The app

/Applications/Clearroom.app

Your profiles

~/Library/Application Support/Clearroom/profiles/

Custom targets

~/Library/Application Support/Clearroom/custom_targets/

Plugins

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Clearroom.component · /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Clearroom.vst3

The profiles folder is the folder the plugin scans. Leave profile files where the app puts them.

3 · First launch

The first screen is Activate Clearroom. Three ways through it:

1. 1
   You bought a licence. Enter the key from your purchase email — it looks like CLRM-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX — and press Activate. Case and hyphens do not matter.
2. 2
   You want to try it. Press Start 14-day free trial and enter your email address. That needs an internet connection and nothing else — no card. The trial is the full app, on this one Mac, for fourteen days. Your trial key arrives by email; keep that mail.
3. 3
   This Mac is offline. Press Activate offline — see Licence and account.

Not now — I'm just looking → lets you explore the app unlicensed; correction itself stays off until the Mac is licensed.

Every launch begins with Starting the audio engine… for a moment. If it ends in The audio engine didn't start, quit Clearroom and open it again — that usually fixes it.

Then Welcome to Clearroom → + Create Your First Profile → Room or Headphones. On your first room measurement macOS asks to use the microphone — allow it, or no measurement can run. Denied it once? System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Clearroom.

4 · Measure your room

Eight setup steps, three measurement positions, one quality screen. The app checks the interface, the mic signal, the wiring, the levels and the mic's position as you go. The two things it cannot check are the mic's height and which way it points — those are yours.

Setup — the eight steps

1. 1
   Place your mic — ear height, pointing up, on a stand.
2. 2
   Pick your interface — Output (to speakers) and Input (mic), the same interface for both, then the channel routing. L and R must use different output channels. Built-in audio, AirPods and Bluetooth are listed under Not recommended for a reason.
3. 3
   Mic + calibration — pick your mic. Get my file → opens the guide for it; Import file… takes a .txt or .cal — plain text, one frequency and one dB value per line. When the vendor offers angles, use the 90° file. I don't have a calibration file continues with less accurate highs and a lower confidence score.
4. 4
   Mic check — tap the mic; the meter should jump. ✓ Mic heard unlocks the next step.
5. 5
   Channel test — ▶ Play Left, ▶ Play Right, and answer Yes to both. If left plays on the right, swap the cables at the speakers — there is no software flip.
6. 6
   Monitor volume — pink noise, a bit louder than conversation. No meter needed. Leave it there until the measurement is done.
7. 7
   Mic input gain — set the preamp so the bar holds in the green, −24 to −18 dBFS, for three seconds. Too hot — lower your preamp. means peaks passed −3 dBFS. Leave this alone too.
8. 8
   Centre your mic — slide the stand until the dot holds in the centre for three pings. That puts the mic within 2 cm of the true centre between the speakers.

The three positions

P1 is the centre. P2 is 10 cm to the left of centre, P3 10 cm to the right — always measured from the centre, never chained from the last point. Three spots around where your head sits, so the fix holds across your chair.

Press ▶ Start (P1). Each position takes about a minute: Listening for room noise…, a ten-second count-in under a large Do not move, then a short tone and the left and right sweeps. Stay quiet and still, and do not touch the stand. P2 and P3 start on their own once the mic is in place.

Retake and Stop cut the tone at once. Every Retake — during a sweep, after a take, after a failure — goes back through the position's centring; once the mic is on its spot and steady the capture starts again. A stopped position is simply not captured yet; run it again before the quality screen. × Cancel asks first, then discards every position captured so far — there is no partial save.

What the app may say

Noise floor is only N dB under the test signal (15 or more is ideal). Just a line — the capture goes ahead, and the noise score will show it.

Background noise is within N dB of the test signal. In a quiet room that is the mic's own hiss: a little more monitor volume and a redo of the mic-gain step lifts it. In a loud room, wait for quiet. Do not raise the mic gain to fight it — the reading is a ratio, and gain raises the noise with the signal.

Capture failed. names the reason: input clipped — lower the interface input gain and retake; transient during sweep — a clap, a door, a footstep — retake; no timing reference found — no signal reached the mic on the chosen channel.

Measurement quality

Seven bars — completeness, mic calibration, repeatability, timing, signal quality, L/R consistency, capture noise — and one verdict: Full, Tone, Limited or Redo needed. Anything but Redo needed makes a correction — Limited gets a gentler one. Redo needed cannot: press ↻ Retake any position; the other positions are kept, and a retake always re-centres the mic first. Then Continue → to Generate.

5 · Targets

A target is the curve the correction aims at. On the Generate screen a room offers Flat, Gentle Tilt, Harman (★ Recommended) and Custom. Headphones offer Studio (recommended), Flat and Custom — on headphones, Flat removes even the lift your ear adds naturally, and sounds thin on purpose.

The Target Editor

Click Custom. A custom target is a base curve plus up to eight moves, one per zone:

Double-click the canvas to add a band in that zone — one band per zone, so a double-click in a zone that has one selects it instead, and with all eight placed the canvas says All 8 bands used — delete one to add another. Drag a band up or down for gain, left or right for centre frequency; scroll on it for Q (0.5 – 1.0); right-click to remove it. Gain runs ±6 dB — the graph shows ±8, so a band stops short of the drawn edge. Cmd-Z undoes. The Sub and Sheen bands are shelves hinged at the zone edge — dragging them sideways changes nothing.

Reference shows a built-in curve dotted behind yours; Compare shows one of your own dashed. The Headroom line at the bottom is the negative of your biggest boost — at −12 dB or better it reads ✓ within safe range.

Save before you use it: Use ▶ on an unsaved target opens the name dialog (up to 42 characters), and Export needs a saved target too. Import takes a .clearroom-target (or plain .json) file; Export writes one. A target belongs to one flow — a room target cannot drive a headphone correction, or the other way round — and Flat and Harman are different curves in the two editors, because headphone curves carry the ear's own gain. Saving under a name the other flow already uses and choosing Replace deletes that flow's target; the dialog says so — read it.

Signature Profiles

Curves cut with engineers and signed. Browse Signature ↗ in the editor's header opens clearroom.studio/targets; download one, then Import it in the Target Editor. The ★ and the artist's name stay attached. A signed target can be edited but never saved over — Save As keeps your version as “name (my edit)” and leaves the original untouched.

6 · Generate and intensity

Configure Correction asks for three things. Target Curve — above. Top-End Character — 40% by default: it keeps some of the treble character your room already has, above about 4 kHz, within ±2 dB. Speaker Alignment — Flip R polarity and Align timing come ticked when the measurement calls for them, and you can untick either; ✓ Speakers are correctly aligned means neither is needed.

Press ▶ Create Correction and name the profile (up to 42 characters). The name is what you will see in the plugin and it must be unique — Replace on a taken name deletes the profile that owns it. Then Create Correction in the dialog starts the run: Generating 10 intensity levels…, a few minutes for a room, seconds for headphones. Stay on the screen. If systemwide correction is on, sound is off here by design and returns on the next screen.

The ten levels

One run makes ten complete filters, not one filter at ten strengths. Each level is optimised on its own; the only thing that changes between them is how far the correction may cut and boost:

Every level — and bypass — is matched to the same loudness, so switching changes the tone and never the volume. Bass boost is held to 4.5 dB below 200 Hz at every level, the correction fades out above 16 kHz, and the graph's target line stops at 10 kHz on purpose. The filter adds no latency, whatever its length. The one sentence of guidance: Subtle keeps your room; Full locks onto the target. Start at 5, Balanced, and listen.

Audition

Before, Corrected and Target on one graph, a plain summary — Tamed peaks up to N dB · Filled dips up to N dB — and the ten intensity pills. With systemwide correction on, each pill changes what you are hearing, live. Activate Profile → keeps whichever level you left on.

The profile is saved as a .clearroom file in your profiles folder — the plugin finds it there by itself. Re-targeting the same measurement makes a sibling profile; if one with the same target already exists you are asked Keep both or Replace — nothing is overwritten without that answer.

What 1.0 corrects

Version 1.0 corrects magnitude: how loud each frequency is, for each speaker as measured in your room, and for your headphones from their profile. Its filters are minimum-phase, which is why the plugin adds no latency at 48 kHz. Speaker Alignment above is the one time-domain adjustment: a polarity flip and a delay between the two speakers, offered when the measurement calls for it. There is no phase correction, no bass management and no multi-subwoofer integration in 1.0, and it is stereo only.

7 · The plugin

Insert Clearroom (AU or VST3) last on your monitor path. The profile menu lists MY ROOMS and MY HEADPHONES; it rescans the folder every time it opens, so a profile made while the DAW is running is there the next time you look — or press Refresh.

Correction

ON / OFF. Off is loudness-matched, so an A/B is a fair comparison, not a volume jump.

Intensity

1 – 10, SUBTLE · BALANCED · FULL. Switching is seamless.

OUTPUT

Down only — 0 dB is unity. The chain is already level-matched, so there is nothing to add.

Mono

Folds the mix to one channel before correction; each speaker still gets its own filter.

Dim

Drops your level by a set amount (−20 dB by default). Right-click the pill to change it. Never survives a session reload.

Bypass Trim

If OFF still feels louder or quieter than ON in your room, nudge this — never OUTPUT. It stays put while you are on a profile and comes back with a saved session; switch profiles and back, and it re-reads the app's setting for that profile.

The header chip says App when the Clearroom app is running on the same profile, App · mismatch when it is on another one, and App off when the app is not running. IN and OUT meters are real. The plugin only plays profiles — making, editing and deleting them happens in the app.

Latency is zero at 48 kHz. In a 44.1, 96 or 192 kHz session the plugin reports 32, 64 or 128 samples so the host can compensate — keep plugin delay compensation on. Keep profile files where the app put them: a saved session points at the file by path, and a renamed profile reads as a missing one. Sessions saved with the beta plugin (Clearroom Beta) need Clearroom inserted again.

When this Mac is not licensed the plugin outputs silence, and its footer says why, ending Open the Clearroom app. Activating in the app brings it back within a second.

8 · Systemwide listening

Everything the Mac plays — Spotify, references, a bounce in the Finder — through your profile, with no DAW open. Click the pill in the app's top bar (Off → Live), or Turn Correction On in the menu bar. Clearroom points the Mac's output at Clearroom Audio, remembers your real output, and routes through it. Stopping hands the audio back.

The menu bar shows what is running — Correction on with the profile, the output and the intensity, or Correction off with You're hearing your raw room — and offers PROFILE, OUTPUT, a Dim row that names its amount (Dim −20 dB), Mono, Open Clearroom… and Quit Clearroom. A headphone output gets a headphone profile by default and speakers a room profile; a pro interface the app cannot name gets no guess. When you pick from the PROFILE list yourself nothing stops a room profile on headphones — match the kind to the output.

The icon's colour is the state: green — correction on · amber — off, or on but bypassed (your raw room) · grey — engaging or reverting · red — attention: the output it was on has gone, the driver isn't answering, or the licence needs you; open Clearroom. An intensity list (1–10) is in the menu too, live while correction is on; the profile remembers the level.

Settings → Clearroom Audio Driver: Auto-activate on launch and Auto-revert on close are on by default. With auto-revert off, quitting Clearroom leaves the Mac on Clearroom Audio — silent — until Clearroom runs again. Start Clearroom at login keeps your room corrected after a restart.

While the Generate screen or the Target Editor is open with correction engaged, sound is muted and the menu bar says Muted while re-targeting — finish or cancel in Clearroom. Do that, and it returns.

9 · Headphones

No measurement. Search by brand or model and press Select; a family row asks Which one do you have? — the version is usually printed on the earcup or the box — with Not sure — use the standard as the way out. Then choose a target and generate, as for a room; it takes seconds.

A ★ row is oratory1990's EQ preset (shared under CC BY-SA 4.0), from which Clearroom derives the headphone's response and computes its own correction. It describes that model in that condition — pads, settings — not your particular pair. If your headphones are not listed, Import your own measurement takes a two-column CSV (frequency, level), or Request a headphone writes to support.

Headphone Character (20% by default) keeps some of the headphone's own bass and treble. Settings → Update headphone database fetches models added since your build — it is a button, never automatic.

10 · Licence and account

One licence activates on two Macs at once. Perpetual is one payment. Rent to own is six monthly payments, after which the same licence is yours outright — no early buy-out; cancelling stops future payments, keeps what you have paid, and correction runs to the end of the period already paid for; buying again with the same email continues the same plan rather than starting a second licence. Prices are on the buy page. The refund policy is the trial: fourteen days, the full app, then purchases are final (your statutory rights sit on top).

Your key

It arrives in the mail Your Clearroom licence key (or Your Clearroom trial has started). The app keeps only a masked copy, so keep that mail. Lost it? Sign in at clearroom.studio/account with the purchase address — a link, good for fifteen minutes — and press Email me the key. When writing to support, quote the last four characters only.

Your two Macs

Settings → License has a Machines row reading N of 2 Macs. To move a seat, press Deactivate this Mac on the Mac you are leaving — the seat frees instantly. It needs a connection, so do it before a Mac is sold or wiped. For a Mac you can no longer reach, open your account and press Report this Mac lost: the seat frees thirty days later, the report cancels itself if that Mac signs in online first (a Mac that only ever activates offline cannot cancel its own report — that needs support), and a licence has two such reports a year. A seat that has not been heard from for thirty days can also be taken by a new activation — except an offline-only seat, which silence never takes. A third Mac sees This key is already active on 2 Macs. with the list.

Offline Macs

Activate offline shows a code beginning CRMC. Copy it, and on any online device open clearroom.studio/activate, enter the key and the code, and bring the licence file back — paste it, or choose the downloaded file. A licence file lasts thirty days; come back for a fresh one when it is due.

Online Macs check in on their own about once a day. A perpetual licence keeps correcting for sixty days without any contact; a rent-to-own licence for about thirty-seven while payments are still due, sixty once it is paid off. On the last day the app asks: Licence check needed today → Check now. A licence file the app cannot read never stops correction — it keeps playing and asks for your key again.

The trial

Fourteen days, one Mac, the full app. It ends exactly on day fourteen: correction pauses and nothing you made is deleted. Enter a bought key under Settings → License → Enter a licence key and carry on where you were. A Mac gets one trial, and it needs the Mac's date and time to be right — a trial on a wrong clock does not correct until the clock is fixed.

Whatever the reason a licence lapses, only correction is withheld — measuring, profiles and files keep working. Buyers in rupees find their GST invoice on the account page; buyers in dollars have Polar's receipt.

11 · If something's wrong

The installer stops with Apple's generic "installation failed".

Your Mac's output is still routed through Clearroom Audio from a crash. Open Clearroom (it hands the audio back), or pick your real output in System Settings → Sound, then run the installer again.

"Clearroom Audio" is missing from System Settings → Sound → Output.

Restart the Mac once. The installer waited 30 seconds for the device and it did not appear in time.

The calibration file won't load.

It is probably not a calibration file — a PDF certificate, a spreadsheet or a screenshot. The app wants plain text, one frequency and one dB value per line. What one looks like.

"I don't hear your mic."

Cable in a mic input (not line)? Phantom power on? The right input channel picked? Gain up? And macOS: System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone → Clearroom allowed.

"The audio engine didn't start"

Quit Clearroom and open it again. That is what the screen says too, and it usually fixes it.

A position fails with "input clipped".

Lower the interface's input gain and retake that position. Keep peaks under −3 dBFS.

"Background noise is within N dB of the test signal."

In a quiet room that is the mic's own hiss: turn the monitors up a little and redo the mic-gain step. In a loud room, wait for quiet. Raising the mic gain does not help — the reading is a ratio.

The plugin says "No profiles".

Create a profile in the Clearroom app, then open the plugin's profile menu (it rescans each time it opens) or press Refresh.

"Last profile … is no longer available — loaded …"

The profile the session pointed at was renamed, moved or deleted. Pick it again from the menu; keep profile files where the app put them.

My bounce has no correction in it.

By design. During any render, bounce or freeze the plugin passes audio through dry. It is a monitoring correction, not a mix effect.

The plugin is silent and the footer says "Open the Clearroom app."

This Mac is not licensed right now — trial ended, a payment stopped, or the seat was freed. Only correction is withheld; measuring, profiles and files still work. Sort it out in the app under Settings → License; the plugin comes back within a second.

My Mac went silent after I quit Clearroom.

Auto-revert on close is off, so the output stayed on Clearroom Audio. Open Clearroom again, or pick your real output in System Settings → Sound.

No sound on the Generate screen.

Also by design when systemwide correction is on: monitoring is muted while you choose a target. It returns on the Audition screen.

The trial button says this Mac already used its trial.

One trial per Mac. If you started it, your key is in the trial email, or get it from your account.

12 · Uninstall

In Terminal:

sudo "/Library/Application Support/Clearroom/uninstall.sh"

That removes the app, the device, both plugins and the login item, and keeps your profiles and custom targets. Add --purge to remove those too. Dragging the app to the Trash leaves the device and the plugins behind. If your output is still on Clearroom Audio the uninstaller waits and says so — pick your real output, and it continues.

Not covered here? support@clearroom.studio. Write from the address you bought with.