Measure & Tune · Open Sound Meter

Measure the room, not the guess.

How to set up Open Sound Meter the right way — mic on the stand, reference looped, levels matched, delay compensated — so the graph tells you what the speakers are actually doing in the room.

Start measuring Cheat sheet →

Phase 01 · The Rig

What you need, and how to wire it

Open Sound Meter (OSM) compares two sounds: the pink noise before it hits the speaker, and the same noise after it comes out — picked up by a mic. That comparison is the measurement. Gear is simple: any audio interface, a measurement mic, and your laptop.

Audio interface — anything works; the video uses a Focusrite Scarlett Measurement microphone — a calibration mic (e.g. Rational Acoustics RTA-420) Pink noise — OSM’s built-in generator

The signal chain

Generator → speaker → mic → interface, with the reference looped back inside OSM before it ever reaches the speaker.

Phase 02 · The Signal

Route OSM so it compares the right things

OSM’s trick: click any module — graph, measurement, or generator — and its settings appear at the bottom of the screen. Nothing is hidden in menus. Get the measurement channel on the mic, the reference on the loop, levels matched, and the delay compensated.

Phase 03 · The Read

What the graphs are telling you

The four ways to look at the same data, and how to make the trace trustworthy before you act on it.

Phase 04 · The Store

Save, label, and keep every measurement

Stored measurements live on the right-hand panel. Name them, color them, and build a history of how the system responds — and how it changes.

    Cheat Sheet

    The moves, at a glance

    The essential Open Sound Meter actions for measurement — the ones you’ll reach for every time you open the software.

    Source

    Watch the full walkthrough

    This guide mirrors Offshore Audio’s excellent quick start. Watch the whole 18-minute video to see every click on screen — especially the delay-compensation moment, which is the one that makes coherence suddenly snap into focus.

    Offshore Audio · Quick Start Guide For Open Sound Meter

    Quick Start Guide For Open Sound Meter →

    YouTube · 18:09 · The full visual walkthrough this page was built from.