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EMX Software Setup Guide


Before you start, make sure you have these equipments ready:




Step One: Install sound card, driver, and test with the speakers


First of all, follow sound card manufacturer instructions to install the sound card and its driver to your PC. To start simple, turn off virtual surround sound and all sound enhancements, e.g. Sound Blaster® SBX®, CMSS, Scout Mode™, concert hall reverb effect etc. You can always turn them back on after finished EMX installation.

Follow these steps to test your sound card and speakers:
  1. Connect your speakers, and position them correctly. You may find speaker positioning guideline on our website. (Video Step 1.1 below)
  2. Open the Windows® Sound Control Panel. (Tips 1), select the “Speaker” device of your 5.1 sound card, and click the “Configure” button to test and to ensure these speakers make clear and loudness balanced sound, loudness balance means you should adjust speaker volumes to make same loudness for all speakers (Tips 2) (Video Step 1.2 below). Click “Next" and finish through the speaker configuration.
  3. Select the same "Speaker" device, click the "Properties" button, select "Advanced" tab, choose a 48000 Hz item, and press "OK" to save the configuration. Click Ok to exit the Sound Control Panel. (Video Step 1.3 below)


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Step Two: Install a virtual cable software


Download a free software Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) Lite from vac.muzychenko.net. Or simply click here to download VAC Lite v4.64, this is the latest version which works well with EMX.

VAC Lite creates two virtual devices, playback device named "Line 1", and recording device also named "Line 1". And this playback device should be set as default Windows® playback device so all PC sound signals will be captured and to be delivered to the "Line 1" recording device for further processing.

Follow these steps to install VAC Lite:
  1. Extract the downloaded zip file, and double click the file setup64.exe to run the installation program.
  2. Open Windows® Sound Control Panel and set "Line 1" as default Windows® playback device. (Tips 1)
  3. Run VAC Control Panel to configure VAC Lite (Tips 2) - check the box "Volume control", and press "Set" to save (Tips 3). By default VAC Lite does not response to keyboard volume control, now the problem is fixed. Exit the VAC Control Panel.

You had just installed Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) Lite, in the next step you will install and configure EMX so it can takes the sound signal from the "Line 1" recording device for further processing.



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Step Three: Install and configure the EMX software


Download EMX and install it.

If you do not have an user account, you should get a free account here.

Follow these steps to configure EMX:
  1. Run the EMX software and make sure you are signed out. (Video Step 3.1 below)
  2. Show the Internal Connections page. (Video Step 3.2 below)
  3. Play some music and configure the EMX software. (Video Step 3.3 below)
  4. To turn-on and test the sound system, adjust volume using the volume control on your sound card (Tips 1), log in to your EMX user account, and you should instantly hear sound come out of all speakers. (Last Video)
At first you may notice Endpoint Mixing® makes different sound at each speaker, and the two front speakers make sharper sound than the two back speakers.



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Conclusions


Congratulations! By going through these 3 simple steps, now you can enjoy great Endpoint Mixing® audio with your PC.

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Advanced Setup - Mix System Sound And Line-In


Please read the EMX Software Setup Guide - Part 2 to activate line-in with the same PC.

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Troubleshooting



There is a bug with the system, simply click here to download and install the file “vc_redist.x64.exe” from Microsoft®. Alternatively, apply the latest update for your Windows® system, or download and install the necessary files from Microsoft®, click here to open the VC Redistributable download page, and choose to download and install the file named “vc_redist.x64.exe” under the heading “Visual Studio 2015, 2017 and 2019”.

First, make sure speakers is working properly, you may isolate the speaker and test with a direct audio input. Next, make sure audio cable used between sound card and speaker is good and finally make sure the correct output port is being used, usually sound card port will be labelled as L/R (or FL/FR) which means stereo left/right (or Front left/right in surround terms) which is what you look for with Endpoint Mixing front speaker, a user manual provided by sound card manufacturer will gives you which label to look for, carefully count the position for the ports you look for. If after all these had done and still no sound, check the volume, you need to make sure volume control on the speaker/amplifier, and soft volume control which includes master WindowsⓇ volume and the Levels tab for the devices you are testing at the WindowsⓇ Sound Control Panel are loud enough. Please make sure you always starts with lowest audible level to avoid high volume suddenly comes out of your sound system.

Use the “Internal Connections” tool of EMX to check each channel pairs. Start with front speakers, next with back speakers, and final subwoofer (if exist). The tool allows you to mute-out channels leaving just the channels in concern. For example, disconnect connections except the two front channels to monitor front speaker sound.

Increase/decrease volume at the front speaker to increase/decrease higher frequency response, increase/decrease volume at the back speaker to increase/decrease lower frequency response. For 3D applications, loudness configuration that leans toward the front enables stronger sense of closer objects and verbal conversations, whereas loudness configuration that leans toward the back enables stronger sense of ambient sound and lower frequency objects.

Ideally you should use same brand and model for front and back speakers, or use 5.1 surround speakers system that has analogy component inputs (i.e. 6 separate analogy audio RCA inputs). Alternatively, try to get these front and back speakers with a similar sound character (i.e. similar delay, precision, warmth, and etc.). Make sure you place your speakers according to the speaker positioning guideline and do not erroneously patches front outputs to back speakers or visa versa. Finally, since input signals are being provided to the subwoofer outputs without modification (doing so let the subwoofer to perform its own low-pass processing), thus do not erroneously patches subwoofer outputs to front or back speakers.

Use physical volume control on top of your sound card, physical volume buttons on your keyboard, or use soft volume controller at the lower right corner of your screen.

First, make sure you set your default playback device to “Line 1” of Virtual Audio Cable. Next, make sure EMX is running and configured properly. Finally, make sure volume control of “Line 1” is set to “On” inside the Virtual Audio Cable Control Panel.

First, lower your application output level, e.g. Spotify® App. Then switch system default playback device to a Stereo device, e.g. the current 5.1 sound card. This will make PC sound output directly to the 5.1 sound card. And as you had already disabled virtual surround sound of the sound card manufacturer (if available), then you should hear stereo sound comes out from the two front speakers only. Once you had finished the stereo sound test, switch system default playback device back to “Line 1” of VAC for listening to EM® sound.

Endpoint MixingⓇ Layer 1 sound technology is a 2.2.1 (or 4.1) sound system, meaning 2 front 2 back and 1 subwoofer channels. There is no centre channel. Centre/SubWoofer (CEN/SubW) ports of a 5.1 / 7.1 sound card is being used as subwoofer left and right output. If your active subwoofer has one input channel, usually a single RCA, then either one of these channels can be used to connect with the subwoofer.

First double check to make sure your Windows ® default playback device is set to VAC “Line 1” playback device. If during EMX sign-in you see an error message, follow the instructions, there are two type of errors, error related to your account and subscription, error related to your PC and speakers. Common problems includes inactive account, when this happens you need to make sure your account is back to active state, you may need to check your PayPal automatic payment too. Another common problem is Sample Rate problem, the EMX software would not work without setting your input and output devices both at 48 KHz. Finally, check your speakers to ensure they are working properly. Make sure you consult WindowsⓇ user manual in particular WindowsⓇ sound system and seek support from your sound card manufacturer if you think there is other hardware/software problem.

If the devices is not found, make sure your sound card and driver are both installed properly, use test interface provided by sound card manufacturer to confirm. If the device is found on the WindowsⓇ Sound Control Panel but not functioning properly please contact MicrosoftⓇ and sound card manufacturer for further assistance.

Check your EMX device settings (Options > Change the audio device settings) and remember the names of your input device and output device. Goes to WindowsⓇ Sound Control Panel (Click the Windows icon on the taskbar type “mmsys.cpl”) look for the sample rate settings under Advanced tabs of the devices you’ve just identified. Make sure they are both working at 48 KHz and the output devices has at least 6 channels.

If the devices is not found, make sure your sound card and driver are both installed properly, use test interface provided by sound card manufacturer to confirm. If the device is found on the WindowsⓇ Sound Control Panel but not functioning properly please contact MicrosoftⓇ and sound card manufacturer for further assistance.

A standard music CD produces 44.1 KHz at 16 bits bit-width for each channel, as it is designed for stereo sound reproduction it means 2 x 44.1 KHz / 16 bits. Endpoint Mixing used its algorithm convert input source to four channels at real-time which means 4 x 48 KHz / 16 bits with 44.1 to 48 resampling. With the help of two layers of speakers (front and back layers) it means it is an order of magnitude increase in sound quality. However, as we are already testing the premium services in our lab, 96 KHz, 192K Hz and 384 KHz increases in sound quality at another levels on scale.

Make sure the operating system is updated to the latest version. For Windows® 10 / 8.1, please update to January 2021 or afterwards. Make sure all configurations set properly according to this installation guide. If problem persist, disable unused playback and recording devices at the Windows® Sound Control Panel. If problem persist, change EMX buffer size the setting is located inside advanced configuration area. If problem persist and in case you are using internal add-on sound card, then there is possible hardware incompatibility issue, change to onboard 5.1 sound card or use an external sound card e.g. Sound Blaster OMNI 5.1 or Logilink or any “EM Ready” sound card as stated in our product page.

EMX should be able to operate non-stop for months, but if you notice EMX is not working, for example the Frequency Response Graph is not moving, then just restart EMX and try again, the problem will be fixed.

Just restart EMX and try again, the problem will be fixed.

No you don’t need it. The only instance is PC suffering critical memory constraints may works better with the full featured version of VAC as it has the higher quality – bit perfect and 1 millisecond – operation mode.

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