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External Control of SoundCheck Seminar

SoundCheck has led the way in production line audio measurement for over 25 years with its sophisticated suite of audio measurement algorithms that offer precise measurement, fast throughput, excellent noise immunity, and world-class reliability. However, many audio manufacturing factories are moving towards large, highly customized, integrated test configurations to evaluate products, not only for audio integrity, but often video, visual and other performance defects. This seminar explains how external control capability brings the advantages of SoundCheck into your automated test environment using any programming language compatible with TCP/IP  including C, C+, Python, LabVIEW and more.

External Control demonstrations include:

  • Enabling TCP-IP in SoundCheck, and an overview of commands
  • Using external control to open up and run a SoundCheck sequence using a python script, and returning data for use in any application
  • Changing test parameters via external control, so that test procedures can be simplified by adapting test conditions on the fly for different products
  • Loading, playing and controlling volume of  a test signal on a DUT  using a custom step in a SoundCheck sequence.
  • Using external control to automatically equalize wave files loaded into SoundCheck via TCP/IP
  • Using MATLAB with SoundCheck

Presenters: Mark Latshaw, Pranav Swaroop
Duration: 30 Mins

More about External Control of SoundCheck

The SoundCheck manual includes a full list of TCP/IP commands for use with SoundCheck, and an explanation of the JSON formatted return.

Learn more about SoundCheck for production test.

Resources for controlling SoundCheck with programs externally

To learn more about the Python programming language used in this seminar, check out the official Python website.

To learn more about MATLAB by MathWorks, check out the official MATLAB website.

External Control of SoundCheck Seminar

Oct 18th 9am & 2pm Eastern time; November 2nd, 10am China time

SoundCheck has led the way in production line audio measurement for over 25 years with its sophisticated suite of audio measurement algorithms that offer precise measurement, fast throughput, excellent noise immunity, and world-class reliability. However, many audio manufacturing factories are moving towards large, highly customized, integrated test configurations to evaluate products, not only for audio integrity, but often video, visual and other performance defects. This seminar explains how to bring the advantages of SoundCheck into your automated test environment using any programming language compatible with TCP/IP  including C, C+, Python, LabVIEW and more.

We will run through several demonstrations of SoundCheck integration including:

  • Enabling TCP-IP in SoundCheck, and an overview of commands
  • Using external control to open up and run a SoundCheck sequence using a python script, and returning data for use in any application 
  • Changing test parameters via external control, so that test procedures can be simplified by adapting test conditions on the fly for different products
  • Loading, playing and controlling volume of  a test signal on a DUT  using a custom step in a SoundCheck sequence. 
  • Using external control to automatically equalize wave files loaded into SoundCheck via TCP/IP 
  • Using MATLAB with SoundCheck.

Presenters: Mark Latshaw, Pranav Swaroop

These events are now over, but you can watch the recording here.

 

 

100 Things #20: Send A Message to Any External Device

Using SoundCheck to communicate with outside hardware and software opens up a world of testing possibilities. The System custom steps allows for SoundCheck sequences to integrate command line actions, communication with devices like smartphones and smart speakers, and configure network connections. Smart device testing can be fully automated using SoundCheck custom steps, eliminating the need for user interaction during testing and avoiding errors in test configuration.

Send A Message to Any External Device

Learn about SoundCheck custom steps and more

Communicating with external devices is just one example of SoundCheck’s power and flexibility. Learn more about all of SoundCheck’s features and functionality here.

Video Script:

SoundCheck’s ‘System’ custom step enables you to interact with external hardware and software applications from within a sequence. This makes it easy to communicate with devices under test, facilitates device actions, and changes audio processing and test parameters using a simple, integrated, cross platform command-line utility. 

Using the ‘System’ custom step, you can launch external applications and pass commands the same way as you would using the Command prompt in Windows or Terminal on your macOS. You can even save a set of command line instructions as a batch script and run this from within SoundCheck, to save time and prevent coding errors. You can also use this step to trigger audio files to play through smart speakers, enable microphones in an array, and trigger additional audio processing outside SoundCheck using utilities such as SoX.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say I need to measure how linearly the sound level of the speaker changes when I press the volume Up and Down buttons on this Android phone. I don’t want to physically press these buttons in the test chamber as it could introduce errors by changing the orientation of the speaker between each test run. Instead, I can operate these buttons remotely from within my SoundCheck sequence. I just need to configure the custom’ System’ step to call the Android Debug Bridge – command line utility provided in Google’s Android SDK that allows control of the device via USB. These levels can then be adjusted automatically without me needing to touch the phone.

SoundCheck’s System custom step is not just powerful enough to be used in a complex automated test sequence, but also versatile enough to handle routine tasks such as opening sequence notes, configuring network connections or simply opening a calculator.

100 Things #11: External Control Using TCP/IP

Factory automation is easy with SoundCheck because it offers full external control via TCP/IP. This means it can communicate with any programming language that can send and receive TCP/IP commands such as Python, C# or LabVIEW. This means that SoundCheck can be opened, run, and even parameters passed into it from an external script. The possibilities for integrating SoundCheck into a large-scale factory test system are endless.

External Control Using TCP/IP

Learn more

The SoundCheck manual includes a full list of TCP/IP commands for use with SoundCheck, and an explanation of the JSON formatted return.

Learn more about SoundCheck for production test.

Video Script:

Did you know that factory automation is easy with soundcheck? It offers full TCP/IP control, this means that soundcheck can communicate with any programming language that can send or receive TCP/IP commands like python c-sharp or LabVIEW.

The program can be running locally or over the network on any operating system. Using these commands, there is no need to even have operators open soundcheck directly on the factory floor. Instead, a script could be written to open soundcheck in the background, run a specific test sequence, then pass the output back to the external program or data management system.

Furthermore, sequence parameters such as limits and stimuli can be stored externally and pulled in via TCP/IP. This means that the same sequence can be used for many different products with minimal operator intervention, reducing the sequence maintenance burden. Audio is often not the only thing being tested on production lines, and TCP/IP control allows powerful SoundCheck sequences to seamlessly integrate into full production test suites.