Waves CLA Nx User manual

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CLA Nx / User Guide
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CLA Nx User Guide
Product Overview ....................................................................................................................................3
Quick Start................................................................................................................................................4
CLA Nx Controls .......................................................................................................................................5
Studio Monitors ..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Meters.................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Rotate Studio ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Head Tracking......................................................................................................................................................... 8
Head Tracking Controls ............................................................................................................................................8
Head Modeling .......................................................................................................................................................10
Head Measurements Presets.................................................................................................................................12
Tips for Better Camera Tracking ............................................................................................................................12
Selecting a Headphone EQ Curve......................................................................................................................... 13
The Waves Nx HeadTracking Application .............................................................................................14
Camera Tracker Tab ...............................................................................................................................................14
Disable Auto-Launch ..............................................................................................................................................15
Bluetooth Tracker Tab............................................................................................................................................16
Setting Up the Nx Head Tracker.............................................................................................................................18
Troubleshooting Guide..........................................................................................................................19

CLA Nx / User Guide
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Product Overview
CLA Nx is a tool that lets you mix on headphones while monitoring in the exact space of Chris Lord-Alge’s legendary Mix
LA studio. Using Waves Nx technology, CLA Nx actually puts you in the Mix LA control room, so you can trust what you
hear and mix with confidence.
Chris Lord-Alge is a powerhouse in music mixing. He’s mixed thousands of songs and garnered five Grammy® Awards.
He has a sought-after signature sound and a finely honed workflow. Part of Chris’s consistent success stems from his
custom-designed control room, which provides him a reliable, clear monitor sound. The room, designed by legendary
acoustician/designer Vincent Van Hoff, is famous for its transparency and depth. Chris attributes this precise, honest
sound to a combination of custom monitor loudspeakers and a unique space with innovative geometry, intelligent
treatment, and a very high ceiling.
The Mix LA control room has given birth to many modern classics by Green Day, Bruce Springsteen, Muse, Avenged
Sevenfold, Keith Urban, My Chemical Romance, and countless more. Now you too can monitor your mix in this room.
CLA Nx uses state-of-the-art psychoacoustic modeling to achieve a natural, immersive, and transparent three-
dimensional sound field for stereo mixes monitored on headphones. Mix as though you were sitting in Chris’s chair and
reliably judge depth, panning, stereo image, balance, and reverb. When you hear the mix played back in a speaker
environment, you won’t be surprised.
To provide greater immersion when mixing on headphones, CLA Nx links to the optional Nx HeadTracker, which
changes your stereo headphones into a real-world acoustic space. It recreates a room in your headphones that behaves
just like the Mix LA control room. CLA Nx does not change the processing of the mix itself, but rather the environment in
which you monitor it.

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CLA Nx / User Guide
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Meters
INPUT METERS
The stereo input signal has a full-scale meter with an infinite-hold clip indicator. Click on the clip indicator to reset it.
Each channel has mute and solo buttons at the bottom of the input meter.
Range: -infinity to 0 dBFS
MONITOR LEVEL AND METERS
The binaural stereo headphone output is represented by a full-scale stereo meter with infinite-
hold clip indicators. Use the knob below the meter to control the headphone monitor level.
Range: -infinity to 0 dBFS
Output volume control: -24 dBFS to +6 dBFS; Default: 0 dBFS
Please note: Nx can introduce clipping at the output, especially when fed with a signal
whose levels are controlled by a limiter. In such cases, use the output gain fader to
reduce the output.

CLA Nx / User Guide
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Rotate Studio The Rotate Studio wheel rotates the studio around your position at the mixing desk. What you
see and what you hear are defined by your orientation. This is what you experience when using
Head Tracking, except that Rotate Studio is controlled manually.
Click the 0º button or Alt+Click on the Rotate Studio wheel to reset rotation to its default
position.
Ambience increases or decreases the amount of ambiance in the room compared with the model.
The specific and accurate sound signature of the Mix LA control room is modeled with impulse
responses (IR). When you select a studio monitor type, the associated IR loads. This IR describes
everything about the room: the speakers and how they interact with the space, the reflections, and the
ambience of the space itself.
The Ambiance control lets you adjust room ambience to taste. The default Ambience setting of 100% presents the
modeled room ambience exactly as captured by the IR. By increasing or decreasing the Ambience setting, you can
subjectively alter the amount of room ambience. Your monitoring reference will no longer precisely match the Mix LA
control room, but it will provide a personalized mixing environment.
Range: -60% to 160%
Save and load presets, compare settings, and undo/redo adjustments using the WaveSystem
toolbar, which is located above the plugin. Refer to the WaveSystem User Guide to learn more.

CLA Nx / User Guide
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Head Tracking
When Head Tracking is on, the virtual room does not move. Instead, it’s you—your headphones—that changes the
orientation. This is how you experience a sound in the real three-dimensional world. This interaction with the studio
space is vital in making critical imaging decisions. The wireframe head indicates the orientation of the engineer’s
head with respect to the studio. The head is grayed out when the user’s head is outside the tracking range, when
there is insufficient ambient light for camera tracking, or when Head Tracking is turned off.
When Head Tracking is off, the soundscape moves with you as you turn your head. This is normal stereo
headphone behavior.
Head Tracking Controls
HEAD TRACKING ON/OFF
Toggles Head Tracking on or off. This does not affect Nx sound processing,
which is always active.

CLA Nx / User Guide
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TRACKING DEVICE MENU
Use this drop-down menu to select the device used for head tracking. CLA Nx can track head movement from two
sources: Camera and Nx Head Tracker. CAMERA activates the computer’s camera for head tracking. If more
than one camera is available, choose from the list.
NX HEAD TRACKER selects the Nx Head Tracker that will be used
by CLA Nx. Choose one Head Tracker from the list.
The SENSOR FUSION mode uses the selected camera and one of
the available Nx Head Trackers together. Using these two kinds of
sensors simultaneously yields a tracking rate of up to 80 fps.
The SETTINGS button takes you to the HeadTracker application’s control
panel. Use it to reopen the application if it has been closed or if you want
to tweak certain Head Tracker controls.
CALIBRATE defines your head position as the center position. Hold your head centered, look straight forward, and
click the button to let the system know where your center listening position is. Each time you start the system or
change either your position or the camera’s placement, you can recalibrate.
RATE indicates the rate of head tracking in frames per second (fps). The optimal rates are:
Camera: 25 fps to 30 fps
Nx Head Tracker: 35 fps to 50 fps
Sensor Fusion: 45 fps to 80 fps
Please note: The Sensor Fusion mode can be used by only one person at a time. That is, the camera must be
aimed at the person who is wearing the Nx Head Tracker.

CLA Nx / User Guide
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Head Modeling
You can significantly improve the accuracy of the Nx
psychoacoustic effect by providing your head measurements:
circumference around your head (over the ears) and a half circle
from ear to ear, over the back of your head.
Nx is a binaural effect, so it incorporates these measurements to calculate the inter-aural delays, filters, and gains
for each ear. If you do not provide these measurements, the default settings will be used.
When you are not using the Sensor Fusion mode, you can have several instances of the Nx Virtual Mix Room plugin
with a different tracking device for each instance. This will enable you to have more than one Nx listeners with
individual head tracking for each in the same session. Note that each Nx Virtual Mix Room plugin needs to be routed
to a separate headphone output per listener; a simple headphone split will not work for this use case.
Please note:
Entering values completely unrelated to your personal head measurements will compromise the
effect. If you do not enter your individual measurements, it is advised that you use the default values.