This is the shortest path to corrected sound, whether you own Tantrum hardware or not. Each step points to a fuller chapter if you want detail. Set aside about 15 minutes for the room correction part, and have your measurement microphone ready.
The whole flow at a glance
- 1Set up playback (device or loopback).
- 2Set your input (mic) and output (speaker) devices.
- 3Measure the room with Quick Measurement.
- 4Review the results.
- 5Apply the correction.
The measuring, reviewing and applying are identical either way. Only the first step differs, and the next section explains which version of it you need.
Where the correction ends up: your device, or loopback
Omnissiah measures your room the same way whichever speakers you own. The only real choice is where the finished correction gets applied.
On your Tantrum device
If you have a Really Mean Sub (or another Tantrum DSP product), the correction is written into the device itself. Its own DSP chip does the work from then on. That's Path A in step 1 below.
Through loopback
If your speakers aren't Tantrum ones, Omnissiah can correct your computer's audio on its way out instead. You send your Mac's sound into Omnissiah through a virtual audio device (a small free utility such as BlackHole 2ch that acts like a cable between apps), and Omnissiah applies the correction live before passing the audio on to your speakers. That's Path B in step 1 below.
What “loopback” means
Your computer plays audio into a virtual device, Omnissiah captures it, corrects it, and plays it out to your real speakers. The sound loops back through the app on its way past, which is where the name comes from. Nothing is recorded or saved. It's processed as it passes.
Which one you get, and how they differ
| On your device | Through loopback | |
|---|---|---|
| You need | A Tantrum DSP product | A virtual audio device (e.g. BlackHole 2ch) |
| What gets corrected | Everything the device plays, whatever the source | Only sound coming from your computer |
| Where the correction lives | Stored on the device | Stored by the app and applied live |
| Works with Omnissiah closed | Yes | No, the app has to be running |
| Set-up | Plug in the USB-C cable | Install the virtual device and select it in Settings |
Both are produced by exactly the same measurement and correction process, and both give you the same Before / After comparison and diagnostics at the end. A device correction is the more permanent of the two: once applied it keeps working with the app closed, after a reboot, and for anything else plugged into that device. Loopback corrects only what your computer sends, and only while Omnissiah is open.
1. Set up playback
Follow either path below, whichever matches your system. Everything from step 2 onwards is the same for both.
Path A — a Tantrum device
- 1Power on your Really Mean Sub.
- 2Connect it to your Mac with a USB-C cable.
- 3In Omnissiah's sidebar, under Devices, your device appears within a second or two. Until it does, the app shows “No devices found…” with “Please connect your device via USB-C cable to your computer.”
If the app asks you to update the device's firmware first, follow the prompt and wait for it to finish. More detail: Chapter 5 — Managing devices.
Path B — loopback, with any speakers
- 1Install a virtual audio device if you don't have one. The calibration setup's loopback screen has a Get BlackHole link.
- 2In Settings → Audio → System Audio, set Loopback Input to that virtual device (BlackHole 2ch, for example).
- 3Set your Mac's own sound output to the same virtual device (System Settings → Sound → Output), so everything your computer plays goes into Omnissiah.
- 4Under Speaker Output in the same Audio tab, choose the real output that feeds your speakers. That's where Omnissiah sends the corrected audio.
There's no device to connect or firmware to update on this path. When you reach step 3, pick the Loopback template instead of a hardware speaker layout.
More detail: Chapter 9 — Room correction & calibration (Loopback, system-wide correction) and Chapter 12 — Settings.
2. Choose your microphone and speaker output
Omnissiah needs to know which mic to record from and which output plays the test signals.
- 1Go to Settings (gear, bottom of the sidebar), then the Audio tab.
- 2Under Measurement Mic, pick your microphone, then its channel.
- 3Under Speaker Output, pick the output device that feeds your speakers (if you set this up on Path B, it's already done).
- 4Raise the mic input until the Mic Level meter shows healthy level (green), without clipping (red).
More detail: Chapter 12 — Settings.
3. Measure your room
- 1Click Calibrate in the sidebar.
- 2On Configure Your Measurement, keep Quick Measurement selected.
- 3Under System, confirm your speaker layout and that each speaker is assigned to an output. On a Tantrum device that's a hardware layout such as Left + Right + Subwoofer; on a loopback setup, start from the Loopback template.
- 4Click Start Measurement.
- 5In the Speaker Playback About to Begin dialog, follow the level-setting instructions, then click I'm Ready 🤘.
- 6Keep the mic at head height at your main listening position and stay quiet while it plays test noise through each speaker. A quick measurement takes one measurement per speaker by default, so you won't need to move the mic. If you've set more positions, the app pauses and tells you when to move it a few centimetres.
More detail: Chapter 9 — Room correction & calibration.
Test noise can be loud. Set your volume low first and raise it only until the on-screen meter turns green.
4. Review and apply
When measurement finishes, the app calculates correction and shows the Calibration results page.
- 1Use the Before / After toggle to hear and see the difference.
- 2Read any Diagnostics cards. They explain anything the correction couldn't fix and what to do about it.
- 3When you're happy, click Apply to device, then confirm. (On loopback the same button applies the correction to your system audio.)
On a device, the correction is now stored on the device and active. On loopback it starts working immediately on anything your computer plays. You can check or bypass it later under Settings → Audio → Loopback Correction. More detail: Chapter 10 — Understanding & applying results.
5. Back up your work
Once you like the result, save it. A backup holds every connected device's settings and your loopback correction, so it's worth doing on either path:
- Click Back up… at the bottom of the Settings screen and choose where to save the file. (With a device connected, the camera button next to Devices in the sidebar does the same thing.)
More detail: Chapter 11 — Backup & restore.
That's it
Your system is measured, corrected and applied. From here you can fine-tune levels and EQ by hand (Chapter 7 — Shaping sound), try a different tonal balance (Chapter 14 — Custom target curves), or learn what every screen does (Chapter 4 — Interface tour).
