|
Post by Johnkenn on Jan 9, 2020 7:41:30 GMT -6
I believe Trinnov deals with this. I’m inching closer to considering the Trinnov. In many ways I find all this correction counterintuitive for mixing on small speakers, .001% are ever going to hear your stuff on a corrected system. The whole idea of near fields was to give an idea of every man’s speakers. Here’s the way i see it...The main idea is to be as flat as possible. Any speaker nuances/characteristics are just deviations from the mean. If I can have as flat a system as possible, it is more likely to be similar on most playback systems. So - if I’m already mixing on bass heavy speaker A which makes me go light on the bottom end, and then the listener is listening on bass light speaker B, it’s going to compound the issue. So - imo - you’d be crazy not want to correct for this.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 9, 2020 8:35:29 GMT -6
Johnkenn, that’s exactly the way I understand it and that room correction software is attempting to ensure the direct sound coming out of your monitors has been corrected for some room issues and implicitly to some extent the non liniarities of the monitors also, as the correction sampling measurements were listening to the same monitors when collecting the room data.
|
|
|
Post by mcirish on Jan 9, 2020 9:33:22 GMT -6
I know I sound like a broken record but... I have a couple pairs of Dynaudio monitors. Air 6 and LYD48. Plus, I have some Equator D5 monitors as well. Anyway, I had some translation problems when I used the Air 6 monitors. Mostly in the low mids and low end. I just didn't seem to be able to dial it in right. So, I bought the LYD48 monitors. The midrange clarity improved but the first album I mixed on them still had to be "fixed" by a mastering engineer. Honestly, my goal in life is to send a mix to a ME and have him say he did nothing to it because it was perfect. My last single mix got that response from the ME. I couldn't be happier.
A couple points: 1) Order of importance: Room treatment, speakers, correction software 2) Room correction software will not get you far if the room is not treated 3) I'd rather have some good but not great speakers in a well treated room than have super great speakers in an untreated room. 4) My studio has always had good acoustic treatment: 3" OC703 cloud, 9" OC703 in corners for bass trapping, 3-6" OC703 at reflection points. 5) Even with all the acoustic treatment, I still had room mode issues that would never get solved by better speakers.
After the last album was completed (July), I bought Sonarworks 4. After running all the tests, it showed my obvious problems in the room, even with the LYD48 speakers. (which are great BTW) I moved the speakers around until the software showed me the flattest response (which wasn't very flat at all) and then I had Sonarworks fix the EQ issues at the mix position. I still think I can tweak monitor and mix positions a bit more to optimize what I have. I know there are many detractors to room mode fixing software. For years I refused to buy into it. I figured that great monitors and great acoustic treatment would be enough. I am now a firm believer in it. I bought it under the assumption that I would try it out and then sell it once I found it didn't work for me. I was dead wrong. Honestly, Sonarworks was the best studio purchase I have made since OC703.
You may or may not like the song, but here is the first single I finished (in November) using Sonarworks. For the first time in my life I had the ME tell me he didn't have to do anything other than increase the LUFS a bit. No EQ was needed. I've sent hundreds of songs off for mastering. I'm 58 and I can tell you it's a pretty big win to get that kind of feedback on a mix.
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on Jan 9, 2020 13:57:48 GMT -6
In many ways I find all this correction counterintuitive for mixing on small speakers, .001% are ever going to hear your stuff on a corrected system. The whole idea of near fields was to give an idea of every man’s speakers. Here’s the way i see it...The main idea is to be as flat as possible. Any speaker nuances/characteristics are just deviations from the mean. If I can have as flat a system as possible, it is more likely to be similar on most playback systems. So - if I’m already mixing on bass heavy speaker A which makes me go light on the bottom end, and then the listener is listening on bass light speaker B, it’s going to compound the issue. So - imo - you’d be crazy not want to correct for this.
Most playback systems are not flat. And that's why the idea flat is counterintuitive and maybe that's the whole point about the NS10 - it sounds wrong.
|
|
|
Post by jamiesego on Jan 9, 2020 15:04:41 GMT -6
My experience with the Footprints has been the opposite of Svart (and I don’t think he’s wrong) Just goes to show that the room and the listener make monitor choices highly subjective. I think this is another reason why NS10’s became ubiquitous. Having the same reference in every room that’s not loud and bassy enough to excite room modes seems useful.
I do wonder if we’ll get to a point in which monitoring will be able to sound largely identical as long as the room meets some kind of minimum level of treatment.
|
|
|
Post by stormymondays on Jan 9, 2020 15:33:06 GMT -6
There’s this misconception that room modes can be “excited” and that volume plays a part. It doesn’t. Room acoustics are linear and any cancellation will occur at every listening level.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jan 9, 2020 15:47:03 GMT -6
There’s this misconception that room modes can be “excited” and that volume plays a part. It doesn’t. Room acoustics are linear and any cancellation will occur at every listening level. That's interesting...care to elaborate? Its the opposite of my observations. Doing REW measurements in my room showed peaks and nulls that were proportional to the volume during measurement. Louder equaled bigger peaks and nulls. Quieter did not eliminate them, but it did minimize the low end problems.
|
|
|
Post by indiehouse on Jan 9, 2020 15:57:15 GMT -6
There’s this misconception that room modes can be “excited” and that volume plays a part. It doesn’t. Room acoustics are linear and any cancellation will occur at every listening level. That's interesting...care to elaborate? Its the opposite of my observations. Doing REW measurements in my room showed peaks and nulls that were proportional to the volume during measurement. Louder equaled bigger peaks and nulls. Quieter did not eliminate them, but it did minimize the low end problems. I think that's what he's saying. The peaks and nulls are proportional to your volume, which means linear. If you monitor at 80db and have a 10db null, it would be half that when listening at 40db in order to be linear.
Right?
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on Jan 9, 2020 16:00:09 GMT -6
There’s this misconception that room modes can be “excited” and that volume plays a part. It doesn’t. Room acoustics are linear and any cancellation will occur at every listening level. That's interesting...care to elaborate? Its the opposite of my observations. Doing REW measurements in my room showed peaks and nulls that were proportional to the volume during measurement. Louder equaled bigger peaks and nulls. Quieter did not eliminate them, but it did minimize the low end problems.
IME they are still there in the same % proportion to the level... the idea that physics go away at a lower SPL level is IMO wrong. That's at least my experience taking measurements.
|
|
|
Post by Tbone81 on Jan 9, 2020 16:49:03 GMT -6
That's interesting...care to elaborate? Its the opposite of my observations. Doing REW measurements in my room showed peaks and nulls that were proportional to the volume during measurement. Louder equaled bigger peaks and nulls. Quieter did not eliminate them, but it did minimize the low end problems.
IME they are still there in the same % proportion to the level... the idea that physics go away at a lower SPL level is IMO wrong. That's at least my experience taking measurements.
Ok, yeah...I think we're all saying the same thing...I think. I was a little confused and would still like to hear from Stormymondays
To clarify, I wasn't saying the "physics goes away", just that the louder I turn up my sub, the bigger the peaks and nulls in the low end. They were identical in everyway EXCEPT amplitude according to my REW measurements.
|
|
|
Post by stormymondays on Jan 9, 2020 17:02:30 GMT -6
What I meant to say is that volume is irrelevant when evaluating room effects. There’s no “safe” volume that will not “excite” room modes. If a cancellation is there, it exists at all volumes. That’s basic physics. I’m no physicist though!
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on Jan 9, 2020 17:19:37 GMT -6
Talking monitors this is no easy task, and I am sure the Techs like eric can tell stories about it. The NS 10 seems to be famous for its time domain....
|
|
|
Post by gwlee7 on Jan 9, 2020 18:07:59 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by jamiesego on Jan 9, 2020 22:30:59 GMT -6
I appreciate the correction! Looks like I need to learn more on acoustics. My thought process was that lower volumes would mean less air waves hitting the walls and returning so you would be hearing a higher percentage of direct sound and less cancellation.
|
|
|
Post by stormymondays on Jan 10, 2020 7:07:28 GMT -6
There is a difference in perception due to the Fletcher Munson curves of our hearing, but not a physical difference. The cancellations are still there.
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,919
|
Post by ericn on Jan 10, 2020 9:26:01 GMT -6
Some thoughts and some theory and the real world. First though NS10’s. I honestly never sold a pair of NS10’s to a major studio because of how they sounded, it was always because they were cheap and everybody had them on the cover of MIX. Now I have read a ton of theory’s of why people love them many supported by scientific measurements to support their theory all have one big problem, a huge problem if you are familiar with NS10’s, they only measured one sample. I don’t disagree with JK’s approach of putting importance on a flat Freq response, we all strive for that goal, it’s what happens on the way to that goal that bugs me. Every single correction box or program I have ever heard has done something that irks me, each its own different irksome thing. That’s the problem with the world of audio everything brings something you don’t want to the table. The other thing is as easy as it is to measure frequency and time domain, these simple measurements don’t tell us what is causing these problems. One of my biggest gripes with these systems is a really basic “duh” concepts of loudspeakers; their polar response varies with Freq. Are you correcting for off axis issues when you use one of these systems and completely changing the on axis response? The advantages of Omni: predictably and linearity. Man these DSP/ phase cancellation derived cardiods are fun to play with but you have to understand some basics, first in mics and speakers you will never see a true perfect cardiod pattern unless somebody cranked the smoothing function when they published the pattern. When we get to the lower frequencies the wave naturally wraps around the cabinet we can predict this with some basic math. It’s also easy to treat when you know it’s going everywhere. Also Cardiod isn’t all its build to be, remember as a good friend who has an apt behind an outdoor venue found out you still have a bunch of rear energy if your not in that cardiod notch.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jan 10, 2020 11:11:14 GMT -6
Incredible post Eric, man that is really informative! Thank you!
I decided to spend a few more hours yesterday again trying to tune the KEFs using plugin EQ. I’m attracted to getting them to work because they are full range sealed types. The mic I use is Rode Classic direct into interface preamp.. it’s the flattest “sounding” mic I own and usually works great for this. One thing I finally realized, I get much better results by using a slow sweeping sine and correcting each octave. I also moved the mic around the room. Then afterward I have the ‘flat profile’ dialed (Pretty jagged but +/- 2.5 dB) ..put another instance of EQ and record one speaker playing music. Level match and listen for differences, consider mic response, and adjust using wide EQ so that the recording sounds as close to the reference as possible. End result: what do you know.. references sound like they should.. like they do in the car or anywhere else.. finally! A couple quick mixes and things are translating to the MacBook no issues.
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,919
|
Post by ericn on Jan 10, 2020 11:26:44 GMT -6
Incredible post Eric, man that is really informative! Thank you! I decided to spend a few more hours yesterday again trying to tune the KEFs using plugin EQ. I’m attracted to getting them to work because they are full range sealed types. The mic I use is Rode Classic direct into interface preamp.. it’s the flattest “sounding” mic I own and usually works great for this. One thing I finally realized, I get much better results by using a slow sweeping sine and correcting each octave. I also moved the mic around the room. Then afterward I have the ‘flat profile’ dialed (Pretty jagged but +/- 2.5 dB) ..put another instance of EQ and record one speaker playing music. Level match and listen for differences, consider mic response, and adjust using wide EQ so that the recording sounds as close to the reference as possible. End result: what do you know.. references sound like they should.. like they do in the car or anywhere else.. finally! A couple quick mixes and things are translating to the MacBook no issues. For measurement use only pick up a cheap used DBX, Behringer Dayton or Audix calibrated mic, spend a little more send any of the above in to be individually calibrated it will go a long way.
|
|
|
Post by nudwig on Jan 10, 2020 22:05:05 GMT -6
I like the UMIK-1 with REW. Cheap, easy to use, and comes with a calibration file.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 11, 2020 6:05:11 GMT -6
In the discussion above, maybe I misunderstand, but think the actual amount of sound energy (volume) being sent into the room as the variable: everything else is/are actually the constants?
The room, the gear aren’t changing. The only thing changing is the volume and their frequencies and duration of their sound, but a sine wave sweep controls for that (REW). So, it’s really only the volume (amount of energy) changing and the room’s non linear characteristics, will always be evident/constant.
Seems to me, this would be positively correlated to the amount of energy released into the room (volume) and then less volume would show a reduced effect, higher volume more, but always based on the same root frequency problems as those are constant due to the physics of the environment? The “this” or effect is the amount of deviation from Linear behaviours +- DB lesser or greater dependent on volume, but root frequencies constant.
I thought, essentially, treatment absorbs and dissipates sound energy (volume) and turns it into heat ?
|
|
|
Post by stormymondays on Jan 11, 2020 8:39:08 GMT -6
Yes but it happens all the time at all volumes. Whatever “damage” the room inflicts to your low end is always there, independent of the listening volume.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 11, 2020 8:56:36 GMT -6
Agreed, but I believe the “damage” is less or more +- from flat dependent on the monitoring volume: it’s dynamic. The problematic Frequencies are constant. The room dimensions/construction are the root problem?
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 11, 2020 9:00:25 GMT -6
Also, really appreciated the track how each part has its place, a lot of overlapping elements there, but you managed to find a good spot for each in the mix. I’d say your monitoring is working for you just fine !
|
|
|
Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 11, 2020 9:38:19 GMT -6
I decided to spend a few more hours yesterday again trying to tune the KEFs using plugin EQ. What KEFs do you have?
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jan 11, 2020 10:56:29 GMT -6
|
|