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Post by drbill on May 12, 2020 21:39:51 GMT -6
So..... After too long of having a nagging doubt in the back of my mind, I've been tweaking my CRM with Jeff Hedback. Finally. After we finished the design and buildout almost 4 years ago. I know, I know, doh! I should have dialed it in completely right out of the gate, but I got busy.... And....several hundred songs later, I switched up my monitoring - completely changing things up. I'm currently running the JBL 708P's with a JBL LSR sub. I'm not really in love with Subs as a general rule, but this room seems to need it. Especially with the 708's, so, I wanted to get things tweaked and RIGHT. After shooting the room a few times, with a few back and forth's with Jeff, we got things closer. I pulled my mixing desk a few inches out into the room. Optimal mix position ended up being a little closer to the speakers than equilateral, and sub is balanced and pretty phase coherent with it's new placement. Bass isn't "bigger" per se, just more "right". Tighter I guess. So I ran the stereo and L/R sweeps again and.... Jeff was pretty blown away with how close things were translating. He told me that in his opinion the room was in the top 1% of CRM's from 200Hz to 20k - EQ and Time domain / Phase response wise - and that we had a little problem between 150Hz and 200Hz. Especially on the Left side of the room. Honestly, this kind of blew me away. I didn't expect for it to be so ruler flat from low mids up, but I really love the imaging in the JBL's and the room. My "perceived" problem before measuring was definitely in the low end, and this confirmed it. Moving the sub a bit towards center helped smooth out the LF tremendously IMO, but I don't think I'm done with this yet. So...next up...again, BIG DOH!! I'm going to fill my Sound Anchor speaker stands with sand and run the sweeps again. Maybe, MAYBE that will help clear up the little wobble down in the low mids.... But.....that brings me to the next thing Jeff wants to explore. There's a new studio software coming out of Sweden. It's been well received in the high end automotive industries and the audiophile industry, and they just moved into the Studio domain : live.dirac.com/pro-audio/. You run their analyzation software, and upload the results to their server. Their server calculates a customized filter for your room, and you load that into a plugin running in your DAW. I presume on the master fader. I know there's a bunch of Sonarworks and Trinnov users here and was just curious as to your thoughts. I'd love to hear any thoughts and anecdotal experiences about running this type (or other types) of DSP correction software. It's a completely new world for me. Jeff believes that Dirac Live is better than the Trinnov system, and significantly better than Sonorworks - especially in the transient / time domain areas and how it handles the phase aspects of correction - although he's had good successes (and some not so great) with both SW and Trinnov. I'm pretty thrilled with things turning out so great (all kudos to Jeff, not anything I did), but I think I'd like to go the extra mile to make things really top shelf. Has anyone else investigated or worked with the Dirac systems. Either on Audiophile systems or the new studio system? How difficult is the process. There doesn't seem to be much out there on the Pro Audio application as of yet. I think it's only been out a few weeks now. Thx, bp Ps - many thanks to Jeff Hedback. I'd be monitoring in the audio equivalent of a cardboard box without him.....
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Post by kcatthedog on May 13, 2020 4:09:43 GMT -6
I don’t believe Sonarworks does anything about resolving time domain issues, so if the new software does that would be an improvement.
Good luck.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 7:54:53 GMT -6
First off Congratulations on improving the room, I don’t think 4 years is a long time before doing a tune. A studio is a work space full of compromises and you really have to live with a space before you decide what you feel is wrong with it and can weigh how any physical changes might effect work flow. Dirac has quietly built quite the reputation in automotive and home theater (I really am shocked Dolby hasn’t built something like this into Atmos) the word is it’s pretty damn good in some of these complex situations. The biggest gripe is that they haven’t built a stand alone system. Now you know I’m historically not a fan of DSP for room / speaker correction, but as of recently have pretty much excepted it as a reasonable way to solve LF problems. So considering the fact that most of what you do is going to end up in the world of film ( wonder if you could convince them to build in a preset to turn you decent sounding system into a typical theater THX system with that horn honk and middle edgieness). Knowing that your on HDX and that if it eats up a bunch of power you can simply add a card I have to say for what $350 bucks, what do you have to lose? Worst case you find the wisdom of stereo subs are one of the easiest ways to solve some LF issues and spend even more $$. The thing is you know even if you find your self a Dirac and stereo sub convert it’s still less by far than rebuilding the room again!
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Post by indiehouse on May 13, 2020 10:08:07 GMT -6
I am working with Jeff on my room. I've got a few more things to do before moving on to DSP, and Jeff recommended Dirac to me as well. FAR cheaper than a Trinnov. I was a beta tester for Dirac Studio years ago before they stopped development on it. I remember liking it when it worked, but it was wonky to get working with my system (Mac OS). I had to route audio suing Soundflower and something else, I can't remember. I am going to demo again once I fill up a corner closet with insulation...
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Post by nudwig on May 13, 2020 10:15:56 GMT -6
Thanks for the head's up, I've been wondering about this. I've been going back and forth with Sonarworks when in a client's room. I like the help it gives in problem low end areas but not the way it makes things sound from mids up. I'll have to demo Dirac to see how it handles it.
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Post by drbill on May 13, 2020 10:58:02 GMT -6
Thanks for the thoughts guys. I'll add to this as I get further, or if any of you go down that road, please report back if you can. Again, THANKS!
bp
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 11:56:05 GMT -6
Thanks for the head's up, I've been wondering about this. I've been going back and forth with Sonarworks when in a client's room. I like the help it gives in problem low end areas but not the way it makes things sound from mids up. I'll have to demo Dirac to see how it handles it. Yeah that’s been the problem with just about every full range solution and why I keep using XTA’s version of the digital driverack exclusively on lowend and analog high pass. Bit of latency but not to bad.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 11:57:19 GMT -6
I am working with Jeff on my room. I've got a few more things to do before moving on to DSP, and Jeff recommended Dirac to me as well. FAR cheaper than a Trinnov. I was a beta tester for Dirac Studio years ago before they stopped development on it. I remember liking it when it worked, but it was wonky to get working with my system (Mac OS). I had to route audio suing Soundflower and something else, I can't remember. I am going to demo again once I fill up a corner closet with insulation... I think they have learned a bit since then and found using the DAW as the host solves a lot of problems.
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Post by indiehouse on May 13, 2020 12:06:32 GMT -6
I am working with Jeff on my room. I've got a few more things to do before moving on to DSP, and Jeff recommended Dirac to me as well. FAR cheaper than a Trinnov. I was a beta tester for Dirac Studio years ago before they stopped development on it. I remember liking it when it worked, but it was wonky to get working with my system (Mac OS). I had to route audio suing Soundflower and something else, I can't remember. I am going to demo again once I fill up a corner closet with insulation... I think they have learned a bit since then and found using the DAW as the host solves a lot of problems. I was just thinking that. I think they tried shooting for more of a systemwide correction, not DAW specific. Of course, that has it's own drawbacks as well. Reference monitoring and music enjoyment won't have the room correction benefits. Also, getting down in the weeds with DAW compatibility and keeping their plugin up-to-date will be something to keep an eye on as well.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 12:33:10 GMT -6
I think they have learned a bit since then and found using the DAW as the host solves a lot of problems. I was just thinking that. I think they tried shooting for more of a systemwide correction, not DAW specific. Of course, that has it's own drawbacks as well. Reference monitoring and music enjoyment won't have the room correction benefits. Also, getting down in the weeds with DAW compatibility and keeping their plugin up-to-date will be something to keep an eye on as well. Yeah but we both know how much fun it is running a DAW through a secondary app! I think for the pro market this is the way to do it, but I do wonder what kind of power you would need for a Dolby Atmos mixing suite. A cool little dedicated 2 ch digital in in 3-4 ch out box with dedicated DSP would be cool and if you added a communication buss you could build a modular system for surround. My idea would probably really hurt their licensing in the home theatre market though, I’m sure the licensing is better cash flow and easier than dealing with consumer clients.
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Post by indiehouse on May 13, 2020 12:39:02 GMT -6
I was just thinking that. I think they tried shooting for more of a systemwide correction, not DAW specific. Of course, that has it's own drawbacks as well. Reference monitoring and music enjoyment won't have the room correction benefits. Also, getting down in the weeds with DAW compatibility and keeping their plugin up-to-date will be something to keep an eye on as well. Yeah but we both know how much fun it is running a DAW through a secondary app! I think for the pro market this is the way to do it, but I do wonder what kind of power you would need for a Dolby Atmos mixing suite. A cool little dedicated 2 ch digital in in 3-4 ch out box with dedicated DSP would be cool and if you added a communication buss you could build a modular system for surround. My idea would probably really hurt their licensing in the home theatre market though, I’m sure the licensing is better cash flow and easier than dealing with consumer clients. www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-series
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Post by bradd on May 13, 2020 14:10:21 GMT -6
Is it possible to use one of these products if you mix out of the box? They all seem to be designed to slap on your master fader. Could you put one on every channel?
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 14:15:23 GMT -6
Yeah but we both know how much fun it is running a DAW through a secondary app! I think for the pro market this is the way to do it, but I do wonder what kind of power you would need for a Dolby Atmos mixing suite. A cool little dedicated 2 ch digital in in 3-4 ch out box with dedicated DSP would be cool and if you added a communication buss you could build a modular system for surround. My idea would probably really hurt their licensing in the home theatre market though, I’m sure the licensing is better cash flow and easier than dealing with consumer clients. www.minidsp.com/products/dirac-seriesCool, now somebody buy one and loan it to me for a couple of weeks!
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 14:20:32 GMT -6
Is it possible to use one of these products if you mix out of the box? They all seem to be designed to slap on your master fader. Could you put one on every channel? You want one of these after your control room master ideally. Putting it on channels would correct every ch for the problems of your room and monitor chain. So if you could do what your thinking you would have a great mix in your room as long as it was the last efx on every ch in theory put a totally screwed up sound every where else. Think of it as monitor / Room tweeking in the box.
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Post by bradd on May 13, 2020 14:22:50 GMT -6
I guess I'd need three of the 8 channel miniDSPs to run 24 out to my console. I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually done something like that to see how it worked.
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on May 13, 2020 16:11:28 GMT -6
I guess I'd need three of the 8 channel miniDSPs to run 24 out to my console. I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually done something like that to see how it worked. I would only run miniDSP digitally. They have poor converters.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 13, 2020 16:35:12 GMT -6
I guess I'd need three of the 8 channel miniDSPs to run 24 out to my console. I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually done something like that to see how it worked. No you need the 2 ch on your monitors this is not an Effect it is for correcting the monitors ! What your talking about would mess things up !!
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Post by the other mark williams on May 13, 2020 18:12:36 GMT -6
So I suppose with something like this: link to DDRC-22D
...you could insert the hardware via digital I/O in your DAW or your audio interface's DSP mixer or whatever. I suppose that would work.
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Post by bradd on May 13, 2020 18:59:32 GMT -6
I guess I'd need three of the 8 channel miniDSPs to run 24 out to my console. I'd be interested to hear from someone who has actually done something like that to see how it worked. No you need the 2 ch on your monitors this is not an Effect it is for correcting the monitors ! What your talking about would mess things up !! Ah, I see.
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Post by christopher on May 14, 2020 16:02:15 GMT -6
Congratulations on the room! I'm sure Jeff is going to have the correct answers. I've been thinking of sharing an experiment I'm trying out, kind of on-topic.
Since quarantine I've been using only NS10's, and really super low volume. Made me realize they are way more enjoyable at very low level, no pain ever and pretty dark sounding, however the highs are a masked mystery as well as the sub area. So I decided I'm going to have to tune them. I did try to calibrate them a few times over the years with no success (they'd measure flat but sound hideous). So this time I decided to test out a very VERY old school method,... sine sweep and only ears to dial it "flat". The idea is no false measurements from mics or audible errors that a mic might not understand or properly deal with. Make it all sound equally loud to my ears. Of course Fletcher Munson would come into play, but I'd deal with that later.
First fix: broad EQ.. lows/mid/highs, -20dB on the output gain. The deep lows were suddenly very audible and no longer sounded like NS10's.
Second fix: a new EQ instance I found and fixed all the holes from 50-200hz. I used SLOW and FAST sine-sweep wavs. Playing the wav files came in handy as I could restart as needed at the right sections of the sweep. Seemed impossible at first, but in the end and a few days of messing with it, I got it sounding pretty equally flat from 50-15k, no gaps or bumps to my ear. Saved this as "ear flat".
DrBill: This is where I think you might be able to experiment while you decide which software to explore... sweep around in the lows below 200 and see what your ear likes, find/zap the gaps and bumps..
For me, there was more to do: With this 50-15k curve references sounded like I was at the back of a stadium.. lows all up in my face and the music dark and rolled off in the distance. Fletcher Munson curve issues.. So I boosted treble shelf and a wide high mid band to taste. Music started to sound awesome now. saved it as "corrected flat".
This accomplished my goal, NS10's are now a usable full frequency monitor I could use at low volumes. I can bypass and I'm back to NS10's. nice. But I decided to take it further. Next I tweaked the highs a little more and cut a little low mid mud for best sonics "fun curve". And then I put the iphone on speaker and played the same song while A/Bing between phone and monitor and matched as good I could. This one might be my go to.. I'm so sick of surprises on the phone speaker, which is basically all highs and a high pass in the mids. I hope this one works.
Thats where I'm at. I'm sure there's a million problems with what I'm doing, but so far seems better than not hearing stuff. Its easily bypassed though, which I do constantly. Long story, I hope it helps some.
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Post by soundintheround on May 14, 2020 21:05:58 GMT -6
I have Sonarworks. It’s ‘works’ for me. Game changer for sure.
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Post by mrholmes on May 15, 2020 7:28:05 GMT -6
So..... After too long of having a nagging doubt in the back of my mind, I've been tweaking my CRM with Jeff Hedback. Finally. After we finished the design and buildout almost 4 years ago. I know, I know, doh! I should have dialed it in completely right out of the gate, but I got busy....
I just can tell from my experience with so-called room correction software.
The two worst where IK Multimedia and another company which I forgot the name because with their plug in the mono middle was completely fucked up. IK was OK but sounded to my ears like someone put EQ on the 2 BUS and this called for new, different trouble. The Sonarworks thing works pretty impressive in CAN correction.
I still doubt that software can change things in a CR, because its physics in the room. I alwas ask myself how they want to change phase in the room?
I once was able to get a bit better in the lower mids with EQ. This was a single wider Q cut just a db or something. I bet the 2 BUS is EQ against the room you will just get new problems with a different name.
To me there is no perfect CR. I once was in a 60K CR and it did sound unreal, no one in a home is listening to music like this. The room sounded somewhat crazy...
In the end of the day you need to get to know the flaws of your room and just do your work. The other problem is the monitors that's why I use three different ones.
With the RCS someone corrects me if I am wrong and technology went on. Yet I am trusting any system.
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Post by mrholmes on May 15, 2020 7:28:57 GMT -6
I have Sonarworks. It’s ‘works’ for me. Game changer for sure.
Did measure the room with the SW on?
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ericn
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Post by ericn on May 16, 2020 9:50:50 GMT -6
So..... After too long of having a nagging doubt in the back of my mind, I've been tweaking my CRM with Jeff Hedback. Finally. After we finished the design and buildout almost 4 years ago. I know, I know, doh! I should have dialed it in completely right out of the gate, but I got busy....
I just can tell from my experience with so-called room correction software.
The two worst where IK Multimedia and another company which I forgot the name because with their plug in the mono middle was completely fucked up. IK was OK but sounded to my ears like someone put EQ on the 2 BUS and this called for new, different trouble. The Sonarworks thing works pretty impressive in CAN correction.
I still doubt that software can change things in a CR, because its physics in the room. I alwas ask myself how they want to change phase in the room?
I once was able to get a bit better in the lower mids with EQ. This was a single wider Q cut just a db or something. I bet the 2 BUS is EQ against the room you will just get new problems with a different name.
To me there is no perfect CR. I once was in a 60K CR and it did sound unreal, no one in a home is listening to music like this. The room sounded somewhat crazy...
In the end of the day you need to get to know the flaws of your room and just do your work. The other problem is the monitors that's why I use three different ones.
With the RCS someone corrects me if I am wrong and technology went on. Yet I am trusting any system.
Don’t think of it as changing the phase of the room, it’s more correcting the e of the speaker in your room. It acts just like the DSP in all the monitors with DSP plate amps. The exception is that rather than the phase correction being pre set at the factory it’s set in your room. The question always is, is it really an improvement? I don’t know a lot of the time driver choice and crossover filter choice are based on phase and how they make these drivers “gel” together. I will admit I was watching a MiniDSP Dirac box with the crappy converters just to play around with on a bunch of different systems.
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Post by the other mark williams on May 16, 2020 10:39:10 GMT -6
I just can tell from my experience with so-called room correction software.
The two worst where IK Multimedia and another company which I forgot the name because with their plug in the mono middle was completely fucked up. IK was OK but sounded to my ears like someone put EQ on the 2 BUS and this called for new, different trouble. The Sonarworks thing works pretty impressive in CAN correction.
I still doubt that software can change things in a CR, because its physics in the room. I alwas ask myself how they want to change phase in the room?
I once was able to get a bit better in the lower mids with EQ. This was a single wider Q cut just a db or something. I bet the 2 BUS is EQ against the room you will just get new problems with a different name.
To me there is no perfect CR. I once was in a 60K CR and it did sound unreal, no one in a home is listening to music like this. The room sounded somewhat crazy...
In the end of the day you need to get to know the flaws of your room and just do your work. The other problem is the monitors that's why I use three different ones.
With the RCS someone corrects me if I am wrong and technology went on. Yet I am trusting any system.
Don’t think of it as changing the phase of the room, it’s more correcting the e of the speaker in your room. It acts just like the DSP in all the monitors with DSP plate amps. The exception is that rather than the phase correction being pre set at the factory it’s set in your room. The question always is, is it really an improvement? I don’t know a lot of the time driver choice and crossover filter choice are based on phase and how they make these drivers “gel” together. I will admit I was watching a MiniDSP Dirac box with the crappy converters just to play around with on a bunch of different systems. ericn, it does look like they have an all-digital version of the MiniDSP Dirac box (I linked to it above). That way you could avoid the crappy AD/DA...
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