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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2013 2:25:13 GMT -6
Hi guys, tonight, (after some years where i left this technology untouched) i thought about it in bed... and then made a quick and cheap try on digital room correction ITB by measurement with a 5 buck electret mic in diffuse field position for a sweep IR recording, calculated a correction IR for a "flat 'til 1khz, straight down to -6dB at 20kHz"-target frequency response, loaded a freeware convolution VST with it and listened to some music in winamp... with quite shocking good results: My sleeping room TV definitely sounded like a completely new box, in the best sense... Now, i am quite sure that i will make use of this technology on every (digitally fed) listening place in my range...(well, maybe not with a 5 buck mic....) Besides acoustical room treatment...do you use digital room correction? If yes - what do you use, if no - is there a specific reason you don't? Best regards, Martin
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Post by wiz on Sept 5, 2013 3:12:17 GMT -6
I have a well,treated studio.
I use arc 2 by ik multimedia.
I like it, works for me.
Listener emptor.
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by svart on Sept 5, 2013 7:15:10 GMT -6
My JBL monitors have it built in. I put the mic in the listen position and they send a tone out and calibrate themselves to the room.
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Post by jazznoise on Sept 5, 2013 7:19:21 GMT -6
My JBL monitors have it built in. I put the mic in the listen position and they send a tone out and calibrate themselves to the room. Now that's cool!
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2013 7:24:17 GMT -6
I tried the IK Multimedia ARC thingy and the results were kind of crazy...didn't translate to the real world AT ALL. Of course, it could have been user error... I moved on...
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2013 8:20:13 GMT -6
Well, that's interesting, John. I did a bit of recherche and seems like IK MM does just measure at 48 kHz and might SRC and dither then, i tried the free DRCDesigner that makes measurements in all needed samplerates, each software has other approaches. I remember trying 'acourate' software years ago, which seems to have very good reviews later on...(e.g. by Bob Katz). As for the measurement mics...i was quite surprised how much tolerance these have practically, in nearly all pricing ranges, even up to the expensive B&K ones. class 2 and even class 1 standards are not what you can call pretty exact, but well, this could have been expected...and calibration has it's own critical areas... Not that much more bang for more bucks, so i guess it seems better to know exactly about theory, fine tuning and measurement behind it (if you are not blessed with godlike JBLs of course ). And one maybe really needs a bit of 'luck' as well... Thanks for the input.
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Post by wreck on Sept 6, 2013 13:39:31 GMT -6
I used IK in the beginning, then I upgrades monitors and just used it to help me place my speakers and treatment in the right place so that I didn't need any corrective eq. That only worked for the mixing position, but that's all I really needed. Experimenting like that is time consuming, but it feels good to know you have everything in the best possible location in your room.
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Post by LesC on Sept 6, 2013 13:53:14 GMT -6
I got quite concerned recently when I couldn't discern the difference between an RME UFX D/A and a Dangerous Source D/A, both going to a pair of The Rocks. I'm currently in an untreated room, which I will to do something about, though I'm trying to figure out how I can do that with an acceptable WAF. In the meantime, I thought I'd give my 1K Multimedia Arc 2 a try. I had tried the Arc 1 several years ago, and couldn't get anything useful out of it, I upgraded to Arc 2 a while ago but hadn't tried it till now. Wow! The difference truly is one of those "night and day" things that I always read about but never believed.
I can hear music in the lower frequencies that I didn't know existed. Until now, I actually thought that I might have accidentally been delivered a pair of The Rock version 1 instead of the second version with the considerably increased bass extension. I also wondered if it was because of my untreated room, and as I'm sure most of you instinctively would have known, it was.
I've recently obtained a calibrated sound level meter from Cross-Spectrum Labs, and I'm going to use REW to see how well it confirms the curves from Arc 2, as well as in determining the optimum path to a well-treated room. Just out of curiosity, at that point I'll re-compare the RME and the Dangerous boxes, and see if the difference becomes more obvious.
By the way, I'm aware of all the digital-room-correction vs. room treatment arguments, and I'm certainly not saying that DRC can replace room treatment. Regardless, in my specific situation, DRC seems to make a huge positive difference.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2013 17:33:43 GMT -6
Thanks, LesC, for your input. Yepp, that night-and-day difference is exactly what striked me. It was just a test in the sleeping room, that i thought is pretty good treated 'as-is' from what i use to know about acoustics in rehearsal and studio rooms. But there is, of course, more to it... DRC is not exactly, what should be used to replace room treatment. It should enhance room treatment, the measurement curves can tell you about where your monitoring has flaws. And it can help to correct, what can NOT be treated otherwise. Assuming you have a half-way good measurement with a mic with small diaphragm and a clean micpre, using diffuse field position, measuring the listening place, the measurement can reveal everything that is clearly above the measurement tolerances. And - the chain and room is measured as a whole. Obviously, the critical parts are the speakers and the mic, both having the hugest impact in beeing inaccurate. Even the cheap electret condensers have a pretty flat frequency response (at least in the mids up to 10k) compared to the speakers+room. just the standard console reflections in the command room can make a pretty hefty comb filter effect that you cannot treat (not even with DRC, because listening position varies too much as does the comb filter), some people therefore prefer the console position sideways to the monitor positions, eliminating this comb filter... Assuming you have pretty good monitors already, with a huge sweet listening spot and a well treated room, you might still profit from DRC if you make your measurement as good as possible, at the standard volume level you drive them at work. The monitors are by far the weakest point in terms of near flat frequency response in the listening chain, even if you have done everything to the best of your knowledge. Everybody knows the moment, if you bought alot of expensive studio stuff, and then you get a new pair of good speakers, and suddenly you know where you should have put your money in the first place. You can't mix what you can't hear. No matter, how good your other gear is. Monitoring is the most critical point in your studio... So i'm absolutely not in a room treatment vs. DRC discussion. Some flaws correction may simply not doable by room treatment, let's say e.g. due to the gear that you have to have in your room...or you simply want your monitoring as flat as possible, so you don't have to calibrate your ears new if you have to listen in different places with different monitors and room acoustics. I think this is the strength of the application of digital room treatment... Years ago, cpu capacity was an argument against it, plus, the dedicated boxes that were used were not of enough quality or simply too expensive for what they did, or latency was too much of an issue. Modern computers do in fact eliminate most arguments against carefully made DRC, in my opinion...
Best regards, Martin
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2013 18:54:20 GMT -6
I don't, I'd try it but I get the impression it's a bit of a band aid and only until the room and monitors are sorted out before I get into this sort of thing.
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