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Room acoustic analysis tools such as ARC and MSC1
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| Magnus |
I was wondering if anyone here has used any of these products and what your experience was with them. Was the change and improvement significant? I was looking at IK Multimedia's ARC, JBL's MSC1, and Auralex's product Room Analysis Plus. If you could share your experiences or anything you might have heard about any of these I would greatly appreciate it.
Here are links with product info:
ARC
JBL MSC1
Auralex Room Analysis Plus |
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| RichieV |
| ARC is smoke and mirrors. The biggest issue with rooms are cancellation nodes at key frequency cycles. No amount of boosting will fix that. Anything times 0 will remain 0. |
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| cryophonik |
I haven't used any of those products, but I essentially accomplished the same thing as the ARC system using a DIY approach. I downloaded the sine waves from Ethan Winer's website and loaded them into my DAW. Then, I stuck a Nady reference mic at my usual listening position and recorded the sine waves as they were playing through my monitors at my usual monitoring level. After recording the sine waves, I opened the wav file in Har-Bal, where I could see the peaks and valleys in my room's response. Then, I generated an EQ curve that compensates for the peaks/valleys and placed that EQ on my master buss. I repeated the process a few iterations until I got my EQ curve dialed in.
It also took some A/B'ing with and without the room EQ in place to get the level right. Now, I just keep that EQ on my master buss when mixing to compensate for my room, and I turn it off when I export the track. It's not perfect, but it definitely made a notable difference in my mixes and my mixes translate substantially better on other systems since doing this. |
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| thecYrus |
| the biggest problem in an untreated room is the long decay time. those tools will only fix/compensate for some standing waves which boost or lower certain frequencies. long decay time make the transients and lowend muddy. the only way to fix this is to reduce the reflection on walls with absorbers/bass traps |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by thecYrus
the only way to fix this is to reduce the reflection on walls with absorbers/bass traps |
Except, in my case, the problem is that I don't hear enough low end so bass traps are not a solution (even though I tried them anyway).
I won't argue the science of acoustics with anyone, but no one will ever convince me that products like ARC can't have benefits for many people. It may just be a crutch, but hearing is believing and my DIY ARC system made a very big difference in my mixes. |
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