Re: ARC Room Correction

gitarrero · Post by **gitarrero** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:35 am

the link doesn't work (forbidden access...)I've heard about this soft before - without wanting to prejudge: I don't think that this really is an alternative to room corrections. as soon as you record with a microphone, it's not that usefull anyway.having said that, I'm always willing to learn and, if the arguments are there, revise my opinion.so if anybody has personal experience with this tool, I'd like to hear it.cheers,martin

sgs4u · Post by **sgs4u** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:15 pm

This is indeed excellent Mike. Thanks for posting it. Get any snow yet?

mazz · Post by **mazz** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:51 pm

There's a program for Mac called Fuzz Measure that looks pretty good. It's just a diagnostic tool, not a room correction EQ.I'm leery of any kind of EQ without some treatment because some drastic cuts or boosts may be made that could skew things too far in the other direction. Plus (and this could be an old bias) any kind of EQ adds some phase shifts (maybe this new stuff not so much) which create other issues.Mazz

matto · Post by **matto** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 3:41 pm

Equalizing the monitor chain as a poor man's solution to room acoustics problems has been a hotly debated topic for a long time; no doubt ARC will pour more gas on the flames.The problem is that your using a frequency domain solution for what is a time domain problem, so I would say it's a problematic fix.Making critical mix decisions while listening to heavily eq'd/processed version of your program material doesn't seem sound mixing practice to me.But maybe I'm just old school and completely wrong about this, who knows.

mazz · Post by **mazz** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:13 pm

Rather than use this as a brute force approach, I'd recommend anyone try plotting out your room as Michael has done and try some treatments in different places to get the big humps and valleys, then maybe use something like this EQ to gently smooth out the rest.Matto's right, what a bad room does is smear the sound because the sound from the room mixes in with the sound from the speakers and causes the unbalanced frequency responses. This is a result of the time it takes for the sound of the room to get back to the ear in relationship to the sound from the speakers. The frequency anomalies are a symptom, not the cause so this room correction business is a band aid at best, IMO. But maybe I'm just old school too and it's time to join matto in the old composer's rest home! Mazz

mazz · Post by **mazz** » Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:06 pm

Believe me, I know,the SAF is huge! LOL I barely got my traps through the gauntlet because the colors weren't too great. Fortunately, my room is pretty much my room (I guess it never really is but that's my fantasy!) but I still had to run it by the boss! We decided on red because it was contrasting because nothing else was even close. Foam was out from the beginning (sorry Auralex).Remember that furniture and bookcases are good sources of absorbtion and diffusion and usually can pass muster with the SO (Significant Other). A nice rug is also a good bet. I wonder if a hanging tapestry on one wall would be in the cards?See if you can convince her that the Ready Acoustics traps would be OK in one corner, if you have an empty corner. You could put a plant in from of them! IMO that would be a better use of your money.Good luck on this one!Mazz

stick · Post by **stick** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 5:31 pm

Yeah, Martin is right... as soon as you open up a mic to sing, you're still fighting the same un-corrected room in your mix. I know there are a few sets of speakers now with their own digital eq "auto-correct" settings, and now this software. Maybe it works alright enough to be better than what you've got, and cheap enough to make it worth trying, rather than actually correcting the real problem. That said, and after spending a wad on a studio myself, I vote for fixing the room. HA HA!