@Cav Emp concerning @nadirtozenith, I am pointing out that even the most thoughtful, and educated of people can suffer from invincible ignorance and groupthink. I'm sure he can handle it, and he might even appreciate where I am coming from.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

hello, all audio love maker fellows ,

seems best to begin with this quote:

me is still able to recall the earliest eighties, when, still before the yamaha ns10s came up, there were those auratone sound cubes, under the call sign of 5cs, placed on the meter bridges of consoles, in the very same well treated control rooms where those consoles resided.

at those times, the purpose of using these small cubes was that instead of relying to the loads more clinical main monitor speakers during all those ever lasting sessions, these auratones were able to provide the less fatiguing but still dependable working environment.

fact?

jack?

being one of the audiophiles then later becoming engineers, in my country of origin, was one way to achieve what one wanted.

at those times, there was no education in this field, only for film audio recording, even that was provided three borders off to be accomplished.

with this, to some extent, me is able to vibrate together, that is why me rather suggests the room treatment solution.

would the situation of becoming aware that no mix done by someone translates in any usable way to other auditing chains, rooms, befit the definition of troublesome occurrence?

untreated rooms are creating such problems, not me.

without using guesses, educated or pernicious, there could come up changes in hardware, for example, adding one or two subwoofer boxes, exchanging speakers for the better.

instead of the trigger happy impulse to prove me wrong, please pray do explain, how the improvements gained with room treatment are there to make the auditing experience more tedious than in some environment where one can not hear shit?

for all my false notions, see above the auratone part, perhaps it will help.

you are seemingly fast enough to jump to strange conclusions, me never felt much of an affinity to greek philosophers, also thanks for evaluating my education through implying that yours is there helping you to see through my arrogance, my ignorance.

perhaps this will be felt as talking in circles, see the auratone part.

you might try to come up with that, but what would any possible outcome have to do with room treatment questions?

all the best for all of us, including the possibilities for gentleman-like argumentation...

later edit, post scriptum addendum, seeing this:

being this one significant part of my experience, am able to handle loads more, rest assured.

invincible ignorance seems more your achievement than to any extent mine.

accusing me with group thinking comes from the one, the only, lone warrior here around.

though, there being some points of agreement, me has to admit, me is able to appreciate where you might come from.

before it gets forgotten, from this moment on, the podium is yours, you are free to volunteer your own peculiar rendition of all matters regarding mixing room acoustics, of all issues regarding near field monitoring.

all the best for all of us...

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

This occurs because of poor mixing technique, or improper speaker placement. This also happens when using computer speakers, home stereo speakers, or headphones, especially when attempted by inexperienced mixers.

Room treatment will not solve these problems. Lack of room treatment does not cause these problems.

Prove your claim that bad mixes happen because of a lack of room treatment.

Just as when a person claims there is a God, the onus is on them to prove it.

The person who claims there is no God, has no such burden.

 

Last edited: Jan 12, 2016

Groupthink requires that you be a member of a group, look it up smarty pants.

 

ARC does not provide a way to use cal files. The Dayton EMM-6 was purchased from Parts Express. ARC comes with one of two different mics and you choose which one you have when you start the analysis. I also have experience with the Earthworks mic, They look and feel the same. I have not heard them both side by side. Thanks, for the reference material, I did not know the cal files are available on thumb drive.

 

hello, all audio love maker fellows ,

to clear this one up first:

the quotation:

the response:

to put it mildly, there seems to exist some erroneous omission between the sentence intended to be quoted by you, the sentence you did quote.

giving the case the benefit of doubt, me rather percieves this as one benevolently unintentional oversight, despite the fact that your response shows elseways: respectful dissent does not seem to be your strength.

to illustrate your actual factualness level, you seem to be particularly adept in conveniently overlooking, then not responding to, certain facts supplied.

please pray do reveal, just at your leisurely earliest convenience, were those people indeed really able to conceive, to design, those early, if not the very first, near field monitors, some fifty years ago, with producers grinding away within their bare walled bedrooms in mind?

that would, by all accounts, take some hyperhuman level of prescience, certainly not to be excluded, just being one kind of the fairly rare occurrences.

the later coming up yamaha ns10s were originally designed for small high fidelity systems, at times when their future habitude as near field monitors could not be present even in the wildest dreams of their inventors.

superlative foreknowledge, in predicting the not too near future, with all the unknown elements exactly in place, one might presume.

no one stated that there might not be other possible elements coming up with their adverse influence, no one stated that the lack of room treatment is the sole exclusive cause for all problems you provide with your sterling insightfulness.

categorical absolutes used in statements seem rather to be your staple tools, not mine.

this has been, from my point of view, already touched upon, as having nothing to do with possible questions on site.

if you are capable to assume that statements, brought to such ad absurdum sweeping generalisation levels, are here to serve as beneficial support helping your cause, be that as that might, your version of the potential realities, not mine.

as one possible aside still, no one owes you the lowest level flying f-word to prove anything here around, even in cases when asked politely.

all the best for all of us...

later edit, post scriptum addendum, as one possible afterthought, am perfectly capable to resonate together with the do it all yourself, question all authority, attitudes, me whole life has been spent along these stances, thus my data, when coming into public view, rest assured, exists as mindfully thought over as it can possibly be.

that data, experience, are at times within accordance with the general consensus, rather shows the validity of the majority opinion, not of its being group thinking hearsay.

wish all of us the best of the best...

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2016

hello hello how many things I ve read in this post... my opinion:

every room must be treated, nearfield monitors are effected by standing waves, ringing and resonant modes, the acoustic foam is useful but not more than the 40% of the walls and ceiling overall surface. no, it doesn t go below 125 Hz or so, to go deeeper you d need basstraps to be build by yourself, the ones in the stores don t work or are extremely expensive, you can go down to 60-70 Hz with a good deep bass trap, broad band.
There s a system for placing basstraps and mid highs traps like ac. foam: Live-Dead scheme. It means some zones must be treated heavily (behind the speakers, corners, early reflection points), some must be more live, wood maybe.
Reflecting floor but absorbing ceiling (the human hear is used to regulate with floor resonances but not with resonances from above).
Use ARC to measure the room but try to achieve a flat response by adding or moving traps around.
Final eqs to fix rooms issues are a big mistake. No graphic nor parametric eqs please...

There s only one way: acoustic chamber. Basstraps, deflectors, absorbers, foam, panels and yes it s a hell of a work, it costs money and needs skills. Like mixing and mastering. It takes a whole life to learn.
There ain't no magic plug for the master or the room. It s all about YOU, what you know and what you can do.

There s an easy formula to calculate negative modes for a given wall lenght...
Usually a 4x4 room has his first one around 35-40 Hz so the next problematic mode would be around 70 and you will hear it, a lot, in the corners even more. Then probably other issues around 280 Hz.
Deep basstraps and High basstraps are the solutiion.

Please don t say it s useless. Acoustic chamber and electric system should be the first things to keep in mind for a mixing room.


here s a thread about this argument:

https://audiosex.pro/threads/basstraps-and-acoustic-chamber.22948/#post-165103

 

Last edited: Jan 19, 2016

Your wrong only ONE mic is coming with the ARC package and it also have very strange specs..

Here is from the IK website..

ARC 2 includes an omnidirectional, calibrated microphone that provides a transparent colorless, ultra-linear characteristic. When you are finished with your room measurements, it can be a valuable asset for capturing acoustic instruments such as pianos, guitars, strings or any other source where high-fidelity without coloration is required.



Professional measurement microphone features

• Type: 1/4" precision measurement condenser microphone
• Polar pattern: omnidirectional, free field
• Capsule frequency response: 20-16,000 Hz
• Calibrated frequency response when used with ARC: 16-20,000 Hz, +/- 1.5 dB
• Output: transformerless, electronically balanced, 200 ohms output impedance
• Sensitivity: 50 mV/Pa
• Noise Equivalent Level: 22 dB
• Max SPL: 130 dB for 3% THD
• Requires 48V Phantom Power

You see the 16 +/- 1,5 dB is where the software start to take over so if you use another mic with a different spec the calculation will be wrong as the software expect that you use the included mic so it expect that you Dayton has 16-20 +/- etc etc

As far as i know i havent seen another mic with 16-20,000 hz +/- 1,5 dB

The dayton spec is 18-20,000 and NO +/- 1,5 dB

here is the Dayton specs

Technical Specifications:

• Capsule type: 6 mm electret condenser
• Polar pattern: omnidirectional
• Frequency response: 18 Hz - 20 kHz
• Impedance: 200 ohms between pins 2 and 3
• Sensitivity at 1 KHz into 1K ohm: 10mV/Pa (-40dBV, re. 0dB = 1V/Pa)
• Max. SPL for 1% THD @ 1000 Hz: 127 dB
• S/N ratio: 70 dB A-weighted
• Connector: gold plated XLR
• Phantom power: +15 V to +48 V
• Weight: 144 grams (microphone unit only)

Behringer ECM8000 used have this specs before

Freq responce 15-20
But nowadays they have changed to 20-20
But that doesnt matter still isnt the same as the one that came with the software..

Here is what SOS magazine said about ARC after there first review 2008

The software application comes on a CD-ROM, and there's also a manual and a tough plastic case containing a small-diaphragm electret measuring microphone (with foam windshield and stand adaptor) which requires phantom power.
The user obviously needs an interface of some kind to get the microphone's signal into the computer, and the corrected monitoring signals back out from the DAW. Of course, the frequency and phase response of the hardware interface (its preamps and converters), is included within the acoustic measurement loop, so the more neutral and accurate the interface's sound quality, the better. Any strong tonal character or coloration will tend to get ironed out!
Interestingly, the measuring microphone's grille looks very Bruel & Kjaer-ish, although I suspect this is a less expensive Far Eastern alternative. The mic has a stated tolerance of ±1.5dB between 20Hz and 16kHz, and the software compensates for its falling HF response above that (which means you're likely to get false results if you use a different mic — even one with a flatter, wider response.
The software will operate on PCs (XP or Vista with a minimum 1GHz Pentium or 1.33GHz Athlon XP processor and 512MB of RAM), Power PC and Intel Macs (minimum 866MHz G4 Power PC) running OS 10.4 or later with 512MB of RAM, or 1.5GHz Intel Macs with 512MB of RAM, running OS 10.4.4 or later.

Anyway if you use another mic and get better result then before why not but remember it could even be better if you had the right mic..

here is the review in full http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar08/articles/ikmultimediaarc.htm
And also v2 http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct13/articles/arc2.htm

 

Thanks for the missing info gutarmaniac64. That clears up a lot for me. I found that after using the ARC with the Dayton mic I was getting bad transfers, I have since switched to a 31 band graphic EQ tuned with pink noise. It is old school way of doing things but it works well for me. I also worded my post poorly, as I should have made it clear that Arc has 2 different settings depending on which mic they send you.

thanks again for informing me.

 

Any room should be "treated" as every other gear collaborates in your mix.What do i mean => Learn your room as you learn how your speakers and your mics etc respond.If you know for example that your mic boosts 5khz you'll cut a bit of it in the mix.That is why for every setup (Room,monitors,etc) you have to do the same thing.Even if you are in your bedroom or in the highest quality mastering studio there is only one way to mix properly.To listen to many "famous" tracks of your genre or any genre that stand out because of their mix or tracks that impressed you.Learn how do they sound in your particular setup and then you'll be able to mimic those frequency responses (without this oblige you to reproduce that specific sound).Personally i would prefer a room without so much reverb.But even like that you have to learn the response of that particular room

 

On second thought, I did tell everyone that Arc only comes with one mic.

The software asks you if your ARC mic has a colored ring around its base and you designate whether it does or not when you start the software.

Thanks for the new info, please read more carefully next time. Just sayin' before you call me wrong on something you quoted re read it just to make sure of your facts.

I'm not mad or anything, Just bringing this to your focus. Thanks again.

 

Last edited: Apr 19, 2016

I found this post on gear sluts:

This is my first post. I joined out of frustration finding a replacement mic for the ARC-2 system, and about general misunderstandings of how the ARC system works.

Background:
I am an electrical engineer with 20 patents and a technical Emmy in the video, fiber optics, and data spaces. Audio is my real love, however; I apply mathematics to my large (up to 48 track) project studio, and have recorded and mixed numerous musicians since 2006, including most recently traditional jazz with Rhodes, trumpet, flugelhorn, and sax. I also run live sound on occasion; I use a dBx driverack PA-2 that provides real-time variable stereo tri-amp crossovers, adjustable driver delay compensation, and eq compensation designed for live venues such as clubs and brewpubs. For the (non-fixed installation) live sound problem, eq is really the only solution currently available to help out the room acoustic. Club sound does not have to suck if done right.

So what is ARC? ARC IS NOT AN EQUALIZATION SYSTEM! Equalizers work in the frequency domain (amplitude response) while ARC works in the time domain (phase/impulse response). This is done computationally based on an engineering concept called the Fourier transform. Any engineer who has ever tried to use equalization to address mixing room problems will tell you it is a waste of time.

Any engineer that calls ARC “snake oil” because eq cannot solve mixing room issues has not tried it and does not understand how it works. ARC addresses room problems computationally based on a measurement set that characterizes reflections in the time domain. I like to think of the resulting plug-in parameter set as “anti-reflections.” This method corrects sources of response problems such as standing waves and comb filtering.

For smaller rooms with less reflection complexity (such as control rooms and home living rooms), I have become a big fan of ARC (the original) and ARC-2. These products are related to Audyssey home theater technology.

After spending much time and money on room treatments, spectrum analysis, waterfall plots, my own reverberation vs. frequency testing, etc. etc., mixes made in my control room just did not translate well. Once I added ARC to my Cubase setup (in a sub-group so it is not part of the rendering chain), the translations became repeatable and reliable. Mixes sound "right" in my vehicles, living room audiophile system (Aragon 8008 into B&W 802's), high-end Shure earbuds, Sennheiser HD595's, Blowes QC-2's, even my crummy laptop and cell phone speakers. Everything sounds balanced when your nearfields speak the truth.

I recently added a pair of the (love 'em or hate 'em) studio standard Yamaha NS-10s to my control room, and needed to add a new ARC measurement set to my list.

However, someone made off with the IK microphone (the "8" on the ARC-2 selection menu), so I emailed IK to ask where I could find a replacement. That was yesterday, and I have not heard back from them yet.

Meanwhile, a mixing task is coming up, so I pulled out my trusty Dayton EMM-6 that came with my 1/24th octave analyzer software.

I ran a measurement set with it, using the "8" option in ARC-2. I also re-ran a measurement set for my Mackie HR824 "main" nearfields. I am using a TrueSystems P2 analog professional-grade preamp to maintain an accurate replica of the signal into my MOTU A/D converters.

The results sound great. The new curve corrections show that peaks and dips were removed or supressed, and more importantly, A-B listen testing with known good mixes proved once again the value of the ARC plugins.

I would still really like to know the IK ARC system specifications for the test microphone, however. The Audyssey website makes a big deal of “professionally calibrated” microphones provided with their higher-end products. Perhaps those specs are a trade secret (such as the seldom available microphone phase/impulse response curve staying within a defined limit mask).

Meanwhile, I can make an unqualified recommendation on the Dayton EMM-6 as an ARC-2 substitute, using the “8” option.

 

ARC is an EQ software, no matter what you think. It not correct your room's issues. It can make things worst or better just a little. To seriusly treat your room, you should know how your room sounds first. Resonances, Frequency Responses, Firts time reflections, etc. I suggest REW as the winner to make that job. Once you know it, you can choose the correct medicine to fix that room issues.
Acoustic isn't so easy to play with a software and magically make your room sounds fantastic. Just my 2 cents.

 

gotta love some background

Equalization is the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal.
so that title can be applied, however I get the point he tries to stress.

To bad he doesn't get in detail what it does with the concept of Fourier transform,
my understanding it's just a mathematical solution. A well-known implementation in audio would be FFT or FIR.

I'm not a mathematician, so its too much for me to grasp to be honest.
but it does sound like he is quoting the marketing team.

He fails to explain why this processing does not has drawbacks.

My opinion is that his post overall is a too positive.

 

Whew! I'm glad we sorted all that out.

 

Wow! This thread reads like a climate change debate. However, imo, there is no "room" for denying that nodes, anti-nodes, standing waves, resonance, reflections, bass build up, bad desk/monitor placement/positioning/angling are real.

 

I still don't know what I think, So I'm glad you do.

I do believe in mathematics, It keeps airplanes flying, self driving cars possible, world economics viable, and are the reason your DAW works.

Is it so hard to believe that they could develop an system to improve the analysis and correction for your rooms sound? Probably too hard. LOL

Just posted that as information for those that are interested. Have you tried ARC2 yet?

 

Last edited: Aug 30, 2016

I don't think he is because his last line is

Their marketing has always maintained that only the official supplied microphone would work correctly with the software. They would never tell you to use anything else. I have a Dayton EMM-6 and have tried ARC2 and manually tuning with a 32 band EQ and RTA. Both methods sound similar but different. Although I come from a background of tuned commercial studios, often I mix with no correction on JBL 305's, and just stay close to them. Still don't know what to think. I can work ether way if I reference material I know well.

 

Last edited: Aug 30, 2016

Mathema

Me too believe in mathematics, but mathematics don't fix your room.
And yes I tried ARC2 system. If you want a better software in that direction just try Dirac Live. It's far away better (and expensive).
Arc2 it's a toy.

 

@JST I'm interested in what you are saying and I have literally less than 0 experience with monitors, rooms and stuff. But are you also saying that standing/cancelling waves are not a deal when using nearfield monitors? Because I'm using the Resolv SE8 and, without acoustic treatment, there are a lot of spots where some specific frequencies below 300-400 get boosted/lowered. Speaker placement doesn't help, just change the frequencies

Sorry for off topic