Digital Room Correction

[favance]

You can already do this with the Axe-Fx III if you really wanted to.

But it's not a good idea since 1) RTA is the wrong tool to make adjustments for the room, and 2) it's better to do this type of thing at the FOH level.

1. If this is true, can you please explain how do I do this w/the Axe III?
2. What happens if I'm not running through the FOH?
3. How do most FOH Systems "accurately measure and flatten the entire room eq", if not with an RTA Mic & white noise measuring at different points?

 

[yeky83]

1. If this is true, can you please explain how do I do this w/the Axe III?
2. What happens if I'm not running through the FOH?
3. How do most FOH Systems "accurately measure and flatten the entire room eq", if not with an RTA Mic & white noise measuring at different points?

1. Axe III has an RTA and several inputs (mic-pre is prob necessary). As for signal, you could generate a sweep with Axe, or provide your own pink noise.
2. If you're not running through the FOH, what are you running through? Are you playing alone?
3. RTA isn't a good method because it doesn't provide time info. It likely doesn't provide enough info to actually fix issues. FFT solutions are much more useful, SMAART, Systune, etc.

 

[BillyZeppa]

I have the IK Multimedia ARC2 version of this and it works well. In a poorly shaped room (too small or too narrow, etc.) that sucks the low end out of one area and builds it up in another, it evens this out. In a well shaped, large enough room, it clarifies the stereo image, like sharpening the focus, so up to a point it seems to be suppressing reflections and reducing standing waves as well as flattening the response.

 

[yeky83]

so up to a point it seems to be suppressing reflections and reducing standing waves as well as flattening the response.

No, these software solutions can't solve reflections or standing waves. They do flatten the response at the listening location though.

 

[BillyZeppa]

No, these software solutions can't solve reflections or standing waves. They do flatten the response at the listening location though.

So is that one of those things where they say it does something it doesn't do? The IK ARC2 definitely sharpens to image.
As I recall you can DE convolve the reflections of a room, for a single spot in a room, quite easily. I have actually done it crudely using an impulse. My room has a slight flutter echo, that disappeared using the technique, music a bit sharper. An impulse is not as effective or accurate as a convoluted sweep, but it was good enough to show it working. I had assumed that the IK ARC2 uses a sum of these impulse responses to cover more than a single location, in a compromise of some kind.. Do you happen to know? Have you tried the experiment I describe? Did it work? I imagine it could be done using the AFX IR functions.

 

[steadystate]

You cannot remove flutter echo from a room with convolution or any other type of signal processing. You may be able to reduce it in a recording, but you can't eliminate it from a listening room by any means other than acoustic treatment.

 

[plexi59]

My home theater receiver has this correction stuff. It asks you to move the calibration mic to where the ears of the listeners are going to be, and adjust things to fix the frequency response and even out the spatial coverage. It does make a difference to my home theater set up.

As to the monitors and mixing... What is "the most true sound of your mix"? Can you even define that? And will the person listening to your music be listening to your mix on anything even remotely comparable? In all likelihood they will be using shitty smartphone earbuds, their car stereo, or a portable speaker, in a completely uncontrolled acoustic environment. That's why studios use Yamaha NS10s: they're so shitty, if your mix sounds good on them, it'll sound good everywhere.

 

[merlin17]

As to the monitors and mixing... What is "the most true sound of your mix"? Can you even define that? And will the person listening to your music be listening to your mix on anything even remotely comparable? In all likelihood they will be using shitty smartphone earbuds, their car stereo, or a portable speaker, in a completely uncontrolled acoustic environment. That's why studios use Yamaha NS10s: they're so shitty, if your mix sounds good on them, it'll sound good everywhere.

Not true.
People use NS10 because of their transient response, and they were early nearfields, and everybody knew them.
If you mix in an uncontrolled environment, you will compensate for your specific room problems which will add to the problems of the listeners'. If your mix environment is controlled, your mixes will translate everywhere (to an extent...).

 

[plexi59]

Sure, I agree that it needs to be "controlled", it's better to not use an untreated room for example, and it's better to sit in a sweet spot of your monitors, but this "correction" stuff is going a bit overboard, IMO. It's necessarily introducing flaws of its own, similar to how a modern PA speaker (nearly all of them are DSP corrected now) has a higher noise floor (because it compensates for the weakness and nonlinearity of its tweeter with a FIR/convolution), and sometimes "farts out" when you crank it, because the system corrects beyond the actual amp/speaker capabilities. Anyone who has ever used a parametric equalizer knows what I'm talking about: corrections are not "free", nor are they perfect.

I'd much rather have a modest amount of knowledgeably placed acoustical treatment and monitors that are reasonably linear out of the box.

 

[BillyZeppa]

You cannot remove flutter echo from a room with convolution or any other type of signal processing. You may be able to reduce it in a recording, but you can't eliminate it from a listening room by any means other than acoustic treatment.

You know, you're right. I used the wrong word. It's a hollowness that goes away not a flutter. And a centering and deepening of the image.