$300 to fix everything....

I have a very bad mixing environment.  Speakers up against the wall, one in a corner, lots of funky bass flying around.  Luckily, it is a pretty dead room, but I have serious low end issues. 

I have NO room treatment whatsoever.  The very small room is set up to be used as an office and by the fam. on occasion, and it isn't really possible to hang four foot long bass traps from the ceiling.  I don't even think they would fit (low ceiling too).  

So, will spending my dough on ARC actually help me? I currently CANNOT translate my mixes to real world environments without a lot of back and forth, and I'm sick of that.

In other words:  Will ARC improve a room with no pre-treatment?  I'm not expecting total magic, but I also don't want to spend bucks on ARC only to realize my issues are non fixable without absorption or something.

Thanks in advance.....

Thanks.  I just read that thread, which prompted my post...

I think I'm just waiting for Danny D.  to chime in here and tell me what I already know:  ARC will certainly help, but there are certain things that only traps can really and truly fix.  I just want to hear it from someone who actually knows the software.

... and everything you listen to needs to run through your computer... or you'll constantly be listening to un-ARCed and ARCed stuff back and forth.

Which will make you crazy.

That means all your reference recordings of your favorite commercial CDs have to be played back "Through" your computer rather than any home appliances you have such as a CD player or a Record Player etc. if you want to listen to references to tune your listening ear.

If you monitor or listen through a hardware mixer... or route any audio to speakers without a trip through your computer... well, none of that will be ARC'd.


Arc is on sale this year.... you can buy it for just under $300!!!


best regards,
mike

Arc helped me figure out what flat sounds like.  It helped me realize what's going on in my studio room acoustically.  Because of the reasons mentioned above about your reference material being un-corrected the differences are huge, so It helped me learn where to compensate for the room & my monitors.  Though I wouldn't tell my wife (who bought this for me)  I rarely ever turn it on any more to be honest.  Flat is good, Flat is also sonically dull and boring.  I've gone back to mixing without it.   I should add though.... I have so much Aurelex crap  in there that they sent me free stuff because of the size of my order!  (I have Studio foam, basstraps, I have sheet block IN the walls, and used a few tubes of their acoustic calking when building the room)

My room still has a few issues but they aren't crazy.  I think more of the problem is the bass hype from my monitors which I have gotten used to & learned to compensate for.  When I turn on ARC and that's no longer present I tend to put it back which for me ment screwing up my mix and making it REAL LOW END HEAVY.   
  
    I recommend the system regardless though.  Either a) it will fix many dominant problems and help you out permanently or b) it will show you the problems so you can avoid them with or without ARC's help.  Either way, it's an important lesson to be learned.

"If the room is very small, and if reconfiguration is not possible, then maybe ARC is all you can do. But I wouldn't start from that assumption."

Nice line.  I think I sort of am starting from that assumption.  I can probably do a bit of a hybrid, where I place small aurelex panels right behind the speakers just to help a bit, then go with ARC.  I just can't have what I need, which is a bunch of bass traps in corners and along the ceiling.

But in addition to being bang for the buck related, ARC also will keep me in good with the missus, who would certainly take issue with egg cartons, bass traps or anything else involving insulation and burlap all over the walls. 

RE: reference materials.  I have no mixer, and I usually just import a few songs into Sonar as reference tracks while mixing, so they too will be affected by the equalization.  

I'll think a bit more, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  Its not perfect, but hey, I'm just me, a guy with an expensive hobby.   Nobody is paying for this stuff, I'm just trying to make my life easier by taking fewer trips out to the truck....

ARC has solved a lot of room problems for me...the low end just blasts without the correction it provides.

Also, it separates l/r placements really well.

+1 to everything that's been said by everyone. Just a quick comment about what Mike mentioned which was:

" and everything you listen to needs to run through your computer... or you'll constantly be listening to un-ARCed and ARCed stuff back and forth.

Which will make you crazy.

That means all your reference recordings of your favorite commercial CDs have to be played back "Through" your computer rather than any home appliances you have such as a CD player or a Record Player etc. if you want to listen to references to tune your listening ear.

If you monitor or listen through a hardware mixer... or route any audio to speakers without a trip through your computer... well, none of that will be ARC'd."

This is 100% true but here's the thing. When you are in your recording environment, you WANT everything to have ARC on it. The fix is to run Winamp with a VST plugin add-on which will allow ARC to run through Winamp without having to ever turn it on again. That means...anything you play through Winamp will be ARC'd automatically. Your songs, pro CD's, anything that plays through your studio monitors. So you're covered there.

Zo was kind enough to share this with me years ago. I always credit him for bailing me out here. Here's a link to the plug add-on you can run in Winamp: http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/programs/winamp/

So though Mike is correct in what he's saying, there is a work-around that is completely painless.

Will it help you sven? I would love to say yes...but I'd hate for you to come back to me and say "I listened to your advice, but this thing sucks!" I can only tell you this...

It has worked for me in every room I have ever used it on. Big rooms, small rooms, crap rooms, rooms that should not be even considered for studio use, rooms loaded with junk in them, empty rooms, professional rooms...the list goes on and on. I have had one failure in all my times using ARC. It did not correct my old NS-10's the right way at all. As a matter of fact, it made them sound worse. However, I added a sub to them and re-corrected, and they are as perfect as all my other monitors at this time. I use them every day without any issues..and what I mix on them is what I hear in other places.

I've ARC's so many different rooms and monitors....I'm quite happy with only one slight failure. If I didn't have a sub with those NS-10's...they would not be used at all. But everything else I've tried ARC on...excellent results even without a sub. I make it a point to do dual corrections at all times. One with sub enabled, one without sub. I don't even need my sub here because of how ARC compensated on all my monitors. I can use the "no sub" corrections and I get the same results as using "with sub" corrections and the sub literally being enabled.

So to me....that says a lot about this plugin and what it does. I also feel that it is of the utmost importance to map out your room with the right symmetrical mic placements. This as Philip mentioned, is not a procedure you want to rush through. I think some of his comment involved a little frustration with the mention of it "taking half the day" lol...but it does take some time. I just recently did my new studio control room about a month ago. It took me 40 minutes to map out my placements with tape, measuring tape etc...and 40 minutes to do about 30 correction placements if I remember correctly. So to me, an hour and 20 minutes isn't bad. I have a really nice control room in the new place. Two huge couches for clients to chill in, 4 big chairs and two studio chairs. We have bass traps etc and the room was built for studio specs. So we went into it with a little ammunition, but truth be told...we STILL had some mix issues with things transferring on other systems. Same issue...as everyone else...bass. ARC totally fixed us up and what I mix there, sounds the same here in my other studio as well as in my car and on other systems.

In my little home studio in my house, I have a 12x12 room that looks like a mini music store. Guitars hanging off the walls...book shelves, sliding glass door, big screen TV for video games, drum kit, keys, two mixing consoles, a 16 track 1 inch tape machine, everything you can possibly fit in a 12x12 room. All the stuff I have in the room fills it up and makes it more dead. This helps a lot. But it is NOT the ideal studio situation. I do lots of editing, some mastering and quite a few pre-pro ideas here. But, they sound nearly as good as what I do in my real studio or the new place I just got. So it has helped me in every situation I have ever been in. I do work in various partner studio's in the NJ and Philadelphia areas. I come armed with ARC at all times and always do a room correction before I work in a place. It's never failed me other than those NS-10's I told you about. Will it work for you? I can't say for sure...but for $300, I'd take the chance on it if you can afford it. Worst case scenario...you do as bitflipper tells you and add a few other things to the room if possible and allow ARC to top it off.

It's worked for me though. Whether a room had tuning already or not. I hope if you take the shot at it, that it works for you too. Best of luck in whatever you decide. :)

-Danny

sven450


my room is so bad, and my limitations so severe, I have no where to go but up.

That's the one good thing about being on the bottom...... nowhere else to go except.......Onward and upward.....!