As some of you know, I bought the ARC 2.5 room correction system last May.  I don't use it much and the reason why is that when I use it, it tells me that I need to add bass to the track and if I do it is much too bassy and deep on the playback of every playback system I play the product on.
 
Here's what I really don't get:
My tiny studio is 5' x 12 ' and I have it situated along the short wall.  I have it set up acoustically using acoustic tiles by Auralex and by their suggestion (after evaluation) placed the bass traps 2 high and 2 low and the low pair go directly behind the field monitors, which are JBL LSR 308's which have the bass porting out the back of the speakers, so as per Auralex's suggestion, the bass goes out of the speakers and directly into the bass traps!!
 
I realize that ARC 2.5 is designed to be the correction that your recording and mixing environment lacks so when I have the room  set to Flat response it cuts back bass response.  When I toggle it off and on the correction, when bypassed, the bass gets much louder, so what that results in is, as per ARC flat response, I add bass.  I turn off ARC when rendering the mix and when I play the song in Windows Media Player or WinAmp I have to cut the bass on the players equalizer so as to not be blown out of the room by the bass.  In fact, the bass takes over the track and upstages everything else going on in the song, but I set it up as per ARC Flat response mode.
 
Why is my room so bassy when the bass traps are (supposedly) sucking the bass out of the room?  It's impossible for me to reconfigure my room set up as it is so small and the tiles are, for the most part, permanent.   ARC users, let me know what's going on here.
 
Thanks!
John B.

The bass traps aren't sucking the bass out - they're stopping bass reflection off the back wall.
 
It sounds like something hasn't gone right during the measurement process.
 
I had a similar issue when I moved my speakers away from the back wall. When they were against the wall, there was too much bass without ARC2, so my mixes sounded really tinny. ARC2 fixed this.
 
However, when I moved my speakers away from the wall had the opposite effect - basically what you're getting - i.e. ARC2 says there's too much bass, so it cuts it, and you end up adding too much back.
 
If you've got a small room, it may be that the microphone is too close to the speakers which is causing a proximity effect. Try re-doing the measurement with different volume levels.
 

Bass traps are normally put in the corners of the room , they are normally about 4" thick . what is the thickness and material of the "bass traps " ? Each room is different and your is not the best , I have tons of traps in all corners plus 
the ceilings , because of the low ceiling I still have problem , right now I am using sonarworks , but I have arc as well
 I prefer a hardware solution and used a eq just to tame the bumps , that work very well too  but Trapping is first!
 
 

The problem is the internal volume of your room, which is a bit small to properly support very low frequencies. Any kind of analysis software you employ is going to tell you there isn't enough bass (or worse, that there are huge peaks and dips in the upper bass frequencies that you need to correct). But if you trust its assessment, you will invariably end up with excessive bass that doesn't translate well to other environments. This is one case where a simple spectrum analyzer on the master bus will be of more practical value than anything that listens to what's bouncing around the room. At least for low frequencies, anyway.

bitflipper
 This is one case where a simple spectrum analyzer on the master bus will be of more practical value than anything that listens to what's bouncing around the room. At least for low frequencies, anyway.

Any suggestions (hopefully free)?

Johnbee58

bitflipper
 This is one case where a simple spectrum analyzer on the master bus will be of more practical value than anything that listens to what's bouncing around the room. At least for low frequencies, anyway.

Any suggestions (hopefully free)?

This one is pretty good  .
https://www.voxengo.com/product/span/
I see you are using Cakewalk by BandLab . On your master bus you have a Pro Chanel with The QUADCURVE EQ.
If you are not using that for EQ'ing your master , you can engage it , leave it flat and then enlarge the fly out section  so you can see what bass frequency's are giving you the most problems .

Kenny

Johnbee58

bitflipper
 This is one case where a simple spectrum analyzer on the master bus will be of more practical value than anything that listens to what's bouncing around the room. At least for low frequencies, anyway.

Any suggestions (hopefully free)?

I found that taking new measurements at the lowest possible level ARC would accept improved things for me significantly.

msmcleod
 
I found that taking new measurements at the lowest possible level ARC would accept improved things for me significantly.

So, you're suggesting I re measure.  I took the first one back in May and my memory isn't good enough for me to recall what you meant by lowest level.  Would appreciate your refreshing me.
 
I regret buying those baffles.  They were a real waste of $500.00.  But Auralex couldn't have been honest enough to tell me that my small room was just too impractical for the panels to do me any good. (That would've cost them a sale). Then, according to some, I wasted another $200.00 on the ARC.  I'm not Bill Gates.  It would be nice if those in music retail would be more honest.  I gave Auralex my room dimensions and sent a pic of my room.  Honesty is always the fairest way to go.  Ahhh, but who said life was fair??
 
John B

first, make sure you are using the mic correctly,
the old mic has to be pointed at the ceiling,
the new mic has to be pointed at the center spot between the two monitors.
 
now, setup a 'reference' song.....
 
 
once you re-measure your ARC, (make sure you are at 48khz), set your playback volume of your monitors
(i find 75 db to be just right for me)
 
set up a "new tune", and name it something like "Reference Songs", and pull in several of your favorite pro recordings;
 
line them all up on top of each other, and mute them all but one...
 
use the fader for each stereo track and set them so that the softest song is at ZERO, and everything else gets the fader moved down to match the volume of the softest one (there are other better ways to do this, but this is the fastest),
this puts all the playback of your 'reference' tracks at the same volume.
do this to each song, til they all have the same playback volume, muting all but one as you go along.
this way, when you play them back, you can pick and chose individual songs to reference on the fly.
i pull in hard rock, soft rock, jazz, acoustic stuff, classic rock modern, etc.
 
 
then apply the ARC vst on the mains.
 
setup the 'FLAT' target curve setting as a start point.
 
then playback all of your favorite reference songs thru arc, one by one, and look for similarities and anomalies.
 
now, in ARC, you have the ability to setup CUSTOM eq settings;
 

 
chose custom 1, 
and start to build your own custom curve, based on what you know from the playback of known pro mixes thru your monitor system in your room (you should know these songs well enough to know that you are hearing good translation and recognize frequency issues from the room):
 

 
then, toggle the correction on, off, on, back and forth, as your tweak your custom eq curve.
 
eventually, you'll get a better end result that stands up across more playback system than simply taking the 'FLAT" target curve it lays on you.
 
 
 

Of course its going to sound bassy IN THE ROOM YOU RECORDED IN post mix and you turn it off.   How does it sound on other systems?   Sonarworks Reference Studio is superior to ARC2 because it also has a toolcalled Sytemwide  that allows ALL sound through the PC to be corrected based on the measurements and no, it doesn't "correct" twice if you have a plugin in your DAW and on the over computer sound output.  Its smart and knows the difference.  If you are having issues on other outside systems then you need to tweak your correction curve or redo the measurement process carefully