Helpful ReplyWaves NX - Virtual Mix Room

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Slugbaby
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2016/11/19 07:58:20 (permalink)

Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room

I mix at home with headphones.  Unfortunately it's my only option outside from sending the tracks to a studio to actually mix in a GOOD room...
 
I'm thinking about buying Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room, but the only reviews I can find online are basically sales-pitches.
 
Does anyone have any opinions on it?  Waves is selling it for $49, and I'd be happy to pay that if I thought it would help my mix.
 
http://www.waves.com/plugins/nx#introducing-nx-virtual-mix-room
 

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#1
cclarry
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 08:27:01 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby jude77 2016/12/05 10:54:06
What Nx is a more of a "Stereo Field" plugin...

If you mix with Headphones, then you need to get
Sonarworks Headphone Calibration Plugin and, if
you don't have a pair of cans that are on their calibration
list, then get a pair....

THIS will help you mix far more then Nx will...


#2
JonD
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 09:48:53 (permalink)
+1 to what Larry said.
 
As for reviews, there are many on YouTube (not made by Waves). Here's one, for example:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBFZ3GquYR8
 

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BassDaddy
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 20:44:03 (permalink)
You should be able to get it cheaper than that at everyplugin.com. Even cheaper with latest code, which I don't know. Anybody... anybody.. Bueller?

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#4
Fleer
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 20:48:23 (permalink)
Ferris has left the building.

"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl" (Wish You Were Here)
#5
Zo
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 21:00:15 (permalink)
Sonarworks refererence 3 is what you want ....

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#6
Nino Vargas
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 21:07:43 (permalink)
Zo
Sonarworks refererence 3 is what you want ....


#7
Sycraft
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/19 21:10:58 (permalink)
I likes it.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Just-got-Waves-Nx-to-try-it-is-interesting-Updated-with-Headtracker-opinions-m3480353.aspx
 
I find it compares favourably with my surround sound setup. It isn't going to replace it, but it is impressive what a good job it does when paired with its head tracker.
#8
Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/11/21 08:33:21 (permalink)
Great, thanks everyone!

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#9
Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/12/05 09:16:30 (permalink)
So 2 weeks later...
I pre-spent my Christmas bonus.  
Waves NX:  Seems pretty good at resolving the panning issues that come with using headphones (the isolated ears).
Beyerdynamic 990 Pro Headphones:  I needed (wanted) new headphones, these had decent reviews and I found a realtively inexpensive pair.  They sound and feel great.  Plus, they're on Sonarworks' list of pre-calibrated models.
Sonarworks Headphone Calibration:  This seemed to have a minimal benefit, but for the cost I'm glad to have it.  
Between those 2 applications, my mixes are sounding more reliable when played on other sources.  I think they're both worth having, and they cover completely different aspects of the mix well.
 
Thanks for your help guys!

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#10
Sycraft
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/12/05 10:16:21 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby Slugbaby 2016/12/05 10:34:48
If you are using Nx and Sonarworks together make sure you feed the signal in to Nx first, then that output in to Sonarworks. If you do it the other way around it could mess up the sound.
 
Also make sure you take both out of the plugin chain before you bounce.
#11
Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/12/05 10:35:44 (permalink)
I've been using them in that order (makes sense), and they're the only FX in the Master Bus bin.  Simply have to remember to turn off the bin before exporting.  Haven't screwed that up yet, but it's early days.

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#12
sharke
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/12/05 11:13:44 (permalink)
I think it's pretty good although I'm not sure if I like it more than the VRM Box, which for me fell out of use when I switched to an RME Babyface with no optical output. I would say Sonarworks is more important but that it's still very useful. There are commonly held reasons why mixing on headphones is not ideal, and NX seems to fix them. In fact I'd probably say that mixing through Sonarworks and NX on headphones is a lot better than mixing through monitors in an untreated room. 
 
NX definitely seems to help with ear fatigue as well. I find it's more comfortable to listen to music on headphones with it switched on - you don't have that "closed in" feeling. Although I do tend to bring down the ambiance level from the default slightly. It's well worth doing the head measurements properly as well. 

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#13
bluzdog
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2016/12/05 16:10:40 (permalink)
sharke
I think it's pretty good although I'm not sure if I like it more than the VRM Box, which for me fell out of use when I switched to an RME Babyface with no optical output. I would say Sonarworks is more important but that it's still very useful. There are commonly held reasons why mixing on headphones is not ideal, and NX seems to fix them. In fact I'd probably say that mixing through Sonarworks and NX on headphones is a lot better than mixing through monitors in an untreated room. 
 
NX definitely seems to help with ear fatigue as well. I find it's more comfortable to listen to music on headphones with it switched on - you don't have that "closed in" feeling. Although I do tend to bring down the ambiance level from the default slightly. It's well worth doing the head measurements properly as well. 


The Babyface has optical:
Optical I/O
(TOSLINK): The unit automatically detects SPDIF or ADAT input signals. The optical
output can operate as ADAT or SPDIF output, depending on the current setting in the Settings
dialog.
I haven't seen the adapter to convert the adat out to spdif though.
 
Rocky
#14
Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/01/27 09:11:50 (permalink)
So there's been a new and very disappointing turn of events.
I made some rough mixes of songs I'm working on, and took them over to the studio where I'm going to have them mixed.  MY GOD, they sound awful.  The bottom end was boomy and overpowering, the high end disappeared, and instruments that were dominant were EQ'd into the background.  I was actually embarrassed by the product I'd brought in!
 
I KNOW this studio sounds good, the culprit has to be the mix on my DAW.
 
These demos were mixed with my Beyerdynamic 990Pro headphones, and Sonarworks was on the Master Bus with the corresponding "headphone file" to compensate for BD's "flavour."
 
 
* and yes, I did remember to remove the Soundworks software from the bin before exporting. 
 

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#15
Mesh
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/01/27 10:01:23 (permalink)
Wow!!
So, the demo's sound good on the H-phones with the software enabled (at home), but not in the studio? Something's not quite right here....

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#16
Hatstand
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/01/27 22:52:38 (permalink)
What does the output look like on a spectrograph and how does the sound compare to a reference track?
That may give you a clue.

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#17
sergiosimoes
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/01/27 23:32:06 (permalink)
I got NX some days ago when Waves gave that $20 coupon and I was planning to get Sonarworks until I saw that Toneboosters released a much cheaper similar plugin last year (Morphit). Maybe you can give it a try.

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Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/01/30 13:08:37 (permalink)
Another followup:  this one was a "Keyboard/Chair interface error."
I had a  compressor on the Master ProChannel (i never use that, must have done it accidentally and/or forgotten) that "adjusted" the frequencies.  
 
 
PS.  Thanks for offering to help!
post edited by Slugbaby - 2017/01/30 14:05:13

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#19
Zo
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/02/02 01:44:06 (permalink)
Using both , i would not use nx before sonarworks cause when sonarworks created the calibration files they didn t used nx or something else , just straight from your headphone , so i would do it sonarwork , then nx .... the key in all cases to really aprecciate dynamic ranges and spacialisation is to monitor at low volume in headphones ...

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BassDaddy
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/02/02 20:25:45 (permalink)
I've been using the Nx without the head tracker and the only problem is now the straight headphones sound really strange and unnatural. And that's not a real problem. I like the Nx.

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#21
tlw
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/02/02 20:37:11 (permalink)
NX is useful, but the head tracker gimmick is pointless. Unless perhaps you really want to know what your mix will sound like to someone sitting facing away from the speakers or moving around. It can also be pretty heavy on cpu.

It does really need to be used with Sonarworks or some other method of flattening the headphone's frequency response though. A task which would be much easier if headphone manufacturers supplied frequency plots of their headphones so a reverse eq curve would be fairly straightforward to set up to remove at least the bigger mountains and valleys in the respose plot.

Monitor, speaker and microphone manufacturers supply frequency plots for even inexpensive products like the SM58 or 57. That few headphone manufacturers do may just say something about their headphones I suppose.

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msorrels
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/02/03 08:45:07 (permalink)
I just built a test project using Melda's Noise Generator and Autopan(so the sound would move around) and putting NX and Sonarworks plugins in different orders.  The order of the two plugins didn't matter, the audio matched exactly (inverted the phase on one nulled out the other). 
 
Not sure if with very quiet sources (or loud/clipping) there can be issues with the EQ curves causing frequencies to completely vanish but loud (but not too loud) pink noise being autopanned  (or not, tried it both ways) didn't show any difference.  This is with NX with it's default settings (no head tracker) and Sonarworks with the reference ATH-50X profile set to Flat.
 
After this test, I'm no longer thinking it matters what order you put the two plugins in.

-Matt
 
#23
Slugbaby
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Re: Waves NX - Virtual Mix Room 2017/02/03 13:15:11 (permalink)
I agree - logically it shouldn't matter which plugin you use first.  NX-VR addresses panning, Sonarworks addresses EQ.

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