ARC system

Is anyone familiar with ARC system? I take the measurements then I insert the plug in in the master bus, what happens is the panning changes, I have to pan the main master bus to about %40 right to get it right it in the center. That's with the ARC system on does anyone have this issue?

It's not a mixed song yet because I'm just trying to see how it sounds and wow, ARC system is a very beautiful technology it sounds great. But that's the only thing I need to solve . With the pan all set to "0" even individual tracks it all sounds more to the left, the track meters show center but the master buss meter shows more to the left, with the ARC on

It sounds like a few of your mic positions may not have been as symmetical as they could/should have been. You have to be super accurate with your placements. Also, if you do not have the latest update and are using old room corrections that were done using an older version of the software, phasing will sometimes occur. Quite a few things to take a look at here.

First, make sure when you do the room correction procedure, you use the lowest latency you can achieve in your asio control panel. From there, when you set your mic level make sure there is no signal showing on the meters when no sound is present. When you do the test signal, make sure the hottest bar lit up is just barely lighting up the "K" on "OK". No hotter and no lower.

From there, you MUST make sure that each mic placement is completely and perfectly symmetical and you should do at least 18 measurements. Also, make sure your mic is perfectly staight up and down, and get a mirror or have a friend position the mic so it is equal to your nose and ears. Make sure you get that first sweet spot area spot on and put the mic exactly where your ears would be in that position. Position 1 is VERY important as this is where your field starts, and is also where your level will be set.

For your placements, you can use a tape measurer combined with taped spots on your floor as guidelines. I can't stress how important your symmetrical mic placements have to be. A few inches off, too high or out of position and you will encounter phasing. Also, the latency and mic level thing are equally important. So make sure you revisit some of this stuff and maybe do another room correction or 2. The more precise you can be with your placements, the more accurate ARC will be for you. It took me about 10 tries to really get this right realisitcally. So give some of this a shot and get back to us. Good luck. :)

Now it makes more sense I might of missed the part to place the microphone symmetrically. 1 more question,, does it matter what order you place the microphone after the mixing spot? for example, first would be were I mix in front of the monitors , then I would take the mic from the same position to the left , then to opposite right , then going backwards repeating the process.

The first measurement is made with a tape measure.....dead center....home position...on the mic with the boom extended. Then I place the center of the mic stand in exactly the same position as the first measurement.......I use a boom with incremental markings on it, and swing it around like a compass needle. I pick out a mark like the edge of the speaker or the center of the speaker or a piece of tape on the wall 10" to the right or left of the speakers...ect....then I sight down the boom like aiming a gun at the target mark using the mic like a bead on a rifle. Left target then right target moving the boom out or in to approximate the marks in the little drawing......It's better to take at least 20 measurements which means you will have to make up some of your own.....I plotted mine out on paper before I started.

As far as E. Q. coloration I tried a couple of different mic pres and finally ended up using just a phantom power unit going directly into my sound card (Delta 1010)....the preamps seemed to color the sound and the resulting curve calculations.

Hope this helps.

ORIGINAL: Art1820m

Now it makes more sense I might of missed the part to place the microphone symmetrically. 1 more question,, does it matter what order you place the microphone after the mixing spot? for example, first would be were I mix in front of the monitors , then I would take the mic from the same position to the left , then to opposite right , then going backwards repeating the process.

Art, in your manual is a chart with numbers that will cover just about any room. They give you a few different room examples with the numbers 1-15 to show you where you would place the mic. Follow the chart, don't just do this whatever way you feel is best.

Dizzi: 16 placements is not enough unfortunately. Your best bet is 18 or higher. I didn't have the full correction I felt was actually "correct" until I went to 18 actually. I could have gone even further than that, but 18 seemed to give me what I was looking for. My biggest issue is bass in my room. I haven't noticed any harshness from ARC at this time, but it does alter the highs of my monitors...it just does so in a good way to my ears and it cuts away excess mid range congestion. You definitely have to make your measurements as precise as I've mentioned for best results. What brought me to these measurements was the way you are feeling right now. I got a bit of phase, I wasn't getting what I felt was true readings and I was ready to give up on the whole thing. It took me about 10 tries (maybe a few more) to get it right. I just did another correction last night actually.

I use an Adam sub 8 on all my monitors these days and did all my room corrections with it enabled. I wanted to see how ARC would compensate if I didn't have a sub. Well, it did a perfect job and to be honest, it compensated so well in fact, that I don't even need my sub! I made a new set of room corrections for each monitor which I called "Name of monitor no sub" just as a test. It is so accurate with my old tests that the only thing that changes is the "no sub" corrections have more bass in them due to ARC compensating. As soon as I kill the sub, it sounds just like the room corrections made WITH the sub. When I toggle between all the room correction sets I have and kill the sub when I'm supposed to, I honestly do not hear one bit of difference other than my ns-10's just sound like ass without a sub and not even ARC could help those. LOL!

It failed miserably correcting the NS-10's without the sub, I must confess. It literally pulled low end out from 200hz on down on the graph. Yet, all the others I corrected without the sub were perfect. Maybe I was getting tired and messed something up there. I will try to correct the Yams again with no sub. At that point though, I had corrected 4 sets of monitors (it takes roughly 40 minutes to do a set) and I was pretty stressed out from all the constant, in depth measurements. But all worked great other than the Yams. This could also be because I have them standing upright instead of laid down. I never liked the sound of them laid down, though it's the correct way to place them...so that could be what the deal is there. But they corrected perfectly with the sub being used. Anyway, try some of this stuff when you get a minute. Make sure your latency is as good as you can get it, really measure the stuff and be as accurate as possible, make sure you have the latest software update and do at least 18 measurements to the best of your ability. See if this helps some of your issues.

If the outcome is drastically different than what you currently have, it's safe to say one of your correction sessions was probably not done totally right. All mine that I have done since my 18 step rule and accurate mesaurements, have been exactly the same as the ones done in the past. Even the actual eq curve drawn on all the ones without the sub that I just did are identical to the ones with the sub other than ARC adding bass. The mids and highs are the same. So try it again and really put some time into your set up procedure just to see if it does indeed make a difference before you totally write ARC off. ;)

Mark the Measurements out on paper or do what i DId which was use Drawing pins pushed into my carpet, I laid out hte measurement pattern I wanted. THen I took a boom mic and set it so that the mic was directly above the end of 1 of the tripods feet (do this by teh simple expedient of using the mic cable like a piece of string hanging beneath the mic), adjust till its straight according to spirit level. ONce you have hte mic and boom stand aligned, its really simple you just move teh stand so that the tripod end is on the drawing pin, and is 90 degrees to your speakers and bingo accurate measurements.

I have expereienced no panning, the only other explanation might be if you have a really really asymetrical room, but I have an assymetrical room and the ARC massively improved my stereo image, not made it worse.

1 other thing, yes it will make your mix's sound very harsh, this is a good thing, the whole idea of a mix environment is that it should sound flat, we are not used to taht beucause most speakers are slightly biased towards warmth. However if you mix using ARC what you will find is that although the mix may sound harsh, and htat you have to really work hard to bring out the bass, when you turn it off, or bounce a mix and play it on other systems, suddenly your mix's sound really warm and lovely, becuase you have mixed them on a correctly referenced system. ps if you really can't stand the harsh sound try teh high end roll off preset which will calm things down a bit.

Hope that helps :)

G