SONAR & IK's ARC System/plugin

I couldn't agree more - it's improved my mixes a great deal. I know it doesn't "fix" my room, but the majority of what I record is direct, or low volume (Acoustic Guitar, etc). Physical treatment would help too, but in my case - my room is just oddly shaped, etc.

Isn't it nice to do a mix that has a nicely controlled low end?

:-)

I hope more people give it a try!

ARC is on my next on my list to buy. I keep hearing good things about it from people who actually use it. Thanks for the mini review with Sonar. How much of a CPU hit is it?

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Great points Bitflipper. Nah I personally don't look at it as room treatment (I have some treatment in place and plan to add more.) but as an extention of ones monitoring system. It is what it is...an equalization system (and hopefully a transparent one) and thanks for the tip on the Behringer. I will look into it as well.

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue
what is my GXQ-3102???? Chopped Liver?

That's a nice-looking EQ, Mike, but it takes up too much screen space. Is there a low-res version?

ORIGINAL: bitflipper

There is nothing wrong with the ARC approach, and it can in fact help despite the widely-held opinion that it is snake oil. (Ethan Winer has called ARC "a joke".)

You just have to be aware of its limitations.

I've read far more good things about ARC than bad. That's why I hesitantly, but now thankfully, took the plunge. My decision was based on all the views I read and finally my own choice. Considering that Ethan sells an expensive room treatment option, I'm not surprised that he thinks that the ARC system is "a joke".

It cannot "correct" a room. Its effect is only valid in the mix position, and in fact might make your output sound worse to listeners positioned elsewhere in the room.

It cannot compensate for a resonant null. No equalization scheme can. A null is a null is a null and it doesn't matter if you blast that frequency out at jet-engine volume, the null remains.

With the ARC system even though the "correction" is done for the listening position I found that anywhere in the room sounds better with ARC than not. For me, working on my own though, its only the listening position I need to improve. The same can be said about the DEQ2496 though, as I said already I don't think it does as good a job as ARC. Of course the hardware is more flexible as I can use it live as well as in the studio and it has extra features not found in the ARC system.
Doing the calibration measurements was a learning experience in itself as the system obviously is able to calibrate very fine changes in mic position. I took 14 samples within an ellipse only 1.4 meters at its widest. My listening position is at the apex of an equilateral triangle of 1.4 metre sides formed between the 2 speakers and the centre of my head.

You should not think of ARC as a substitute for acoustic treatments, but rather as a way to augment them, to reduce the worst resonant peaks that your traps cannot fully mitigate.

I recognize the value of room treatment (and said so in my first post) but I'm a long way off being able to do it. So in the mean time I'll be using ARC.

I'd like to add that if you're not willing to spend the money on ARC you can achieve the same result with an inexpensive outboard parametric equalizer such as the Behringer FBQ2496 and a little manual testing and tweaking. Not only will it cost less, since it's a hardware rather than a software solution you also avoid the CPU overhead.

I have a Behringer DEQ 2496 (many more features than the FBQ AUD$349) and it doesn't do as well with the room as the ARC does.
It cost me more than the ARC system did. Of course it has more features too.
DEQ2496 AUD$449 + Mic AUD$85
ARC AUD$384. inc Mic (US$307 inc free shipping@ ezounds IKM Crossgrade price)
I've had my DEQ for about 3 or 4 years now and use it for live work and external processing as it is a Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Compressor, Limiter, Expander, Feedback detection, as well as providing upto 24bit @ 96khz ADDA up to now doing some basic room eq and for reducing feedback, when I have a few folks playing live in my "studio" with mics.

I've now burnt a CD of a single song (before and after) in the soft Rock genre and all I can say is I'm happy I spent the money on the ARC. On my HiFi Audio system (with subwoofer) and in the car I now have what sounds like a well balanced mix.


Incidentally it will be interesting to find any differences introduced by use of the test microphone. One being a Behringer as recommended for use with the DEQ2496 and the other being the one shipped with the ARC system. Incidentally both mics are made in China and look almost identical??

OVERHEAD:
The overhead for ARC is negligible, and by that I mean that the CPU hit was maybe 1-2% on the SONAR CPU meter. (I'm running an Intel i7 920 with 6 GIG DDR3 RAM on VISTA x64) You only use 1 instance of it as the last plugin on the Master bus.

So far in testing, (just got it yesterday) I've only gone back to a previously completed song and put ARC across the Master bus. No remixing done at all. It will be interesting to set up a project with ARC on from beginning to end so that all sonic related decisions are made monitoring through ARC.

I'll reiterate that it was the most effective SINGLE thing I have done for improved overall sound. Its another tool. There's so much subjectivity in evaluating what amounts to good quality sound. One man's improved sound apparently is another man's snake oil.

I've been praising ARC since it came out. To me it is plug of the decade hands down. I have a pretty good review with some techniques I have used somewhere on this forum. I also did a little piece for IK on their website on page 4 of the testimonials due to the post I made on here.

All I can say for those that may think it's not all that it's cracked up to be...you just have to try it for yourself. If you systematically and symmetrically place your mic and measure your measurements to complete accuracy, this thing will blow your doors off. I recommend 18-20 measurements. The amazing thing about ARC is is doesn't just fix your sweetspot....it allows your mix to sound good anywhere in your room as long as your made corrections in those areas. This is where the extra measurements can make a difference. It even compensates for reflections, deadzones and anything else you wanna throw at it.

As for the Behringer mic vs the ARC mic, I was told though the specs are the same, the ARC mics (there are 2 depending when you bought your ARC system) the ARC mics are specifically calibrated to work with the ARC software. I have a few friends that have pirated versions of the software and bought the Behringer mic hoping it would work. Needless to say, it somewhat helped....but one of those friends took the plunge last weekend and bought the whole setup for real. He kept his old corrections he had done with the Behringer mic...and there is a huge difference in what he got from the Behringer and then the real ARC mic. The Behringer mic didn't compensate enough for low end, thus his mixes were bass heavy. ARC with the new software (that now gives you full bass response as a checkable option) takes care of a bass heavy type environment or will add to a bass light room with how it corrects. If you still seem a bit bass light in your mixes, the full bass response option will fix this and it is especially useful for those that may not have a sub. I swear...if you are second guessing yourselves with your mixes and feeling frustrated, this thing will work wonders for you as long as you take enough measurements and you're as tedious as possible with how you do them.

I've tested the thing in rooms with 0 treatment as well as rooms with loads of treatment and it's never failed a single test. All I can say to those that are hesitant...if you are having a problem in your studio to where your mixes are not what they should be, wouldn't it cost you more than $499 to get this taken care of anyway? For that price, all your problems go away...I'm serious. I can't tell you how many battles I got into with gear snobs and know-it-alls that never even tried the thing and sit there bashing it. If you haven't tried it...you have no idea what it's capable of. This is just one of those tools I am very opinionated about as well as passionate because it DOES make a huge difference. I swear to God if I worked for this company as a rep, I would have a "money back if not blown away" clause. And if you're not satisfied, I'd come do the procedure myself to make sure it was done right. If you aren't strategic and accurate with your placements in every possible way, you can end up very unhappy and also pick up a few artifacts. But if you do things the right way all across the board, it's fool-proof and will help ANY room and ANY set of monitors whether you have treatment or not. It's made such a difference in my world...I can't even begin to explain how much. I'd not sit here and brag about it if it were crap...honest. It's just a shame there is no way for someone skeptical to try it. :(

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

Does ARC address this? Or do they simply sell a mic that undergoes more rigorous quality control?

BTW, Mud and Danny... those are some endorsements!!! The well thought out explanations make ARC seem more and more interesting.

Maybe I should try the RMC that came with my JBLs.

RT, I finally got he joke. :-)

best regards,
mike

Can't say that ARC addresses that or not Mike, but I had the JBL's with the RMC and I wasn't impressed with it anywhere near what ARC did. As a matter of fact, I ordered the JBL's and my rep said "let me send you a set of Adam A7's as well so you can compare....just send back the JBL's because I know you will." LOL!!! He was so right! I listened to the JBL's (with no correction) for 2 days before hooking up the Adams. I mixed tunes and archived them. I hooked up the Adams and the first thing I noticed...was spacial stuff I hadn't noticed as much before...as well as a much cleaner and precise sound to my ears. Like what I heard was closer to better than the JBL's. I was a bit bass heavy with the Adams so I pumped up a little bass on the eq in the back and it seemed to really make a difference. I just wasn't down with the mids and high end of the JBL's. So after I ran a few mixes off using both, I decided to try the RMC. Though it helped and did make a bit of a difference, I just had a hard time having to train my ears to accept what the JBL's were putting out. As soon as I went back to the Adam's, I was like "yep, that's what my brain is telling me I should be hearing."

Once I ARC'd the Adam's (as well as NS 10's that I use standing up instead of lying down...they just sound better to me standing when ARC'd) and then Tannoy, Tascam and these little Radio Shack Otimus speakers....I was convinced this little gem was for real. I'm sure it would have made a drastic difference if the JBL's were ARC'd....I was just not crazy about the natural sound of those speakers man.

LOL you should see the endorsement I made on the IK page....it almost sounds like I was paid to say it, but I swear I wasn't. The thing just really works for me, Mike. And, I was totally at the end of my rope as an engineer at the time...seriously. I figured the best quality I could get would be a rough demo/pre-production studio and I'd still have to go to a studio if I ever wanted any quality sound. And all that time I was thinking to myself "I've been doing this for a very long time....I'm not the best, but I know my stuff and I know when something sounds good....and I can tell you what's wrong...but how come I can't do the same with my own stuff on my own gear and why does everything I do sound great in my studio and horrible eveywhere else?!"

The reason was simple....if your monitors and your room are working against you, it matters not how much you know....it won't make a difference if what's coming out isn't accurate enough to allow you to make the right calls, ya know? And that's exactly what my problem was. I can't promise this thing will work for everyone, but it's worked on every set of monitors I own and for all my friends as well. The only issues I had with it are the following...

1. At first I kept on forgetting to take it out of the master bus. That was a pain in the butt, but I found a solution to that problem by just creating multiple instances of ARC on 3 busses (one bus per pair of speakers) so my master bus is sent to the ARC correction that corresponds with that set of speakers I'm monitoring. This way when I need to hear another set, I press a button on the Samson C Control and change the master bus out to that ARC correction buss. There's a screen shot example of this in that Sonar color scheme thread where I posted a few pics of my scheme if you wanna see it. :) When I'm ready to export, I just reassign the master bus to my main soundcard out and I'm done.

2. It failed miserably on my NS-10's by themselves. No matter how many corrections I did, no matter how the speakers were set up or what the deal was, ARC just couldn't help them at all. It worked well on everything else though. One day, I decided to get the Adam Sub 8 whoofer. I run all my speakers into it via Samson C control. I decided to ARC all my speakers again with the sub and tried the NS-10's with the sub included. Success! Not sure why it made such a difference, but the tonality is completely different...not just the low end response. So whatever the deal is there, adding the sub to those monitors completely fixed them and I use them every day along with all the others and get good mixes no matter which I use.

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I've had the ARC for a year or so now and it was one of the best purchases I've made. My room is treated and using the ARC system simply cleared up the remaining issues for me. I have two main sets of speakers: Mackie HR824's and DynAudio BM5A's.

If you have a treated room and still feel that you need something to get it right, I'd suggest considering the ARC as a possible solution.

Tom

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

It doesn't appear that there is any input for loading a mic's response data.

Do they use a Linear Phase filter to make the adjustments?
How many nodes does it run?
Is it scalable?
In other words does it only instantiate a few poles if that's all that's required or does it run a standard number at all times?

When they draw the white "after" line how many samples do they use to plot the graph?

Is this just for small near fields or do people use this on full size speakers?

I'm still having trouble imagining that this is better than the results obtained with a good hi resolution RTA, 18 to 32 (or maybe 100) measurements with a mic that has a calibration file, and a few tweaks with a nice EQ. Which is in a nutshell, how the THX certified rooms are set up. The room I'm familiar with uses a Klark Technik digital EQ that was set up by the THX squad.

Buy/test/borrow one and try it. Come back and tell us your findings. Why criticise something you never tried/seen/heard? It's like saying "I've not heard it, but that movie or CD sucks".

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue
I don't doubt that it makes you enjoy your room more... I'm just advocating for discussing EQ correction more universally.

best regards,
mike

Start a new topic.

Dude

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

Do you?

EQ (with enough eq points) + RTA + Time to manually making it work = more then the price tag ARC

Depending on how much you value your time at, my question is why? Is it not just easier to use one integrated tool?

Workflow and ease-of-use come up all the time here, in terms of the tools used, why not this one?

Dude

Thanks for the screenshot and explanation, mudgel.

Question: the orange curve represents the original measurement of the room, but it looks strange. How does a room have nothing happening under 100Hz? Perhaps this is where the sweep begins?

What is the purpose of the "full range bass correction" option, and why would you use it or not use it?

I don't understand all of it either.

You have to realize that I got this thing installed it and ran it.

I physically marked out 14 places on my floor with tape, setup my mic on a stand at the specified height (ear level), and a plumb bob so I could line the mic up over the 14 spots and ran the test as explained in the literature.

I gave no consideration as to why things were done one way or another; I just followed instructions as I wanted to hear this thing working. You have to run it stand alone to create the eq curve before you can use ARC as a plugin.
Then I simply ran ARC on SONAR's master bus and did a bounce of a song with and without ARC.

Now I can take my time and go back and do a few more tests and answer questions like why nothing under about 100hz and so forth.

Of course I didn't realize that there was nothing under 100hz until after I did the test. I admit I hadn't noticed it before with other measuring systems. Maybe my speakers are developing a problem in the bottom end. I'll have to check as they are getting on (23yrs old) a bit.

It'll be interesting to compare this with hardware correction and other software like HarBal 2.3