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Digital room correction primer?

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Organorak

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Digital room correction primer?

PostTue Apr 25, 2017 6:02 am

I've just taken delivery of a new vintage REL subwoofer. Whilst musically an improvement on my previous one, my attempts at checking frequencies have alerted me to just how badly certain frequencies are either augmented or attenuated in various parts of my rather odd-shaped organ room and I'm thinking of trying digital room correction. Crossover is around the bottom limit of my existing speakers at about 45Hz.

Current audio set up is a 1010 soundcard with four channel output, two front, two rear and two pairs of Tannoy speakers. The sub takes a high line feed from the + and - terminals of one front speaker and the + terminal of the other front speaker. Sound from Hauptwerk first goes through Cantabile; surround samples have no additional processing whereas stereo samples send a copy to the rear channels with a subtle degree of additional reverb by ReverberateLE.

ARC2 sounds the sort of thing I'm looking for but before ordering please I can get a bit of advice:

(1) will it only adjust the lowest frequencies, or will it improve frequencies that are not handled by the subwoofer too? I am aware that at certain frequencies there is some imbalance in levels between my two speakers though it's not clear whether that is because of differences in speakers or simply the room layout. There are particularly prominent peaks at around 55 and 75Hz that need toning down somewhat.
(2) confused about what the software actually does - how does it know if a particular frequency is coming to the subwoofer from say the left or the right channel?
(3) where does the digital filter fit? I assume this essentially boosts certain speaker frequencies and attenuates others to achieve a flatter SPL curve. If so, does the software create a plug-in like Reverberate? Would it replace the existing reverb filter in Cantabile or could I have both?
(4) reading somewhere about problems with ARC2 resetting settings at every boot up if programed for multiple speakers. Is this still an issue, and would routing the audio through Cantabile overcome this?


Many thanks! Organorak
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Jan Loosman

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Re: Digital room correction primer?

PostTue Apr 25, 2017 4:57 pm

Hello Organorak

I hope i can answer al your questions.
1 it wil adjust from 20 to 20000hz but the most impact it has on the lower octaves where it corrects the annoying room nodes.
2 Arc measures the room with a tone sweep from lo to high. First the right and then the left channel.
When the sweep comes from the right channel then also the sub wil give a signal and when you meassure the left channel it wil be the same. Arc corrects the freq. Curve from 20-20000hz. So if you have a dip at the crossover point Arc will apply a boost at this point to compensate and other wise also with a frequency doubling at the crossover. So Arc gives a perfect integration of your sub to the front speakers.
3. Arc is a vst plugin which you can put it in the track you want to correct..
You can use two or more plugins in a track so you can keep the existing reverb filter.
4. If you use two instances of arc in the front and the rear channel then only one filtersetting wil be saved.
The other instance of arc you have to choose the correct filter setting every time you start up Reaper. Tis takes only 10 seconds so not a big deal.

Dirac is another room correction program and is more advanced then Arc because it also corrects the timing. It is also more expensive.

Regards Jan
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abaymajr

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Re: Digital room correction primer?

PostWed Apr 26, 2017 8:49 am

Jan Loosman wrote:Hello Organorak

I hope i can answer al your questions.
1 it wil adjust from 20 to 20000hz but the most impact it has on the lower octaves where it corrects the annoying room nodes.
2 Arc measures the room with a tone sweep from lo to high. First the right and then the left channel.
When the sweep comes from the right channel then also the sub wil give a signal and when you meassure the left channel it wil be the same. Arc corrects the freq. Curve from 20-20000hz. So if you have a dip at the crossover point Arc will apply a boost at this point to compensate and other wise also with a frequency doubling at the crossover. So Arc gives a perfect integration of your sub to the front speakers.
3. Arc is a vst plugin which you can put it in the track you want to correct..
You can use two or more plugins in a track so you can keep the existing reverb filter.
4. If you use two instances of arc in the front and the rear channel then only one filtersetting wil be saved.
The other instance of arc you have to choose the correct filter setting every time you start up Reaper. Tis takes only 10 seconds so not a big deal.

Dirac is another room correction program and is more advanced then Arc because it also corrects the timing. It is also more expensive.

Regards Jan


I think another advantage of Dirac is that it seems be more user error-proof than Arc2. Also, I was recently told by Dirac staff that they are going to release a completely new version that will increase its performance a lot, in terms of room correction and driver stability/latency. Their WDM driver, at least that one for PC, is very unstable and buggy. I have been using the beta VST plugin, which is great.
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johnh

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Re: Digital room correction primer?

PostFri Apr 28, 2017 3:42 pm

Another (free) option for room analysis is the Room EQ Wizard application. Lot's of good info on their website:

http://www.roomeqwizard.com/

---john.

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