Equalization options

Hi everyone,
I have a pair of quite decent studio monitors that I use occasionally when I tire of wearing headphones. The sample sets I use sound great through the headphones, but the monitors are less satisfying. I'm looking for guidance on implementing software or hardware-based EQ. My needs are not complex, I'd just like to clean up the monitor sound a little - they sound a bit flat and lifeless.
Many thanks for your thoughts,
Chris

I’m not familiar with software for equalization or room correction, but they have been discussed on the forum before. I suspect Cubase or Reaper could be used for equalization, and Sonarworks and Dirac live have been mentioned for room correction. If you let us know exactly what monitors and audio interface/amplifier you are using we may be able to help more.

Hello --I'm running a pair of powered Mackie Hr8's with a Focusrite Saffire LE on Hauptwerk 4. The Saffire LE comes with a software based parametric eq, but I have no idea if it will work with HW, or how one would set it up to do so. I've been looking at a Behringer Mini FBQ800 - seems fairly straight forward, but I wonder if anyone has tried this or similar products and what the results were.

Best,
Chris

Any equalisation set up in the Saffire will be applied after HW has generated the audio so I am quite certain it will not cause problems for HW itself. How to actually implement the correction, and whether it would be satisfactory, I have no experience of.

I have used these: https://www.minidsp.com/products/minidsp-in-a-box/minidsp-2x4 in similar situations.

Nick

You can purchase a measurement mic to measure the room response. I think the Sonarworks xref 20 is a good mic, it is quite affordable and comes with a device-specific calibration file.

The free software REW (Room Equalization Wizard) can be used to perform and analyze the measurements. The help documentation https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help.html is clearly written and you will learn a lot about room acoustics along the way.

REW contains tools for automatic calculation of EQ parameters. You can fill in the obtained EQ values into your DSP software.

As an alternative, in REW it is even possible to convert the EQ filters to an impulse response. After some editing using other (free) software tools this impulse response can be applied in Hauptwerk, in the same way as reverb IR's. So in HW5 you don't need third-party software to apply room correction/equalization (after creating the room correction IR's using REW etc). The process is a bit involved, maybe I will provide a detailed explanation later.

I for one would be very interested to know a little more about creating an IR to use in Hauptwerk to apply room correction (or indeed) other equalisation. Thanks in anticipation,
Iain

Something that has not yet been considered here is Hauptwerk itself comes with many sound shaping tools within the voicing portion of the program. If you're happy with things as is with the head phones and don't want any changes there, you could always set up 2 separate instances for the organ and / or organs you use, one for when you use the head phones and one for when you use the monitors. How's that for an idea?

Marc

Something that has not yet been considered here is Hauptwerk itself comes with many sound shaping tools within the voicing portion of the program. If you're happy with things as is with the head phones and don't want any changes there, you could always set up 2 separate instances for the organ and / or organs you use, one for when you use the head phones and one for when you use the monitors. How's that for an idea?

Marc

Certainly an option! But if there are problems in the frequency response of the speakers or the room, it is not the best option.

For example, if there is a peak in the frequency response at 220 Hz, and if an organ has 440 Hz base pitch, this peak can in part be corrected by increasing the brightness and decreasing the amplitude of the tenor A of all 8' stops by the same amount (effectively decreasing the fundamental of the tenor A while leaving the harmonics the same).

But for 16' stops, not the fundamental, but the first harmonic would have to be corrected. This is not possible within the Hauptwerk EQ menu without affecting either the fundamental or the other harmonics.

Years ago, I used Hauptwerk EQ to correct all notes that had (to my ears) excessive bass. Having no reference how the organ should sound, it resulted in overcorrection and changing the tonal character of the organ entirely, I'm afraid.

Take into account that changes in Hauptwerk EQ will affect your recordings too. <EDIT> In HW5, this may be solved by using a separate output perspective and corresponding routing for recording

Afterwards, I have happily used ARC2 room correction as a plugin in Reaper, that was a more objective method of correction. But I think the REW route can be at least as good.

I for one would be very interested to know a little more about creating an IR to use in Hauptwerk to apply room correction (or indeed) other equalisation. Thanks in anticipation,
Iain

Thanks! I will consider it, it just takes quite a bit of time to describe the process properly.

Something that has not yet been considered here is Hauptwerk itself comes with many sound shaping tools within the voicing portion of the program. If you're happy with things as is with the head phones and don't want any changes there, you could always set up 2 separate instances for the organ and / or organs you use, one for when you use the head phones and one for when you use the monitors. How's that for an idea?

Marc

Certainly an option! But if there are problems in the frequency response of the speakers or the room, it is not the best option.

I mention trying the Hauptwerk voicing option first mainly because it may simply be a case of just needing to brighten things up a bit which has been my case. But instead of using the Hauptwerk facilities much, I've for the most part used my amps facilities to fine tune things instead. I supposed depending on which sound card a person is using, some come with sound shaping options via it's control panel, but I'd certainly start with the Hauptwerk voicing first and see if it gets you where you want to be, and it won't cost you a nickle extra to try.

Marc

It sounds like you have pretty good monitors, so that shouldn’t be the problem. Just make sure you don’t have the output volume set too high (and the switches on the back of your monitors in the right place). If you’re unsure, I would try different settings on the switches at the back to make sure that isn’t the culprit.. It may also be that the sample sets you are using are too wet or dry for your tastes in your room (experimenting with reverb may make a difference if you have version 5 advanced). Colin Pykett has a nice article on equalization for the pipe organ. http://www.pykett.org.uk/audio-equaliza ... organs.htm. Briefly, most equalization is a matter of increasing the lower or higher frequencies to your taste. Then, you can fine tune individual pipes after if you find a particular pipe isn’t sounding well in your room. Room equalization is a fancy and more expensive way of doing this, though many forum users feel the difference is significant.

Colin Pykett has a nice article on equalization for the pipe organ. http://www.pykett.org.uk/audio-equaliza ... organs.htm. Briefly, most equalization is a matter of increasing the lower or higher frequencies to your taste.

One important point from mr. Pykett's paper is that we don't know what happens during the production of sample sets. We don't know the frequency response of the recording microphones, and whether the producer has used too much EQ or too aggressive noise filters to "improve" the recordings.

On the other hand, as mr Pykett says, different types of loudspeakers and rooms can have enormous variation. This is the reason that mr Floyd Toole has remarked that there exists a "circle of confusion" (http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/10/a ... usion.html). Applying arbitrary EQ can only make the problem worse.

One way to break the circle of confusion is to strive for flat frequency response in our listening environments. This will help us to discern the good from the bad sample sets, and producers will have to follow suit by providing sample sets that are accurate representations of the original organ.

Extra EQ can be applied afterwards, where needed or according to taste.

Without measurement, EQ is just guess work. Tone controls and graphic EQ on analog devices can provide broadband corrections. But booming bass notes are the most common and the ugliest problem in our listening rooms. The easiest and most cost-effective way to solve this problem is digitally applying narrowband filters after taking a few proper measurements.

As one of the longtime advocates of room correction software i can agree with Jos that correction with Arc2 , sonar works, or Dirac(the best),is a good way to correct room influences, and this is in my opinion the cherry on the cake for every Hauptwerk setup.
Every sampleset will benefit from roomcorrection. Boomy bass notes disappear, treble falloff is corrected and the overall fidelity of every set will increase. Most Hauptwerk consoles are situated in livingrooms so basstrapps sound absorption panels are no option.

On the Dutch forum roomcorrection is much discussed and often used.
Just make the measurements of your room, apply this in Reaper and you are set to go.
Every new sampleset you install now will sound good right out off the box. So eventually voicing will only be needed to suit your taste not to correct your room.
No endless hours listening and correcting the bass notes of the pedal ranks, off every sample set you own and then discovering that it is still not satisfactory. I know this I have been there. I voiced every sampleset I owned in the past, some with the help off the organist off my church , I experimented with narrow band filters in Reaper to correct standing waves, all with disappointing results. I did this then just using my ears as reference but as Jos stated using measurement mic wil give better results.

We spend thousands off dollars/euros on sample sets, audio equipment, consoles and then some hesitate to spend a few cents more for correction software to make your Hauptwerk experience more high end. This often puzzles me.
Also great organ manufacturers like Johannes organs apply roomcorrection now in their latest models not without reason I guess.
If you want to have the best sound off your Hauptwerkset and lift it to a higher level then roomcorrection is mandatory in my opinion.

Also keep in mind that if you voice in Hauptwerk specifically to correct your room and then make a recording (contre bombarde etc.)and then playback in another room then the sound can be suboptimal for the other room.

Regards Jan

As an alternative, in REW it is even possible to convert the EQ filters to an impulse response. After some editing using other (free) software tools this impulse response can be applied in Hauptwerk, in the same way as reverb IR's. So in HW5 you don't need third-party software to apply room correction/equalization (after creating the room correction IR's using REW etc). The process is a bit involved, maybe I will provide a detailed explanation later.

I've got a miniDSP UMIK-1 (recommended on the REW site) on order. I'd also be interested in converting it to an IR. However, that would preclude the use of reverb IR's wouldn't it, or it is possible to route HW's output through multiple IRs?

I'm a little confused about how to do room EQ with multiple monitors. I have 12 monitors plus a sub. Is safe to assume that all monitors that are the same brand/model have frequency responses close enough to one another that they don't need to be individually calibrated? Are you creating a different eq for each individual speaker, or for the room as a whole?

And where is the eq applied in a multi monitor setup? I have a Motu 24ao, which has a 4 band parametric eq on each input. Assuming that is suitable, I guess I'd have to apply the same eq to every channel? I'd rather not introduce another piece of software into the mix if possible. Seems like doing this within HW would be the simplest setup, but I suppose you lose the ability to apply reverb (which I am not presently using).

[mdyde]

I've got a miniDSP UMIK-1 (recommended on the REW site) on order. I'd also be interested in converting it to an IR. However, that would preclude the use of reverb IR's wouldn't it, or it is possible to route HW's output through multiple IRs?

You can only have one impulse response reverb applied per mixer bus in Hauptwerk. However, it would theoretically be possible to use external software to convolve the two IRs together (one for the reverb, one for the room-EQ) to make a single new impulse response that gave the combined effects of both. Then you would only have to load one reverb to load into the relevant Hauptwerk mixer bus. (That wouldn't help in the case of encrypted reverbs, though, since you wouldn't be able to load them into other software.) It would also be a fairly involved process, requiring you to create the files in Hauptwerk's impulse response reverb format.

Also, it would technically be possible to route via the 'intermediate mix buses' or 'master mix buses', applying additional reverbs to those buses (in additional to the primary buses), and using them for audio output (instead of the primary buses directly). The limitation there is that there are only 8 of each of those two types of mix buses.

Using a dedicated room-correction hardware device is certainly the easiest (if not the cheapest) option.