Room calibration - of some sort

[firubbi]

how can i'll make sure that my room is now perfect? i'd played 20hz-3khz signal and some are loud some are not!
thanks

[garyb]

it'll never , nor does it need to be perfect. it needs to not create bad sounding recordings and mixes.

you should read the material to understand what it is you are trying to accomplish.

[firubbi]

garyb my room is aprox 13/20ft(high 10ft) and i find out few frequency response are loud 100hz, 140hz but like around 130hz is very soft. shall i apply a eq to fix this?(its a bit complex with those acoustic foams)
thanks

[garyb]

make bass traps. they don't have to be expensive. goolge "bass trap". since a studio operator is called an engineer, you'll be able to handle it...

[Throttler]

After spending some money on monitor stands, Auralex products, treating the room (walls, ceiling, corners), and moving speakers around in the room, I did some measurement, still didn't have the desired result.
Thanx to Scope software, I applied some eq to the master bus, and there it is! Better than ever.

[garyb]

whatever works for you.
obviously, you can do whatever you think best. no one has to believe me.

i only suggest that there is no such thing as "flat" response or perfect speakers. one needs to know what one's speakers sound like, what their strengths and weaknesses are and then just mix. avoid faulty information from the room and then it's just a matter of talent and experience.

i still remember when NS-10s were considered the cream of the crop of near field monitors. what a joke! most so-called engineeers with their "good" ears thought that it must be that NS-10s sounded sooo good(so good that lots of people used them with a sheet of toilet paper over the tweeters). those in the know, however, thought that NS-10s were the best for another reason.

at the time NS-10s became popular, a lot of the high dollar producers had begun to freelance and were in a lot of different rooms instead of just working in one room for one label. there was a need for a high quality speaker that always souded the same. that way, whatever room a guy was in, he knew what the speaks sounded like. NS-10s were a breakthrough in mass production. every damn tweeter from every end of the production line sounded exactly the same unlike say, hand made danish tweeters, which might be much more detailed and sweet sounding, but would be too expensive to move around and possibly damage(hard to get replacement parts for a one of a kind hand made driver or tweeter, but NS-10 parts were cheap and plentiful and always the same). lots of great work was done using NS-10s and some really loved them, but most call them harsh and overly bright.

the thing that makes a great sounding recording and mix is a great room. period. good speakers are a requirement, but great speakers are always nice if you have them, especially after you learn them. basically, the NS-10 is just a fancy bookshelf speaker. if those could make a good mix, any decent speaker can. but put a truly great speaker in a typical bedroom and turn it up and it'll sound like crap.

nice that you improved your system with eq to your liking, congratulations. if you really put some foam and actually put some traps in the corners, i'm betting that improved the sound considerably.

[Cochise]

Sorry, why pink and not white noise for output devices calibration?

[Cochise]

Here are some other questions.
What's the minimum distance between L and R nearfield to still have an effective stereo field

Considering the source and the reflected sound as kind of dry and wet signals in FX processing, what's the minimum distance for the speakers from the listening position?

(furthermore...is this actually the right page for this kind of posts?)

[chriskorff]

Distance between L & R for effective stereo field depends entirely on the distance between those speakers and your head! (The speakers should, of course, both be the same distance from your head, and also the same distance between your head and each other).

That's a little long-winded — bottom line: your head and the L & R speakers should be positioned in an equilateral triangle, with the speakers pointing towards your head, and the tweeters at ear height. Having the speakers nearer to each other narrows the stereo effect, and further widens it (to a point — having them both 90 degrees left and right and pointing at your head will result in a very confusing sound to listen to).

Cheers,

Chris

[firubbi]

Triangle i guess. i set mine like 3.5feet(L to R)

btw forum looks nice

[Cochise]

Sorry I edited the post while you were replying

[chriskorff]

most so-called engineeers with their "good" ears thought that it must be that NS-10s sounded sooo good(so good that lots of people used them with a sheet of toilet paper over the tweeters). those in the know, however, thought that NS-10s were the best for another reason.
...there was a need for a high quality speaker that always souded the same. that way, whatever room a guy was in, he knew what the speaks sounded like.

I always thought they were popular because of their consistent time-domain response, due to the infinite baffle design? And compared with the amount of ported speakers about, there still aren't that many infinite baffle studio monitors around these days! Which may be why they remain popular?

Also, I think the fact that they were actually designed to sit on meterbridges was appealing.

I'd have thought that it was the above that made them so popular, and that's why the became the industry standard that everyone learned the sound of...

[firubbi]

anyway i like the idea to set a Eq on Master insert for room calibration.

[garyb]

most so-called engineeers with their "good" ears thought that it must be that NS-10s sounded sooo good(so good that lots of people used them with a sheet of toilet paper over the tweeters). those in the know, however, thought that NS-10s were the best for another reason.
...there was a need for a high quality speaker that always souded the same. that way, whatever room a guy was in, he knew what the speaks sounded like.

I always thought they were popular because of their consistent time-domain response, due to the infinite baffle design? And compared with the amount of ported speakers about, there still aren't that many infinite baffle studio monitors around these days! Which may be why they remain popular?

Also, I think the fact that they were actually designed to sit on meterbridges was appealing.

I'd have thought that it was the above that made them so popular, and that's why the became the industry standard that everyone learned the sound of...

well certainly, that's part of it. consistancy from tweeter to tweeter was an even bigger part of the picture from a working point of view.....at least that's what a number of working engineer/producers have told me.

[Cochise]

anyway i like the idea to set a Eq on Master insert for room calibration.

Mines are just suppositions based on elementary knowledge of the phenomenons, and as such, their confirmation in the real world might result partial or negligible, due to a number of unconsidered factors.

Though I think symmetry in the geometries of the room, included speakers and listening position could be required in order to apply some effective eq (and these conditions are lacking in my room)

[valis]

most so-called engineeers with their "good" ears thought that it must be that NS-10s sounded sooo good(so good that lots of people used them with a sheet of toilet paper over the tweeters). those in the know, however, thought that NS-10s were the best for another reason.
...there was a need for a high quality speaker that always souded the same. that way, whatever room a guy was in, he knew what the speaks sounded like.

I always thought they were popular because of their consistent time-domain response, due to the infinite baffle design? And compared with the amount of ported speakers about, there still aren't that many infinite baffle studio monitors around these days! Which may be why they remain popular?

Also, I think the fact that they were actually designed to sit on meterbridges was appealing.

I'd have thought that it was the above that made them so popular, and that's why the became the industry standard that everyone learned the sound of...

well certainly, that's part of it. consistancy from tweeter to tweeter was an even bigger part of the picture from a working point of view.....at least that's what a number of working engineer/producers have told me.

I also heard that several of the more high profile studios in the NS-10 era were given 'evaluation' (freebie) sets from Yamaha, and after a few magazine shots showing the distinctive white cones they were suddenly in high demand. "Industry Standard" and all that...

Sorry I checked out of this thread for so long, but now that I'm back really I can only add more in support of what garyb has said. If you've treated your room with Auralex you're probably still not handling the bass end well enough (their Lenyrd bass traps aren't all that effective unless you line all room corners and where the ceiling meets the wall). Hence why an eq is still making more of a measurable difference.

Something else to consider is that bass trapping is meant to even out the subbass/midbass response which may actually make your speakers sound LESS impressive, since the nodes that responded well before will now be more under control. I know a few dance music producers who finally got around to doing REAL room treatment to their studios and suddenly found that they 'needed' a subwoofer (which again introduces a ton of time-domain peak & valley node issues without careful placement). I also know people that swear that they can't produce unless they're using PA speakers as their studio monitors (what studios usually refer to as 'mains' or larger than even midfield monitors. So to each their own, certainly results will speak for themselves.

Personally I've found that I'm happiest in a room that's not of even dimensions and is considerably larger than a bedroom (they typical home studio for many). I've actually shopped for my future residences with this in mind for the last decade or so, and even still it's always compromise and room treatment yields improvement.

[firubbi]

im learning modes. i need to know my room first.

[Cochise]

I've recently read somewhere:

"As is now largely agreed upon, it is simply not possible to cure time-domain room problems by making adjustments in the frequency domain"

Trying to figure out the possible meaning I used Mod2 environment to roughly simulate time domain issues.

I calculated the sound could take something like 16 ms from the speakers to my ears bouncing at wall at my back.
Without considering the wall absorption the sound will lose around 13 dB going trough that distance in the air.
The wall will modify the frequency content of the reflected sound, but I haven't put this in account here. As well as I considered one and only early reflection.
I made this just to get an idea about what happens in the frequency domain.

I've mixed the signal from a white noise osc with a 16 ms delayed copy of the same signal, monitoring the spectrum by an FFT analyzer.
I don't know if the behaviour of the sound waves in the air is exactly alike as for the electric waves having same frequency and proportional amplitude.


Though this is what I get.