IK ARC exposed my room, can anyone help?

[jayman]

I just finished posting my story in this thread:

IK Multimedia ARC System vs Acoustic Treatment???.

Long story short, I thought I had my room in pretty good shape but I had never measured it. A program from IK multimedia called ARC measures and then supposedly fixes the room and I was able to look at what was going on. Measuring my room with ARC sort of exposed big problems and inspired me to make it better and I proceeded to build and install 27 bass traps in my room. If you look at my before/after bass traps pics of measurements taken by ARC (attached), I guess I can summarize it by saying the big mountain I used to have from 125-175hz has been minimized, but now I have a dip/null at 80 hz and nothing changed with this weird 6k dip I that was there before and after the traps. My room still sounds a little boxy and a little mushy in the lows... especially when compared to what it sounds like with ARC engaged. It's much better now with the traps, but I know it's still not right. I have a couple questions I hope someone can help me with:

1. The dip at 6k: Could this be because of my cloud? The cloud is 4 x 5 and 6 inches thick. Or... my room is 14 X 20 and has a laminate floor. I put a big rug in the back half of the room. Could that be the culprit? These are the only two things that stayed the same with both measurements. I don't know what else could be doing this.

2. I have a dip/null around 80hz. I have huge bass traps in the front corners of my room. Floor to ceiling 4 foot across, and filled with standard puffy R35 fiberglass insulation behind that. I was sort of going for the superchunk cornerfill thing, but this is the only thing I can point to that may have created the dip. Would I be better off to do just a regular 2 foot traps in the front corners with nothing behind?

3. For material inside my bass traps, I'm using mostly this fairly dense cotton insulation. I talked to an acoustical engineer and he said this stuff has really great acoustic properties and would be great for bass traps. There are other studios in the area that have used this stuff entirely to treat mastering rooms and a room for Sony... all of these rooms sound really great, so I do think the stuff works great, but after installing 27 traps in my room and not achieving sonic perfection, I'm wondering. My traps are basically 1x6 wood frame with a piece of 705 in front and 3.5" of the cotton insulation behind that. Here are the specs on the cotton stuff:

http://www.solsourceinc.com/products...hSpecSheet.pdf

4. My first reflection traps are just 3 inches of 705. Is this okay?

5. I did not drill any big holes in the sides of my traps. Would that help?

6. If my DIY bass traps are not good enough for the control room, I'll drag most/all of them out into my two other rooms and I would think they would suffice for a vocal both and a decent sized grand piano room. And, I'll just buy real traps, GIK or Ready Traps for the control room. My plan was to use up all this cotton insulation and build these traps for my control room, and then buy traps for the other two rooms, but I can reverse the plan if the consensus is that the traps I built suck.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[bpape]

Can you post the before/after plots including frequency response and waterfalls?

The 6kHz dip is an odd one. That's way too high to be caused by the room itself most likely as up that high, there are SO many modes that are SO close together that they get lost in the noise so to speak.

My guess with the 6k is you have an anomaly in the speaker response itself and/or there's some odd interaction with the desk going on . Again, hard to say without seeing more pics of the setup and the measurements.

Bryan

[jayman]

Thanks for your response Bryan.

I don't have a freq. plot and waterfall for before bass traps. I can do one for AFTER, but it would be sort of a pain to tear everything off the walls.

I can upload a drawing of what I've done, as well as some pictures if that would help. Maybe the 6k thing is a desk reflection.... I don't know. You're saying it's NOT the cloud, right? Maybe it's a weird measurement thing ARC screwed up on? I wouldn't think so since it was there for both measurements. Maybe I'll pull the desk out of the room and remeasure. I don't think it would be the speakers since they are very expensive barefoot monitors.

Thanks for your help. I'll upload pictures and room setup specs. In the meantime, what's a good mac program for measurement?

j

[diatonic]

...

[jwl]

1. I agree, the 6k thing is mostly likely not a room response issue. Speaker anomaly, desk weirdness are both good candidates. It's almost certainly not caused by the cloud. The cloud wouldn't absorb just at 6k, and not at other frequencies nearby to create the dip. Perhaps photographs/diagram of the room could help us figure this out.... also, try moving the measurement mic a few inches. See what happens to both dips (6k and 80Hz).

2. Regarding the 80Hz dip: how many dB are we talking? How wide is the dip (ie, what is the "Q" of the curve)?

3. Ultratouch cotton works great for bass traps.

4. 3" of 705 should work OK for first reflection absorbers. If anything, using 705 for this is overkill, 703 works just as well if not better for high frequencies.

5. Cutting holes in your frames for your bass traps would help some, by increasing the surface area of the absorptive material facing in to the room.

6. Hard to say, depends on what "good enough" means for you. Tell us more about that 80Hz dip..... how big is it?

[jayman]

Originally Posted by diatonic

I am by no means an expert in this area. That drop of 6k seems strange assuming you have a short straight path from the monitors to the mic. I did a larger dimension of measurements the first time and ended up with poor bass results. The second time I did a much smaller one which was way better. Could this be comb filtering?

I think you are right to check the measurements and try different measurement locations. I used room eq wizard on Windows to check ARC's measurements. It is Java-based and I see they mention Mac compatibility: Room EQ Wizard Home Page

Thanks Diatonic, I checked out room eq wizard and it looks cool.... looks like I have to jump through a few hoops to make it run on mac, but looks worth trying. Did you find that results from the wizard matched ARC?

I'm going to do an ARC remeasurement without my desk and see if that takes care of this weird 6k thing.

You had PM'd me a while back saying the bass seemed lighter with ARC engaged and the top seemed phasy... are you still getting that? Are you happy with ARC? I've just been programming/arranging stuff today, but it seems so much easier to fit stuff together with it on, but I won't know for sure till I do a real mix with it.

Thanks for your reply.

j

[jayman]

Originally Posted by jwl

1. I agree, the 6k thing is mostly likely not a room response issue. Speaker anomaly, desk weirdness are both good candidates. It's almost certainly not caused by the cloud. The cloud wouldn't absorb just at 6k, and not at other frequencies nearby to create the dip. Perhaps photographs/diagram of the room could help us figure this out.... also, try moving the measurement mic a few inches. See what happens to both dips (6k and 80Hz).

2. Regarding the 80Hz dip: how many dB are we talking? How wide is the dip (ie, what is the "Q" of the curve)?

3. Ultratouch cotton works great for bass traps.

4. 3" of 705 should work OK for first reflection absorbers. If anything, using 705 for this is overkill, 703 works just as well if not better for high frequencies.

5. Cutting holes in your frames for your bass traps would help some, by increasing the surface area of the absorptive material facing in to the room.

6. Hard to say, depends on what "good enough" means for you. Tell us more about that 80Hz dip..... how big is it?

JWL, 80Hz dip is about -7db, and Q is about 3. does that help?

Also have a fairly narrow bump at about 155 and 260... could this coupled with the dip at 80 be what is making things sound "boxy"?

I will remeasure without my desk and see if that makes a difference with the 6k thing. I don't know what else it could be since you ruled out the cloud.

As far as how good is good enough? - - It's not good enough now. If I can't get it any better, I'll tear 'em out and buy some traps and cross my fingers that they'll be better!

Thanks much,

j

[jayman]

Oh, and BTW, you can see the EQ of what's going on in my room by clicking (to enlarge) the picture attached to the first post of this thread. The orange line is the line defining the current state of my room.

[diatonic]

...

[jayman]

UPDATE: I figured out the 6k dip that shows up in the ARC measurement... It was my preamp! They suggest you use as clean of preamp as you have. No tubes, no color. So, I thought a presonus MP20 was a good candidate, but it turns out that the MP20 has a dip going on at 6k. So, after measuring again with the presonus and my desk out of the way (thought that might be the problem) and still experiencing the problem, I decided to try it through my germanium preamp and wah lah, 6k peak is gone and I'm almost flat from 200 up.

I'm loving this thing. The difference with and without ARC is a lot more subtle which makes me feel alot better that it isn't having to make drastic changes to the sound. I also noticed that ARC doesn't mess much with the stuff below 100. It smooths it out a little, but when you go above 100 hz, that's where it really does its thing. I think they've done a good job at determining what makes speakers sound bad and they're focusing on that. At least that's what it appears from my measurements.

I know there are many who think this stuff is snake oil, but man for me, it's REALLY helping a lot. It inspires me to further tweak my room when I get a chance and I love it for that too. But, I doubt I can ever achieve what I want in my rectangle room and so I'm very glad to have this.

I'm going to double post this in my other ARC thread.

[duvalle]

Anyone else got the ARC?
Please let us know how it's doing ...

i have the feeling that most of the haters are ether selling foam and bass traps
or just troll about a product they never heard ...
(if you mind to follow some of the links to other threads you will find out
that some people seem to be everywhere and allways say the same. go figger ...)

since arc is considered software and can't be returned to the store
it's hard to test it. so it would be cool to hear more voices of people
who actually own the arc system.

rounding up some infos i found:

Reviews:
audioMIDI.com : ProTools Corner By Brian White
Title: Review: IK Multimedia ARC (list $699)
Article Preview - IK Multimedia ARC
[Show #95] Simple Drum Miking & ARC From IK Multimedia - watch the video, vlog, or video podcast on mefeedia
(German) Test ARC System: Professional Audio Magazin

Reports from users:
Forum Cakewalk: IK Multimedia ARC
Forum Digidesign: DUC: Has Anyone Tried The IK Multimedia ARC System?

Audyssey / ARC threads:
"Official" Audyssey thread. - AVS Forum
IK Multimedia's ARC plugin... - The Womb
KVR: ARC- I just find it hard to believe- fix your room?
Studio-Central Community :: View topic - Treatments.. We don't need no Treatments
(German) Forum - Newbie Kaufberatung - ARC von IK Multimedia - homerecording.de

by the way - here are some videos:

Sonic State - News (Video Item) AESNYC07: ARC Room Correction Plug from IK, Compensates for the room, sounds pretty hot
YouTube - IK Multimedia ARC Advanced Room Correction
YouTube - ARC System Microphone Set-up
YouTube - More about ARC System Plug-In
YouTube - ARC System Overview

---
p.s.
i posted this on 2 other threads since the discussion about the arc is wide spread on
this board. hope you don't mind. i invested some time to collect the info and imho
some posted infos from so called experts are just plain wrong or at least misleading.
so i hope now it's more easy to get some more opinions on that matter.
so watch out who you can trust on this one ...
...

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by duvalle

i have the feeling that most of the haters are ether selling foam and bass traps or just troll about a product they never heard

This is at least the third time you posted that today. My comments about the Audyssey, on which the ARC is based, are founded in scientific testing. Please read this, and then you'll be in a much better position to comment:

RealTraps - Audyssey Room EQ

I have no axe to grind and I'm not here to sell bass traps. However, I will point out that bass traps do infinitely more than any electronic device. And if someone already has bass traps, getting yet more bass traps will do infinitely more than any electronic device.

--Ethan

[duvalle]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

This is at least the third time you posted that today.

as i said before i did post this in 2 other threads.
right, that makes 3 times ... i even posted why i did it.

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Please read this, and then you'll be in a much better position to comment:
RealTraps - Audyssey Room EQ

i did read your page. i think it's hard to miss your page,
because i found a link to your page on every thread about arc.
regardles of the science you used i think it's interesting
that some other people think it works quite good ...

anyway:
i just picked up the ARC System and i will check it out right now!

my room is already treated with basotect and 6 bass traps.
but i know it's still far from good. i just learned how to mix in my room.
since i dont want to add another 200 bass traps and i am tired of doing
many mixes before i think it translates good, i hope arc can help.

i will report back after i installed it.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by duvalle

i just picked up the ARC System and i will check it out right now!

Excellent! Please let us know what you find.

As for positive reports, I don't doubt that. If there's a problem at very low frequencies, below where passive bass traps are effective, a small amount of EQ cut can help. But most of the audiophile reports about Audyssey I've read are by misinformed people who have never even heard a room that's properly treated.

some posted infos from so called experts are just plain wrong or at least misleading.

Please be more specific. It's not enough to say something is wrong. If you want to appear credible you have to explain how and why it's wrong!

--Ethan

[diatonic]

...

[duvalle]

Here is my report of the ARC System:

As said before my room is already treated with basotect and 6 bass traps.
Eventhough my room is far from perfect i learned to mix in it.
But sometimes it was hard to get good results without doing many mixes and testing them
in different places (car, kitchenradio ...).

I got the ARC yesterday and just did some quick tests.

First i made 20 measurements as described in the manual.
As you can guess this is the most important part of it!
So i tried to be really accurate. It took me about 40 minutes.

I was surprised how many weak spots the software found.
AND: It showed that there was a little differents between my 2 monitors (adam p11a).

Then i listened to some reference songs i know very well using the ARC plugin.
I was shocked how different it sounded!
But after a while i got used to the new sound and started to like it.

Then i re-mastered an old track (just some api 2500 + 5500 + L3-16).
I tried to "forget" all the stuff i used to do because of my room.
I just turned the knobs till i liked what i heard.

After that i remixed an old track.
Again i did that without my "old rules".
(Like: if it sounds to bright here it will translate good!)
I just did what sounded good to my ears when ARC was on.

The result: Both tracks translated much better on different soundsystems.
I played them in the car, in the living room of my neighbours(!) and on my notebook.

So - leaving all great science aside - ARC works for me!
I am really happy that the guessing has stopped!
(Of course i would not say that my mixes sucked before,
but i took longer to get there ... ;-))

Now i will do another measurement of 36 points and maybe rearrange my accosutic treatment.
I might get even better resluts doing so ...

So is ARC the holy grail?
To be honest: i don't care! I don't even care anymore if people say ARC can't work because of science.
All i know: i benefit from ARC!

The funny thing is:
i probably would never tried ARC without so many people bashing and hating it!
Thx for getting me into this ... ;-)

Eventhough ARC is a bit costly it turned out to be rather cheap:
first i got a discount because of crossgrade and now i get ether
Amplitube 2, Amplitube Handrix, Ampeg SVX, Studio Reverb or T-Racks for FREE!
Check it out: IK Multimedia

Since i am not a native english speaker i can't express my self with much fineness.
So feel free to check out some of the reviews i posted above.

[jeremycox]

I still just don't understand how you can eq reverb out of a room.

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by jeremycox

I still just don't understand how you can eq reverb out of a room.

Well you can't, but as the poster pointed out he has treatment in the room already so maybe that is taking care of that part of the story.

Glenn

[jeremycox]

Originally Posted by Glenn Kuras

Well you can't, but as the poster pointed out he has treatment in the room already so maybe that is taking care of that part of the story.

Glenn

Correct me if i'm wrong by eqing nulls caused by reflections would actually exacerbate the problem by simply increasing amplitude? Now if its caused by speaker deficiency or some other equipment issue thats another story...

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by diatonic

the problems with that statement are evident.

Not evident at all. Please address the science only, and leave nothing to the imagination. Anything less is just opinion and not fact.

I have found ARC useful ... It makes sense to me that DSP-based correction can complement acoustic treatment

I won't argue too strongly against that because I have a one-band cut-only EQ on the subwoofer in my living room home theater system. And it definitely helps to tame a 40 Hz resonance that's too low to target effectively with bass traps. But that's a far cry from saying that EQ can "solve" room acoustic problems. Those are the claims I object to.

To be perfectly clear, I'm not saying that EQ or DSP are useless. But many of the advertising claims are false. The main false Audyssey claims are that it reduces modal ringing, and that their use of "fuzzy math" lets them average the measurements to improve the response all around the room. This is physically impossible, no matter how strongly people want to believe it. The wider an area you try to improve, the less effective the improvement. This is provable physics.

--Ethan

[Savernake]

Originally Posted by jeremycox

Correct me if i'm wrong by eqing nulls caused by reflections would actually exacerbate the problem by simply increasing amplitude? Now if its caused by speaker deficiency or some other equipment issue thats another story...

It is my undersanding that ARC treats things in the temporal domain slightly. This gets around the problem of nulls to some extent. I doubt it can do anything for reverberation, but you should use this in treated rooms anyway.

The reports from people who actually use this are generally positive. After treating my room in seriously considering this, but theres so much else to want... Especially when you read these forums!

[skuttbergsveen]

I´ve bought the ARC recently, used it to check my room. Did some adjustments and now I´m ok. So I have a ARC-system for sale. It´s registered but I´m sure it can be transferred. Just PM me!

DS

[munmun]

So I installed arc today. Let me give you a bit of background. I have the smallest studio in the world. I have been relegated next to the washer and dryer in the basement. My head bumps against the ceiling and I am trying to make the best of a pretty bad situation. On a personal and positive note, I will be separating from the person (wife) who relegated me to said laundry room soon. So I am expecting an improvement in recording conditions. At least my recording hobby resulted in some good! My recording space is "apparently" treated. I got advice and consultation from auralex and did what they said. The result was non-impactful to be diplomatic.

As I said I installed Arc today. I am stunned. Now I actually know what stereo imaging means. I can actually hear the difference. I had a severe bass issue that seems to have disappeared. However I am not used to this new sound and will have to get used to it.

The real test will be my next mix which is imminent. Stay tuned!

I have to say- if this works this will be a game changer for home recording. Everytime Arc is mentioned "industry experts" start attacking. Feels like a paradigm shift that many industries have known. The old order is going into defensive mode before crumbling.

[saptezsapte]

[QUOTE=Ethan Winer;1858420]Not evident at all. Please address the science only, and leave nothing to the imagination. Anything less is just opinion and not fact.

Science, science, nothing else, no subjective results, no art, no nothing, but things that hear in our place. They have a big part in this respect (electronic measurements), math, etc. But at the end of the day, what You claim is perfect make somebody else to throw up. Everything have a role in this. Real acoustics, digital correction. 4 minitraps are much better than Ik ARC. ANd if in the same room somebody have better results with ARC and not with 4 bass traps mounted ? What about that? What if with 4 bass traps and ARC engaged mixes sound far better than both situations separated? You know we interpreting subjective a lot of things. I do not claim that ARC is what they say on Audyssey or ob IK sites. But is a good tool. Not indispensable, but good to have nearby. Claiming that only REAL things give best results on mixing is nothing less than church claiming that science does exist only when they agree with it. SO, it is clear that physical acoustics do better on measurements, but what I say is that THE FINAL MIX OR MASTER counts. And I agree that Auralex, Eqacoustics, BASF Basotect and others are needed before any digital correction thing, but if WE HAVE BOTH, let's marry them .

[Mister Fox]

I'm using ARC for years now, and it definitely made a difference.

Granted, it doesn't take the "room" out of your room (speak: reflection issues, reverb time, etc) and it only works best within a certain field. But if you can't work with tons of traps (e.g. a living room) or a dedicated studio environment, it sure helps a lot.

If your room is treated, it just adds to your treatment and is the final fairy dust.


Experiences with ARC:
I setup ARC in several rooms already. The first time I was using it was in a living room with nearly untreated walls/ceiling and a room size of 5m x 7m x 3,5m (height). Everything above 2m in terms of height fell apart of course (the ceiling was untreated), but after tons of measurements and even thought the stereo field was kind of "narrowed", I got fairly good results for this room and could work without going to three different amp/playback systems to check if everything is all right and translated well.

I also tested/installed it on much smaller rooms, treated and untreated and it worked just as good. No matter if consumer speakers (which I kind of prefer due to several reasons) or pro speakers, passive or active.


The best experience I've ever made with ARC was working on old passive customized (cones, not the crossover module) and somewhat hifi speakers. I literally had the best of two worlds: ARC active -> nearly flat response, ARC inactive -> I heard how it translates on normal listening environments. Something I actually prefer.

I did a lot of mixing and remixing old productions with ARC by now. The effect is definitely prominent, the mixes translate better on all listening environments (hardest testsubjects on my end are always a DVD player w/TV speakers and a MP3 "walkman" with Sennheiser Neckphones). But... you have to get used to ARC and how it's working in software form.



Again... ARC alone can't fix all of your room issues. But it can help in finetuning after you fixed some of them. Especially in terms of frequency response of your speakers.

[mhch]

I also bought an ARC system before I knew much about room treatment (BTW, I still don't know much, I just know more).

For sure it made a big difference, mostly in the 100-200 Hz region where my room exhibits a number of close modes (as I learnt to calculate and measure since). I could then hear bass parts clearly.

Actually, the main effect of ARC was to lead me to know more about room acoustics and learn about how to treat my room better.

What I don't like about ARC is that it works only as a plugin in a master track. Would be much better if it could be put in the audio path of any software producing audio, Window Media Player for one, not only a recording/sequencing tool.

The real bad thing is that, at least in my configuration ..., ARC impacts both speaker output and headset output, and one can easily forget ARC is on when starting to use the headset.

[toodamnhip]

Audio Hijack Pro used on entire Comp Out with Audio Hijack Pro-Questions:

I want to use ARC strapped across the outputs of all audio coming out of my computer, in REALTIME, without having to use it as a plug in in my DAW.

Before trying AH Pro, I had been referred to Neutrino as a way to process system audio going through my mac in realtime. But I found NO way to do a complete Hi Jack of audio in REAL Time. It seems that Neutrino is good for AFTER the fact.
I want to insert the ik multimedia ARC speaker adjustment system on my whole system AT ALL TIMES in Real time so I don;t have to bother with it as an insert on my master bus in my DAW.

So I have been playing with Audio Hijack Pro and have found out a few things. Please chime in anyone if you have any comments about these things:

Latency-Audio Hijack Pro does introduce a tiny amount of additional latency in addition to the latency created by the DAW one might be recording in. I found some latency adjustments deep in AH, (under “source type” advanced/buffering) but they seem to only apply when putting the program in record mode. They really didn;t improve realtime throughput nor worsen it.
So the total Latency in AH Pro seems to be this: DAW Latency, (set by the buffers of one’s DAW), +Audio Hijack’s Latency+any given AU effect plug in used INSIDE of AH Pro, which in this case will be the arc system’s inherent latency.
Thus I have 3 questions:
1) Anyone have a solution to improve the Latency of Audio Hijack Pro. I would describe it as making any realtim audio played to feel a bit spngy instead of crisp.
2) Certain AU plugs don;t seem to work right in AH Pro, I hope arc works right. For ex: Izotope Ozone loads but doesn;t open in AH pro.Anyone tried ARC in AH Pro?
3) What is the added Latency of the ARC system if any?

The last thing is HOW to use AH Pro.

The way I have it set up is to hit “Hijack” and strap any given effects across the effects bus of AH Pro.
This means that if I have to record a drum or guitar part, I can just take AH Pro OUT of Highjack mode , which will eliminate any latency while tracking.
The problem with that is I am afraid ot will make my ears a bits nutso to shut off the ARC filtering while tracking, going back and forth. Obviously, for mix down, using ARC is easy as latency is not an issue. Anyone have a better solution for all of this to avoid latency while tracking parts?