ARC 2 Advanced Room Correction System is now available from IK Multimedia

[Melodnb]

I would have liked to see an option to only affect freq. below 500hrtz.

I didn't have very good results with the first version. Might give this one a try.

[nott]

is there a demo???

[Wow]

Resolution
Virtual Monitoring
DIM / MONO / SIDE
GUI

Originally Posted by gsuser

What's the great improvement? The low-end resolution, the interface or just in general.

[SLL]

I would love to hear if this really works wonders? Many pro studio guys says, that you really have to do acoustic treatments to your room before doing anything else. But how does this ARC "EQ system" compare with real acoustic treatment, for those that is using the ARC system for top dollar mixing? :D

[Wow]

It does not replace acoustic treatment.

[gsuser]

Originally Posted by SLL

I would love to hear if this really works wonders? Many pro studio guys says, that you really have to do acoustic treatments to your room before doing anything else. But how does this ARC "EQ system" compare with real acoustic treatment, for those that is using the ARC system for top dollar mixing? :D

No wonders, it's a tool like anything else. Top dollar studios won't have a need for this but bedroom studios could benefit.
You still need the ears & the knowledge.

[.walktothewater.]

Can't beat knowledge of your room's strengths & weaknesses.
If your ref. tracks sound good around the room, your mixes must/will be capable of the same.
Never trusted EQ that I'm applying that will be taken off later

[Jeezo]

Master : output : headphone

Master Send to bus ARC , Bus arc output : main monitoring

(optional)Master another send to bus meters : bus meters output : digital , on this bus : Waves dorrough , waves paz , Seven phase spectrum analyser ...

[DR Music]

My room is treated very well, with acoustic panels 2"/4"/6", (cloud and a few diffusors.). ARC has definitely helped out quite a bit. I disliked the idea til I tried it..

BTW- I currently use the new Event 20/30's, NS10's, and Avantone Mixcubes... 14x16 Room...

[mossie23]

ARC has worked well for me the last few years, doing professional commercials and electronic music releases. I've treated my room as best as I could, but going the whole 9 yards would mean stuffing my (adjacent) living room with basstraps. GF don't like. ARC gives me a room I can trust for 90%. And that's a lot, as it's a pretty bad room to start with. So bad, that it's near impossible to work around the weaknesses.

I still remember the first project I did with ARC. When I took it off to send my mix to the mastering engineer, it sounded so bad, it made me scared. When I asked the ME how he liked the mix, he said it was better than all my previous stuff.

If I had the money and space to build a good room with controlled acoustics, I would go for that. In the mean time, ARC helps me out.

[Peter - IK]

Originally Posted by Wow

It does not replace acoustic treatment.

+1

I hope that's at least mildly poignant and honest, coming from an IK rep. We've felt this way from day one, and have even bundled ARC with treatment in the past.

[DR Music]

Originally Posted by mossie23

ARC has worked well for me the last few years, doing professional commercials and electronic music releases. I've treated my room as best as I could, but going the whole 9 yards would mean stuffing my (adjacent) living room with basstraps. GF don't like. ARC gives me a room I can trust for 90%. And that's a lot, as it's a pretty bad room to start with. So bad, that it's near impossible to work around the weaknesses.

I still remember the first project I did with ARC. When I took it off to send my mix to the mastering engineer, it sounded so bad, it made me scared. When I asked the ME how he liked the mix, he said it was better than all my previous stuff.

If I had the money and space to build a good room with controlled acoustics, I would go for that. In the mean time, ARC helps me out.

Same here.... Scary when you take ARC off!!

[KBOY]

I really wished there was a surround version of this. The system built into my JBL's is in the digital realm. Making me have to either deal with another d/a and a/d, or run digitally into them. These speakers just sound better if you don't use the processing. And I'm talking in a resolution way.. The system definitely translates better using the processing.

Please IK.. 5.1 + version

[Trailmix]

ARC is the real deal point blank.

My mix room is 9x12. I had bass traps in each corner, I built clouds and first reflection panels. I still have some serious LF build up.

With ARC V1. I took about 21 measurements for my listening area and the client sofa.

What an improvement, it evened both listening areas out. There was still some build up, but the tell tell sign was, clients and I hearing the same mix from our respective sitting positions.

I will be upgrading.

[soundsfromsound]

Originally Posted by Peter - IK

+1

I hope that's at least mildly poignant and honest, coming from an IK rep. We've felt this way from day one, and have even bundled ARC with treatment in the past.

It is truthful yes.

I just upgraded to ARC 2 and I'm very impressed. Absolutely worth the $99 upgrade price. I have GIK panels in my studio here, bass traps and 242's and I still benefit from ARC because I had this annoying resonance that I couldn't seem to address fully. ARC helps. It's a great compliment to a treated room, and should not be viewed as a replacement for acoustic treatment. My primary control room is here at my house and even though it's a decent size, and treated, ARC still is a welcomed addition for helping with my references. I really dig the Virtual options you guys added in ARC 2.

My two cents.

[Brian @ IK]

Originally Posted by orjankarlsson

Hmmm...how does this work?? I have an acoustic problem in my room: I use ARC and the problem is still there in my room. So this basically is just a hoax. Right?

Which correction mic did your ARC ship with?

[soundsfromsound]

Originally Posted by orjankarlsson

Hmmm...how does this work?? I have an acoustic problem in my room: I use ARC and the problem is still there in my room. So this basically is just a hoax. Right?

ARC is not a hoax, no.

[Gemylon]

Can I use my Jam points on this upgrade ?


Thanks.

G

[soundsfromsound]

I don't believe so, no.

[BlackBackDrop]

if you use win amp you can get a vst plugin, (which allows you to load a vst into win amp) then all your music can have the ARC on it as default.

VST Winamp Bridge - Winamp

I really hope this helps.

On the subject of ARC "does it work". I went from a treated studio which sounded amazing to a non treated space. (hard times!) I took a stab at the ARC and was blown away, so yeah it works.

But now I am pissed! I only got it a few months ago, been told its the "best" and now its been "bettered" and I need to find another £102.00.

BBD x

[GnS]

A friend is using ARC in Audio Hijack together with a Genelec GLM system which has a lot less bands than ARC has. As a professional I first was very sceptical about this "double feature" but his "Studio" is a real acoustical nightmare in hell. So ARC did pretty good - no, it can't turn poopoo into gold but in an "good" room it can do A LOT.

I don't need to mention that even ARC can't compensate frequency drops caused by nulling... You can't outsmart physics - only Chuck Norris can...

[mossie23]

Originally Posted by Gemylon

Can I use my Jam points on this upgrade ?
Thanks.
G

I did... So the upgrade was pretty cheap.

I posted above that ARC 2 didn't see my ARC 1 measurements. I looked into this with somebody from IK (fast support!), and it probably is because my measurements were made with v1.0 (whereas ARC is at 1.3 now). Too bad I have to do new measurements, but I would need them anyway to make use of the new features.

To the people here claiming this is a hoax or that "those systems never worked well". I understand your sentiment. EQ-ing (even advanced EQ-ing) of your speakers + room sounds like a pretty weird thing. But it seems there are a lot of happy users, myself included. It doesn't replace treatment. But it has made my room workable, and helped me decide which treatment would be useful.

[mossie23]

Originally Posted by GnS

I don't need to mention that even ARC can't compensate frequency drops caused by nulling... You can't outsmart physics - only Chuck Norris can...

Exactly. I had a null at 60Hz, which I found out about with ARC. I then installed treatment to get the null down to -9dB at my listening position and ARC brings this down to -2/-3dB. So now it's workable.

[Oldhanke]

I've tried to buy the upgrade today but I can't use my Jampoints. There's a note saying "JamPoints are not accepted for the purchase of this item".

Damn! Yesterday JamPoints were accepted but not today, why??

[barrythave]

Originally Posted by BlackBackDrop

if you use win amp you can get a vst plugin, (which allows you to load a vst into win amp) then all your music can have the ARC on it as default.

VST Winamp Bridge - Winamp

I really hope this helps.

On the subject of ARC "does it work". I went from a treated studio which sounded amazing to a non treated space. (hard times!) I took a stab at the ARC and was blown away, so yeah it works.

But now I am pissed! I only got it a few months ago, been told its the "best" and now its been "bettered" and I need to find another £102.00.

BBD x

Mail them and ask if you can get the upgrade for free. Some companies do that when you have bought it recently.

[Jeezo]

The key is to use it first to have an idea of the room issues ......then treat the best you can ,

Re mesure ...then if you have a bump like 10 db in the lows instead of letting arc do the whole job , use the monitors eq first ...the re mesure ...ect .....

[nott]

Originally Posted by Jeezo

The key is to use it first to have an idea of the room issues ......then treat the best you can ,

Re mesure ...then if you have a bump like 10 db in the lows instead of letting arc do the whole job , use the monitors eq first ...the re mesure ...ect .....

i wouldn't use the monitor eq because phase problems of analog filtering.

[WunderBro Flo]

I am a little dissapointed that IK went to please the amateurs more than the pros. Version 2 does include speaker emulations but no possibility to limit the frequency band that the correction takes place, so it is still not possible to tackle room modes and low mids alone while leaving our 3-20kHz range alone. And there is still no intensity control that lets us choose to apply only 50% of correction. Those things were really missing and now they still are. Sad.
For the home users it is an improvement, just stick the mic up hit go and get a correction that is better than in version one. I just do not understand why easy to implement features that would have made the software more pro have not been added to that. It can´t be too difficult to implement a multiplier for the gain of the correctionbands.

Looks like I need to stick to RoomEQ wizard to remain in full control, or use something like coneq and their plugins to get the two features I want....however coneq stuff is more expensive by a vast amount.

[mossie23]

Originally Posted by WunderBro Flo

It can´t be too difficult to implement a multiplier for the gain of the correctionbands.

If ARC only consisted of an EQ curve, this would probably be the case. But I doubt it. I believe phase is involved as well, so changes in 1 band would probably effect the correction in other bands as well.

[WunderBro Flo]

Originally Posted by mossie23

If ARC only consisted of an EQ curve, this would probably be the case. But I doubt it. I believe phase is involved as well, so changes in 1 band would probably effect the correction in other bands as well.

well I always switched the phase correction off when using ARC v1 as it resulted in totally strange stuff happening for most measurements I took. The main thing that ARC does is a static EQ curve for each speaker. It would be easy to add a percentage dial that decreases the amount of fequency correction by the same amount for all bands. EQ plugins like DMG have this feature, you can grab the slider and change the intensity of all(!) bands by the same amount from 0% to 200% or more....The coneq software for example also has a parameter where you can set the maximum amount of correction for the resulting curve, this means that you can say "even if there is a room bump of 8dB at 100Hz, the maximum that the software will "even it out" is by 4dB!" This is extremely useful as too strong "corrections" sometimes cause too many artifacts that might be more irritating than useful. The coneq software also lety you define where the correction takes place, for example you can set it to only deal with anomalies between 35Hz and 800Hz.
Personally I consider these options a necessity for professional application. Maybe they left it out so the product is simple to use for everybody who is not a pro so there is no risk of potential buyers being scared of software they do not understand....

However I welcome the addition of target curves, this is a feature that was needed as well!