Eq's for tuning a room?

[jzb]

What EQ would you use and why? Could any coloration delivered in the EQ path be removed by virtue of the filtering done by the box? Digital vs. Analog?

?

-j

[natpub]

None--I would use bass traps instead. Do a search on room tuning or something like that. There was a very recent thread where a couple people explained it all real well.

(edit: this isnt the most explanitory one, but Ethan does explain it a little---check out his website, he has all kinds of good info:

http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=48108 )



.

[Jorg]

He's right! None!

U might use EQ for "flattening" your Monitors. Be careful though!
However for the room: Only acoustic treatment will help!

[robmix]

Well, everyone will tell you to tune the room via acoustic treatment. But just about every big room I've ever been in had some EQ strapped across the mains. They're usually EQ's made by White Instruments:

http://www.whiteinstruments.com/

[Relax]

Originally Posted by robmix

http://www.elicitmusic.com

Nice Rack!

[Jorg]

Originally Posted by robmix

Well, everyone will tell you to tune the room via acoustic treatment. But just about every big room I've ever been in had some EQ strapped across the mains.

Yeah, but u probably know that they dont EQ in order to compensate for bad room acoustics (which is impossible anyway) but to EQ their monitor speakers.

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by robmix

Well, everyone will tell you to tune the room via acoustic treatment. But just about every big room I've ever been in had some EQ strapped across the mains.

Yah but there's a difference between a slight curve or some gentle shaping on the mains and doing the same to the nearfields.

How many rooms have you been in with EQ on the nearfields? I can't think of any.

Well...not *good* rooms anyway!

[robmix]

They've all had relatively gentle curves. Of course you should probably shoot the room first and treat it appropriately but in my experience it's rare to not have EQ's on the mains.

[audiothings]

a very good room designer who i am well acquainted with says that you should do your very best for your room and then use parametric eq very judiciously to flatten out the response... of course, this is with reference to the mains only... the rane pe17 appears to be his eq of choice.

.02,
self.

[TheSweetener]

Sometimes (espacially with standing waves) you can't get it right even with a lot of bass traps. I eq my nearfields a little around 130HZ to avoid the boost that I have at this frequency. Of course this only works where I sit and work, everywhere else in the room this might make things even worse, but I don't care since I always sit where I sit.

[TedF]

Adding EQ is fooling around with the phase response of the audio. Deficiencies in the acoustics of the room are cancellations (and summations) of various frequencies and while they can be modified to some extent, they cannot be 'cured' with EQ.
The only true and permanent correction for a room is good acoustic treatment.
Try a graphic EQ by all means.... then throw it away!

(or advertise it on evilbay... let someone else try it!)

[Glenn Kuras]

jsb, even if you could eq the room there is no way to eq a null or ring time so you really are better off treating your room and going from there. Start with all bass traps in corners and then start to treat first reflection points. Another problem is equing is going to cause distortion much quicker on the any frequency that you increase before any others.
Trust me when I say that even if your room is not the perfect size you can still treat the room and get a great working environment. We just did one of the mixing rooms at Warner Brothers of Nashville and was able to tame a 35 db (I think it was that high) spike! That room was very small just like most home/project studios.

Glenn

[mltamisin]

Bass Traps & diffusers. I initially only had bass traps until recently. I had a low problem where I had to add bass to my monitors. Recently, I purchased a pair of RPG skylines for over my mix area. Vast improvement with all frequencies. My monitors are flat now.....no bass boost needed. Spend the money on the diffusion and your sound will even out tremendously. I even tried to make a skyline type diffuser and it doesn't compare to the real thing. Don't waste your money on Auralex stuff either. I do understand the desire to EQ also as no room is perfect even when treated but just be careful and run as many tests as possible...but more importantly trust your ears and use some mixes you know as references. Diffusers really worked for me and I'm going to get more. It definitely evened the sound out in every spot in the room....and that's just with one pair! Much more homogeneous....it doesn't sound different when you stand in different spots. Bear in mind when they are installed it will change the sound and you may have to adjust your setup as I did (lowering the bass in the monitors). My mixes translate much better now. Don't get too frustrated and good luck!

[Bob Olhsson]

First off, introducing monitor colorations can't possibly reverse room colorations. About all you can do is to remove colorations from the response of just the speakers. This calls for the highest possible quality equalizer because otherwise you'll just be trying to offset the sound of a cheap equalizer.

[s-boogie]

indeed,

room treatment might not be cheap,but it´s a must to do.
everything will sound different then.
speakers,eq´s,dynamics,microphones...all that.
your ears will be thankfull.it´s a relief.
as long as a room is shitty ,go with some good headphones as
a nearfield alternative.
...or get some auratones .
i wouldn´t eq my nearfields.

digital vs analog :

to repair bad recorded vocals etc. i would suggest probably waves q10
to carefully sizzor out some sharp resonant frequencies.
...of course your sequencers own channel eq plugs will work too,
if there´s no alternative...

analog, i´d choose my klark dn 410 to go after resonance in recorded signals.

bye

[Fletcher]

You can't EQ a room... you EQ the speakers.

So... you need to build a good control room, then load the speakers into the control room so they couple well with the front wall [flattest, most efficient bass response possible] then you can EQ the speakers so you get the same response curve at the mix postion.

In our room we're using an Apex PE232MKII http://www.apex-audio.be/product.php?productid=3 which has a two band parametric EQ [where all the "heavy lifting" occurs] and a 30 band graphic... We have it on the 6db scale [the full throw of any of the faders is 6db] with less than 1.5db of EQ happening at any given frequency... and about 2db of cut on one band of the parametric and 2db of boost on the other... for UREI 813A's the damn speakers sound pretty damn good if I do say so myself... of course they are in a 'designed' control room and it did take a couple days to get the speakers properly coupled with the front wall...

Best of luck with it.

[jayfrigo]

Definitely take care of the room first. I wouldn't EQ close fields. EQ is typically for mains, and then you should be as conservative as possible. Definitely use parametrics. 1/3 octave graphics of yesteryear are NOT your friend here. Meyer has an EQ for the job, as do several other manufacturers. For mains in a big room you could get something like an xta box which will crossover, EQ, delay, limit, screw up the sound if you let it, and wash the dishes for you. Personally I don't use any EQ in the mastering studio monitors.

[Jim Williams]

EQ is a frequency fix for what is a room timing problem. It's like trying to push down a drop of oil floating on water, it just moves around your thumb.
Room nulls are caused by timing errors causing frequency holes or comb filtering.

If you elect to "tune" the monitors, better bolt down that seat 'cause if you move it 2 inches all that "tuning" is now out of tune. Better use something to bolt your head straight ahead, if you turn it, you're out of tune.

If you don't believe me, tune your room and then move the measurement mic 2 inches. Not in tune anymore, is it? So where is the compromise to be?

The EQ will also throw another filter into the monitor path. Try this: set the EQ flat, have someone switch it in and out. Do you hear it? Not good as you may need a few bands to "tune" out the color of the EQ.

I remember when I hired Steve Brandon, aka "Coco" to tune a room. He had a very strange and limited B+K test rig with 3 mics, one pointed down to the floor. After his tuning, the 20k hz reponse was at -10 db. He kept going on about "the screaming high end". Well, he killed it off! The engineers all complained about the mains and couldn't work with them. A call to Carl Yancher easily fixed the problems that Coco created.

A TEF 20 or Audio Precision test rig can measure the room in the frequency and time domain. A plot will show what is right and what is wrong with a room. A room EQ would be a poor bandaid next to a room measurement and acoustic treatment.

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[chester]

About phase on EQ, why not use linear phase eqs on the mains.

ciao

chester

[Mike Caffrey]

I'd go with whatever EQ your room tuner recommends.

When Bob Hodas tuned my room he recommended a couple. I ended up with a Klark Technic ND 410.

We spent about 6 hours on monitor and console placement and 15 mintues on EQ at the end.

Tuning a room means making adjustments to the phsyical space to change what you hear. It's separate from EQing monitors.

[theAdmiral]

This consultant came to the studio i work for. This session's speaker set up required the couch in front of the console be moved. there was a huge increase in low end. So he asked for gml eq's. 6 of them for 5.1. Ended up cutting a bunch of low end and some high end the jbl's have built in. He had some software to analyize the pink noise and to input som data about the room(deminsions, delay times etc...) the speakers kind of hiss since the gml's were added. I have seen meyer sound, avalon 2055 on speakers too. Or you could put a big cushy couch in front of your console

[Jim Williams]

Originally Posted by chester

About phase on EQ, why not use linear phase eqs on the mains.

ciao

chester

That would work great if you wanted to flaten out the reponse of a non linear speaker, in an anechoic chamber or outside. Remember, EQ or frequency fixes do nothing to correct timing problems, or frequencies getting bounced and delayed...

Why is this so hard to understand?

Jim Williams
Audio Upgrades

[dbbubba]

I was scanning through the posts on this topic and waiting to say what JIM WILLIAMS is saying.

The frequency response of a room is determined by time based variants caused by refelctions of the propogated sound. Low end builds up in the corners, some frequencies end up canceling out here due to a reflection and other over here due to another reflection. It's all time based.

All an EQ can do is attenuate the offending frequencies.

They are still being re-inforced and attenuated by the time factors of refelction, but with an EQ you just turn them down to where they aren't so bad.

Here I say this, but I have a pair of White 2001 EQs on my JBL S38s.
(BTW, White Instruments is pretty much gone.)

Danny Brown

[Bob Olhsson]

It's all really simpler. It turns out that we have no problem telling what's coming from the speaker and what's coming from the room with the exception of the first 30 ms.

This means the only thing we can eq. that will increase accuracy is the speaker and that we must carefully exclude any effects of the room from our measurements. In most cases the speaker manufacturer has already taken care of this.

[UnMix Studio]

Not so, according to this guy: Bob Hodas Acoustic Analysis
85-95% of the major studios out there are tuned with EQ, even after treatment. I'll side with him for he tuned over 1000 room around the world, including many major studios..

Listen to his pdocast, which is very informative. He'll have u rethink how treated your room and such (CLick Launch Presentation at bottom)
Event Lobby (EVENT: 107574)

[jayfrigo]

Don't put words in Bob's mouth. To quote his first slide from the presentation you link to below, only 5% of the job is EQ. Also, remember the intent and target audience for that presentation. Bob knows very well the limitations of EQ.

As one of those 1,000 rooms you mention, when he came to tune my first commercial mastering studio in Atlanta back in the day, we used no EQ. We used placement, treatment, subwoofer placement, and sub filter frequency (filter, not crossover). In other rooms I've been in with him while he has been tuning, there was EQ used, but only on large mains and again, there was no misconception about the limitations of what you could accomplish with EQ.

Originally Posted by UnMix Studio

Not so, according to this guy: Bob Hodas Acoustic Analysis
85-95% of the major studios out there are tuned with EQ, even after treatment. I'll side with him for he tuned over 1000 room around the world, including many major studios..

Listen to his pdocast, which is very informative. He'll have u rethink how treated your room and such (CLick Launch Presentation at bottom)
Event Lobby (EVENT: 107574)

[UnMix Studio]

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

Don't put words in Bob's mouth. To quote his first slide from the presentation you link to below, only 5% of the job is EQ. Also, remember the intent and target audience for that presentation. Bob knows very well the limitations of EQ.

As one of those 1,000 rooms you mention, when he came to tune my first commercial mastering studio in Atlanta back in the day, we used no EQ. We used placement, treatment, subwoofer placement, and sub filter frequency (filter, not crossover). In other rooms I've been in with him while he has been tuning, there was EQ used, but only on large mains and again, there was no misconception about the limitations of what you could accomplish with EQ.

Clam down dude. Hope you realize I did not say 85-95% of the job was EQ. I just said what I heard in the podacast. He said aroung 85-95% of rooms he did had some type of EQ in tuning them. Never said it was 95% of the job. CLear?
Anyway, my point is that contrary to opinions on EQ, I posted that as support of EQ being used in tuned rooms. Never said EQ was they way to go for tuning you room either. Clear.

[jayfrigo]

Originally Posted by UnMix Studio

Clam down dude. Hope you realize I did not say 85-95% of the job was EQ. I just said what I heard in the podacast. He said aroung 85-95% of rooms he did had some type of EQ in tuning them. Never said it was 95% of the job. CLear?
Anyway, my point is that contrary to opinions on EQ, I posted that as support of EQ being used in tuned rooms. Never said EQ was they way to go for tuning you room either. Clear.

Drinking too much coffee? I certainly never claimed you said EQ was 95% of the job. I understood your point just fine, but I'm not sure you got mine, and certainly you mistook the way in which it was offered. It seemed perfectly calm to me.

You revived a 2 year old thread with a somewhat strongly worded post:

Not so, according to this guy: Bob Hodas Acoustic Analysis
85-95% of the major studios out there are tuned with EQ, even after treatment. I'll side with him for he tuned over 1000 room around the world, including many major studios..

And this called for clarification of the point, and elaboration regarding the content of the cited source. I'm not trying to be argumentative; I'm simply clarifying a few points so that people looking for information aren't confused.

Eq is indeed used on many large, main monitoring systems. This point, alone in a vacuum, can be misleading. It in no way impunes the accuracy of statements regarding room issues and limitations of what EQ can accomplish.

[kenjkelly]

Unmix: Not so, according to this guy: Bob Hodas Acoustic Analysis
85-95% of the major studios out there are tuned with EQ, even after treatment.....

Originally Posted by jayfrigo

Don't put words in Bob's mouth. To quote his first slide from the presentation you link to below, only 5% of the job is EQ.....

Jay, I have to say I read that response more like unmix did. I was shocked.

But what I really want to mention is: One thing that applies to a small home studio tracking-mixing environment, is that the recording side of any room issues aren't going to be fixed with play-back room EQ. In other words, when I use a Mic to record vocals in my small studio, the vocals end up with room issues. Fixing the room is the way to deal with both the tracking and mixing in a room with issues.

[Dean Roddey]

You can definitely get the room nice and flat with treatment, but if the room is small and not purpose built you may have to give up on the pretty factor in order to do it, and it may take a lot of trappage. My weenie little room is as flat as probably any high end mastering room out there except for one remaining cancellation which is pretty narrow (and I'll attack again later.) But it took a stupid amount of trappage to do it. It uses no EQ, and of course EQ wouldn't have helped since the only remaining issue is a cancellation, which cannot be fixed with EQ.

The other thing of course is that if your room is small, and you use that much trappage to get it flat, it'll be very dead sounding probably. But, if it's that small, the accoustics probably weren't all that good anyway.