wtf is this? [moved from other forum]

[chaoticz]

Exclusive Room Acoustic Control automatically tunes speakers for optimal sound.

That's what Edirol says about their new "Revolutionary Digital Mixer and Audio Interface for the Studio and Stage". Model M-16DX. I was wondering how good is this thing when a room lacks good acoustic treatment. Or maybe it's even better when treatment is good?

[lucey]

What is it? You know what it is. A gimmick. Everyone is doing this now, putting digital eq's in speakers and in other places where room treatments should be.

And this is not a mastering topic, why post it here?

[chaoticz]

Originally Posted by lucey

And this is not a mastering topic, why did you post it here?

Maybe because acoustic treatment has more in common with mastering than any other topic?

[lucey]

Originally Posted by chaoticz

Maybe because acoustic treatment has more in common with mastering than any other topic?

Not at all. Mix rooms are purpose built, and if not should be treated. Especially small rooms need a lot of bass trapping. Tracking rooms are built, or need to be treated (unless they are really big)

A digital eq replaces a room? Built/treated rooms are only for mastering?

Not to pick on you personally, but these pitfalls are being marketed to home studios. You need to treat your mix room, an eq does not do it.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by chaoticz

Exclusive Room Acoustic Control automatically tunes speakers for optimal sound.

Yeah, and the check is in the mail.

Brian already gave you the right answer, but for an in-depth explanation of why all such electronic room "correction" devices are a scam, see this article on my company's site:

RealTraps - Audyssey Room EQ

--Ethan

[flatfinger]

From the article listed above :

Unfortunately, the popular audio press gushes uncritically over products like these

How often ( really) do you see an recording/audio fanboy mag pissing on an potential future advertisers parade????

That's the beauty of software pluggs at least : I've lost count of the times I've demoed them an said WTF!!
If you can find a dealer to give you a trial period , well then be an early adopter of the latest whiz-bang gizmo available . Otherwise , see the above!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by flatfinger

How often ( really) do you see an recording/audio fanboy mag pissing on an potential future advertisers parade????

That's a great point, which just goes to show how corrupt and misguided many / most magazines are. Magazines owe loyalty to their readers, not their advertisers. If they serve their readers, and the readers are smart enough to realize it (sadly, often not the case), the advertisers will always follow.

When I used to be an electronics engineer years ago, I read the two main EE magazines Electronics and Electronic Design. Both of them understood loyalty to their readers, and every product review included a list of all competing products with a comparison of features and pricing. The only recording type magazine I'm aware of that currently does this is Sound On Sound.

--Ethan

[skygod]

Originally Posted by lucey

What is it? You know what it is. A gimmick. Everyone is doing this now, putting digital eq's in speakers and in other places where room treatments should be.

And this is not a mastering topic, why did you post it here?

Let me qualify what Im saying up front so you all won't think I'm a cukoo bird. Actually, I have become very interested personnaly in the USB 2.0 interface, and the entire concept of this neato little mixer myself because I have been looking for something to interface with my business Dell E1505 that is a hopeless case of ever getting the firewire to work from what I've been reading on Dell and other forums everywhere else. Oh well. It is 1-RS small and would fit very nicely in a 3-4 rack portable with some other high end sound modules an AXON converter and other stuff I always have in the trunk availabe all the time on the fly.

This particular laptop was never purchased for any recording duties, but sometimes when I'm on the road for buisness and not production, and a the muse hits me in a hotel room at night, I need something to plug into on the fly. This is small a setup enough to qaulify to interface with the Reaper freeware I downloaded to test it with. If I can make it work with this DELL which is actually a very efficient and good business laptop for crunching spreadsheets, emailsa, memos, PPT/PPS etc., then anybody can make it work with a dedicated MAC or other music frindly laptop or whatever else their budget permits. That said, if it works, this will definitely become a bravo roland well done. If not, then the problem might not be the MFG as USB 2.0 unlike firewire shares IRQ/DMA resources, that I might have to reconfigure, otherwise, I will be wasting my money, unless I turn around and buy a music friendly laptop or just plug into the bigger sytems in the studio an hope it works for 18 extra channels pof 24 bit audio. The presonus Studio Live 16:2 also looked interesting for just this purpose, but was not slim and ergonomic like this and way too overkill for what I want to use it for.

If I can record 16-18 channels at 24/96 w/o burps, then Roland has designed a great little device with a lot of bells and whistles built in. Why buy a two track anything for half the price when I can get this for two hundred more including cubase LE?I I can always dump the scratch idea tracks on better platforms in the studio later and add to the arrangement w/o having to totally trash them necessarily.

Having said that, your'e right -- Not a mastering forum discussion by the first poster -- better suited in a live sound forum on PSW or elsewhere. The idea at roland is probably introducing something very cursory and elementary derived from Rane's live sound graphic equalizers, you know, where you measure the room white and pink noise with a condenser mic, and adjust for room "Typical PA adjustment difference between Perfect-Q and Proportional-Q" and adjust your GEQ accordingly."

In the case of this device it is not necessarily a gimmic if that's what they are trying to achieve, it is however a shortcut to an end that should not necessarily find it's way into studio recording that is suppposed to be a more precise environement than live stage open air/or closed space recording, where folks take great pains to sound treat their room s for rec/mix/mastering functions. If this catches on, the industry is liable of becomeing more sloppy, derailed, and fvvked up than it already is. What the heck --- it's already a podcast dominated universe anyway, and nobody cares either .... right? fuggedaboudit!


~skygod~

[lucey]

There is now an acoustics forum ... sorry if I was cranky up top!

[MASSIVE Master]

The big problem with "room correction" systems is that they make the playback system even less accurate to make up for the problems in the room.

That's fine for live use - But not for when you want to hear what's actually happening.

Say your room has a 10dB boost at 110Hz. What's the thing going to do, subtract 10dB of 110Hz? The room is still going to have a resonance at 110Hz. So instead of 10dB, it might have to cut it 25dB. Now, you aren't going to hear anything at 110Hz, because it's all gone (except the natural resonance in the room, of course).

And what happens if you have a 35dB null at 110Hz...? Not recording anything in "A" isn't going to cut it...