This looks interesting. I am going to check out the 14 day trial.

Nx – Virtual Mix Room over Headphones | Waves

Where would you use this? Is this printed on the mix or only for your own hearing in headphones to simulate listening with monitors?

It seems like that is a dangerous thing to do. Like to see if it works before buying.

I've only tried it very briefly so far. I have to say that I have mixed feelings about it.
I like it a lot more than TB Isone because it preserves the sound far better, but I'm still hearing phase/smearing issues that makes me a bit worried that it can't be used for mixing start to finish.
And as a "check my mix" tool it's very limited compared to Focusrite VRM as I can't check it in a variety of speakers and rooms.

So I'm not sure how useful this will be. But I am mixing a lot on headphones lately so it will be worth a closer examination for me.

The head tracking feature is kinda cool but it consumes a lot of CPU on my MBP. Not worth it, and it's questionable how valuable such a feature is really as you'd ideally want to be in the sweet spot most of the time.

I'm not dismissing it yet, but I'm doubting that it will be a keeper for me even at $49.

Looks interesting, definitely going to check it out, I currently use an SPL 2Control with Crossfeed, which does a pretty amazing job - when I first got it I would occasionally pull my headphones off at 2am because I would momentarily forget the Crossfeed was engaged and think . . . "WTF! I'm blasting this mix out through the speakers" . . . before realising the sound was entirely in my phones, it can be that convincing . . . but obviously you can't take a 2Control on an airplane or train, so this looks interesting.

Just got Waves NX Virtual Mix Room on the 14 day trial and certainly the first impressions are that the sound through my headphones is pretty amazing but agree with earlier comments as to how useful will this plug in be in the grand scheme of things It does not change the source material so is only ever going to be an indulgence for personal listening on headphones and think I would rather spend my hard earned dosh on something more generally useful of which there are plenty of alternatives in Waves

i am using the trial, it seems promising but the performance is not so good when using the camera. and my macbook pro is fully loaded.
maybe with the bluetooth thing for the headphones...

Don't underestimate the importance of tools that will improve your monitoring. If it allows you to do a better job it will show off in the end result.
Not saying that this is such a tool however. Time will tell. But it's good to realise that the mix engineer is the most important plugin.

Headphones doesnt have crosstalk so emulationg high end mixing room is just marketing. Headphones doesnt even reproduce stereo but binaural sound.

. . . that's the whole point of these tools, they introduce crosstalk, they are surprisingly useful in mixing.

I had amazing success with FLUX: Hear so far, which adds crossfeed. It translates extremely well, at least with DT880 headphones.
Curious about the Waves solution, even though I do expect similar results.

BTW: Waves states it should be on the master bus, but they actually mean the monitoring bus, obviously. You don't want to mix down your mix with the plug active...

Waves is assuming that most users will have their stereo master bus working as their DAW's main output. The plug-in just needs to be disabled before bouncing or printing the mix.

Waves NX is not emulating a high end mixing room, or any type of existing mixing room for that matter. It's simulating what a completely neutral mixing environment would sound like.

I think this one is actually quite good, compared to alternatives. I have used the Flux one, as well as Focusrites VRM box (although it does something that NX doesn't do), and to my ears this is the winner. The head tracking system though does not work perfectly on my old laptop. Sometimes there is too much lag to make the effect work properly.

I've been using 112db's Redline Monitor so far for the same purpose - without the fancy head tracking though (who needs that...). You head should stay in the sweet Spot, right? And if you want to "walk around in the room" to check the low-end's/ bass balance, you'd need to get out of the head-tracking range anyway.

You can hear obvious phasing/ flanging e.g. on the snares/ claps, when you A/B-ing the Redline Monitor plug-in. And according to the Manual, there are some frequencies slightly boosted in the upper-mid by the plug-in.

NX sounds interesting! Just downloaded the demo...

Anyone here who has experience with R. M. is comparing both Plug-Ins, too?

Been using this 2 days now. I was sceptical at first but the proof of the pudding was certainly in the eating :D I have a decent webcam and the tracking is great. THe sound is excellent, I can safely mix on headphones now if I ever wanted.

To put this into perspective, I have a nice room and $10,000 monitors to compare it to


through the NX thread I also have bought Sonarworks EQ plug in for my HD650's.

The combination of the two is a level of flatness you'd find hard to find even in the best studios.


is it perfect? no, but it's an amazing strating point that can only get better



MC

I'm having to mix an indie film that I co-directed almost 18 years ago. It's not a good enough film to spend a bunch of money having a professional do it right, unfortunately. But my friend and the other co-director has passed away so I feel obligated to finally finish it. This plugin coupled with SonarWorks headphone plugin has now made my room up to the task. I can actually hear what I'm working on in 5.1 right in my headphones, and I feel fairly confident in the results. I do have 5.1 monitoring in my small room, but it isn't treated and is far too bassy. This plugin is pretty awesome for my needs.

Sorry for your loss Chris!

I'm using Sonarworks for months now with the AKG721 calibration file (followed by 112dB's Redline Monitor). By the way, did you guys send your phones to Sonarworks for "the more accurate" calibration? Is it woth it?

I demoed NX last night. There is an obvoius loss in the low-end! When enabling NX, my kick, basssynth an guitar sound pretty thin. Should a room simulation really drop the low freqs so audible, as it is emulating full-range acoustics for monitors, which are only a meter away???

I have been demoing the same combination. It is pretty damn good. I have yet to get into the head tracking stuff, but I think I probably will at some point.

If you loose low end I'd say it's because you're room/monitors are boosting the low end and you've got used to it. Low end is where all the money is spent treating rooms, so I suspect your room has low end modes that are boosting.

My room and monitors are pretty good and I don't notice a bass drop.



MC

What I meant was:

Headphone monitoring: Stereo Bus -> Sonarworks Reference (AKG721 calibration) -> Redline Monitor -> AKG721

Activating/ Bypassing the Redline Monitor only changes the stereo image, (narrowing width, some crossfeed, and you can hear some subtle phasing in certain upper mid areas, like I mentioned before)

St. bus -> S. Reference -> Waves NX-> AKG721

NX is definitely cutting at the low end. Besides the change of the st. image, the lack of bass is audbile immediately after putting it in the chain - like adding an HPF. Or maybe phase cancelling by NX's crossfeed simulation?

Come on guys, I cannot be the only one

You want sonarworks at the END of the chain.


MC

Since I don't have the Redline plugin to compare to, I can only compare the NX plugin to my room, which I already know is TOO bassy. Coupled with my AKG K702s (and comparing my mix against ripped stems from commercial DVDs), I feel I can get a handle on it. One thing I did do at the suggestion of another user is reduce the "ambiance" setting to 10%. It feels much more natural to me.

Also of interest, if I add the SonarWorks headphone curve, my bass actually INCREASES with these headphones, whereas with my closed-back Senny HD25-IIs, the bass is DECREASED a LOT by leveling them out with the SonarWorks curves. It's all very interesting.

It may not be perfect (particularly the surround simulation), but it's still better I believe than my small and non-treated room.

Why do you prefer this chain?
Shouldn't I flatten out the freqs BEFORE emulate imaging/ crossfeeding on the signal?
No matter if R.M. or NX or whatever. I don't think you should mess with the channels audio input distribution before EQ-ing to get a flat response.

If you use hardware for this , like "SPL Phonitor", you get the imaging/ crossfeed at the end of the chain anyway...

Right?
Wrong?

This has been a long (and heated) discussion in another thread. Since Sonarworks flattens your headphones and your headphones are the last thing before your ears, Sonarworks should be last in the chain. However, somebody in the other thread measured Waves NX, turns out it's so flat it doesn't colour your sound, which means with NX it doesn't matter if you go NX → Sonarworks or Sonarworks → NX.

waves does create a flat sound but your headphones then colour the sound so that's where the sonarworks come in to keep what waves does flat to your ears.

otherwise all the good waves NX does is then going out of the window with flawed/coloured headphones :D


MC

Such a simple idea, but day & night results. As a bedroom producer, I'm more confident using headphones now, and still have monitors to reference. I love it, tracking off though and room ambience zero. Any suggestion for ambience though?

I have the Sonaworks for my 650s, so are you chaining both? if so which order?

With sonarworks are you using the flat eq or are you using the speaker emus?

Flat EQ for me, as I don't know the modeled speakers well enough to compensate.

Waves NX followed by sonarworks flat response.


MC