I've known that product for many years, athought it's a great EQ compensation software, there are many room defects that this can't fix even if they say all problems in the video.
Rooms reverbs and flutter echo can't be cancelled by plugin..
Trial of this is not recommanded because it takes it's force in the specially tuned reference microphones (which all have different frequency response) so a flat mic wouldn't do any good. I guess it was their way of avoiding piracy!

Interesting anyway isn't it !

Yea, I wasn't under the impression that it could do that stuff, either, but I did find it intriguing in the sense of EQ correction/compensation for speakers. I wonder how it would react in a marginally treated room...

DonnyThompson, post: 427836, member: 46114 wrote: Yea, I wasn't under the impression that it could do that stuff, either, but I did find it intriguing in the sense of EQ correction/compensation for speakers. I wonder how it would react in a marginally treated room...

I have the ARC 2 and found that it made a difference. This is purely anecdotal evidence and a very limited sample, but my experience was that my initial mixes translated better on other systems. In the past, I'd mix trying to compensate for what I've learned about my monitors in that room (dynadio BM6As; partially treated room with a reasonable amount of broadband absorbers and an overhead cloud), and then listen on headphones...and on my stereo...and in the car...then go back and remix based on my notes and repeat the process 5 or 6 times. With ARC2, I would still have to go through that process, but I could do it in 3 passes instead of twice as many. It didn't suddenly produce a completely flat response at the listening position, but it was definitely better than without it, I could trust my ears a little more. When I shared initial mixes with bandmates, I got more comments about fine tuning and less about big problems ("it needs more crack in the snare" vrs "I can't hear the snare during the chorus").

Short version: it helped get things in the ballpark quicker for me. I suspect an experienced mixing engineer who has learned the quirks of their monitors in their mixing environment (and works in a moderately well treated environment) would be able to do it just as fast or faster without something like this.

I also learned that small changes to the room meant I had to recalibrate the software, which itself takes some time, and I would just sometimes forget to do it, or I wouldn't notice the change in the first place - some piece of furniture moved a foot to the left for one reason or another, or even just having a second person in the room while I was listening reduced the effectiveness.

Your mileage may vary.

apstrong, post: 427842, member: 36444 wrote: I also learned that small changes to the room meant I had to recalibrate the software, which itself takes some time, and I would just sometimes forget to do it, or I wouldn't notice the change in the first place - some piece of furniture moved a foot to the left for one reason or another, or even just having a second person in the room while I was listening reduced the effectiveness.

Good point... and thanks for the input.

So .... you do have to stay up to date with the recalibration, depending on any changes you made to the room since the first test - or, even if you had more people in the room than normal... does the ARC system allow you to store different "scenes"?

Such as a scene that is set for a CR with 4 people, as opposed to just you, that you could simply recall without having to recalibrate?

DonnyThompson, post: 427843, member: 46114 wrote: So .... you do have to stay up to date with the recalibration, depending on any changes you made to the room since the first test - or, even if you had more people in the room than normal... does the ARC system allow you to store different "scenes"? Such as a scene that is set for a CR with 4 people, as opposed to just you, that you could simply recall without having to recalibrate?

Yes, every time you calibrate the system you can save the results separately and then load any of the configurations up whenever you like. So first you have to go through the calibration while those four people are standing in the room (wearing earplugs probably, it's not quiet) and then you'd have to make sure they're all standing in the same places when you load that configuration later.

LOL... wow... that's a picky system!

"Okay... we're calibrated, now... so please, for the love of God... nobody move!"

"But I have to go to the bathroom..."

"Sit... Down. I said, nobody move!"

;)

Well, I didn't exactly do experiments to figure out the effect of a 200 pound guitarist standing behind me vrs a coked out groupie passed out on the couch (wait, maybe I can get a research grant for this!) but I noticed a difference with some changes to the environment. How big those differences were...hard to say. The bigger the change (moving the couch), the bigger the difference, it just stands to reason, but you could probably live with smaller differences without recalibrating, maybe set up some general scenarios: you mixing alone, you with a few people behind you listening, and I suspect that would be close enough for rock and roll.

speaker correction has never worked and it will never work unless your quadriplegic in a wheelchair and you never move. you would have to have some kind of interface where you control the DAW with your eye movements. it's a black magic medicine man electronic solution for a very organic issue. look, it's simple. construct a proper listening environment in the first place. stop trying to turn a sow ear into a silk purse. this only goes to show there are some very gullible people who are desperate for a solution because they refuse to accept the hard facts.

Sure, a great room solves all these problems. As soon as I'm able to take out a load bearing wall and dig my basement down another 4 feet, I'll let you know how that works out. In the meantime, I'm happy to experiment with other solutions. As long as I get them from a place with a good return policy, no harm done.

When you eq monitors you boost the nodes in the room. This makes the overall system response worse elsewhere in the room, and the sweet spot even smaller and more localized. Any more than a couple select frequency band and a DB or 2, and your attacking the problem the wrong way. Eq at this point in time, will never be capable of more than the last %2 of fine tuning. The reason is simply that it reaches diminishing returns very quickly.