Couple of questions about Sonarworks

[Mornats]

I'm use the headphone edition at the moment for my Audio Technica M50x headphones. I'm also using a pair of superlux 668b headphones. I'm considering upgrading the latter to a pair of DT 880 pros. However, if I'm using Sonarworks will they offer better quality than my current headphones? All 'phones will be flattened by Sonarworks so will so will sound somewhat similar I guess?

Also, I'm looking at getting the room correction version too. Any idea of how loud the calibration will be? I don't want to annoy the neighbours!

[Skol303]

Sorry, I can't comment on the headphones version as I have no experience with it. But generally speaking, the better quality driver, the better quality output - and I imagine this applies equally to headphones as it does any other speakers.

The room calibration process is quite loud but not alarmingly (or neighbour-annoyingly) so! Takes about 15 minutes at a guess; lots of "WOOP, WOOP, WOOP, WOOOOOOP!" frequency sweeps and some pulsing noises that it uses to sort of echo-locate the mic positions. Probably somewhere around 70-80dB if you have it set right. Your neighbours will probably just think you've bought the new Apex Twin EP, if they hear it at all  

[Mornats]

Cheers mate

To be honest they have to put up with me mixing my tracks so they'll be used to weird sounds 70-80db should be ok if I do it at the right time of day. 

I thought that too about the headphones so thanks for confirming. It's between getting better headphones for mixing or trying Sonarworks for my speakers at the moment so I'm weighing up both. 

[roman_sub]

IMO headphone correction software is somewhat self-defeating as a concept. A properly-designed set of monitoring cans will already be optimised by the manufacturer to be as 'useful' as possible, within the limitations of the drivers / materials being used! If you don't like how the headphones sound, it would be better to get headphones that you do like... After all, headphones just show a part of the picture, e.g. it's very hard to judge some things (mix width/depth/reverb/etc) on headphones alone, and they'll never tell you everything you need to 'know' about a mix. Get used to what music sounds like in the particular set of headphones and move on.

I've used both ATH50 and DT880Pro for mixing. I liked both, but ATH seemed somewhat hard in the upper mids, and DT880's are a tad mushy in the low mids (though more natural overall, maybe more revealing). ATH had better isolation.... but probably DT880s would edge it for mixing.

I'd recommend Sennheiser HD600 over both - THE headphones of choice for many top classical recordists, plus many others - though some may find them 'boring'...

Maybe you've already done this, but I wouldn't reach for any room correction software until you've spent some time and effort sorting out the room itself, y'know, with physical acoustic treatment, optimising speaker positioning, etc.   

Edited September 27, 2018 by roman_sub

[Mornats]

All wise words! I have a terrible sounding room in a rented flat with no room for treatment (I need so many bass traps) so I'm trying to find a way to makes a little better. I may be moving soonish hence why I thought Sonarworks for my monitors would be good. If it doesn't help in this room then maybe it will in the next.

[roman_sub]

My current music production space is a former bedroom of a rented house! Bass traps are held in place with very small nails / picture frame hooks. it took about a day but achieved a very significant improvement. It's still not a great space for mixing, but between headphones and monitor speakers, my mixes translate exactly as I'd expect them - so can't really ask for more....

Whilst it's a massive subject in itself, I'd start room treatment by moving speakers so they sound as good as possible (probably would help to have some space away from the wall in most cases, triangular position with the listener, symmetrically positioned about the room).... a sofa behind the listening position will help as bass trap, as would a book case with randomly filled books (as a diffuser). I'd see if you can attach some lightweight acoustic absorbers behind speakers, on the side walls and to ceiling above listening position... imagine you had a mirror, and everywhere the sound would hit a wall once and glance back at you should ideally have an absorber.  That will take care of first order reflections, which are most troublesome.

You may find some improvement with sonarworks in an untreated room, but it won't make your mixes sound better overnight, and I'd bet you'd end up exchanging one set of acoustic problems for another.... so save your money and work on the underlying problem of your room acoustics!

 

[Mornats]

I've looked into bass traps before but unfortunately my room is my living room and to get anything in the corners would mean blocking the door, removing the TV and removing my PC (which would defeat the purpose!)

My main issue is phase cancellation of bass. It's almost non existent anywhere other than the corners of the room. I can't mix on my monitors at all as I'm flying blind. It really sucks!

[Skol303]

6 hours ago, roman_sub said:

I'd start room treatment by moving speakers so they sound as good as possible (probably would help to have some space away from the wall in most cases, triangular position with the listener, symmetrically positioned about the room).... a sofa behind the listening position will help as bass trap, as would a book case with randomly filled books (as a diffuser). I'd see if you can attach some lightweight acoustic absorbers behind speakers, on the side walls and to ceiling above listening position... imagine you had a mirror, and everywhere the sound would hit a wall once and glance back at you should ideally have an absorber.  That will take care of first order reflections, which are most troublesome.

Good points from Roman in the posts above 👍 Being an acoustics nerd, I'd like to comment on those I've highlighted in bold:

• Speaker position: Speakers should be as close to the front wall as possible to avoid Surface Boundary Interference Response (SBIR) cancellation at the listening position. Good explanation of SBIR here.
• Sofa and bookcase would have negligible benefits in terms of absorption (sofa fibres typically too heavy to function as porous absorbers) and diffusion, which needs to be optimised/even and not random (diffusion doesn't really work in small rooms generally).
• Panels behind speakers have very little/no benefit: they'd need to be very thick to help with low frequencies (pushing the speakers too far from the wall - see note on SBIR above) and would do nothing to help with high frequencies that are directional and don't fire backwards out of your monitor... unless it's broken! 🙂 Instead, concentrate on first reflection points (mirror trick is great advice from Roman) and the back wall, where the traps need to be as deep as possible to help deal with room modes.

Also to add…

Whilst Sonarworks might be able to help smooth out the frequency response in an untreated room, it will do nothing to reduce low frequency decay times, which are just as (if not more) problematic than frequency dips in terms of boomy, smeared and undefined bass. But… Sonarworks is probably better than nothing. And using monitors, even in an untreated room, is usually better for things like stereo balance/placement than headphones alone. Ok, so you can't trust your monitors for the low end response; but that doesn't make them useless for other purposes. Most bass is mono anyway; so headphone referencing is very viable.

Lots of further nerding on this topic here:

riding

[roman_sub]

2 hours ago, Skol303 said:

Good points from Roman in the posts above 👍 Being an acoustics nerd, I'd like to comment on those I've highlighted in bold:

• Speaker position: Speakers should be as close to the front wall as possible to avoid Surface Boundary Interference Response (SBIR) cancellation at the listening position. Good explanation of SBIR here.
• Sofa and bookcase would have negligible benefits in terms of absorption (sofa fibres typically too heavy to function as porous absorbers) and diffusion, which needs to be optimised/even and not random (diffusion doesn't really work in small rooms generally).
• Panels behind speakers have very little/no benefit: they'd need to be very thick to help with low frequencies (pushing the speakers too far from the wall - see note on SBIR above) and would do nothing to help with high frequencies that are directional and don't fire backwards out of your monitor... unless it's broken! 🙂 Instead, concentrate on first reflection points (mirror trick is great advice from Roman) and the back wall, where the traps need to be as deep as possible to help deal with room modes.

Also to add…

Whilst Sonarworks might be able to help smooth out the frequency response in an untreated room, it will do nothing to reduce low frequency decay times, which are just as (if not more) problematic than frequency dips in terms of boomy, smeared and undefined bass. But… Sonarworks is probably better than nothing. And using monitors, even in an untreated room, is usually better for things like stereo balance/placement than headphones alone. Ok, so you can't trust your monitors for the low end response; but that doesn't make them useless for other purposes. Most bass is mono anyway; so headphone referencing is very viable.

Lots of further nerding on this topic here:

riding

Good points, and I bow to superior knowledge of acoustics! Though I think whether speakers are front-ported or rear-ported may have an effect on how close to the wall you'd want them...

Perhaps I was overstating effects of furniture, somewhat ;-)

[SubsonicSimpleton]

20 hours ago, Mornats said:

I've looked into bass traps before but unfortunately my room is my living room and to get anything in the corners would mean blocking the door, removing the TV and removing my PC (which would defeat the purpose!)

My main issue is phase cancellation of bass. It's almost non existent anywhere other than the corners of the room. I can't mix on my monitors at all as I'm flying blind. It really sucks!

Have you considered using a pair of monitors with limited bass response?

You would still have to make decisions on your bottom end on headphones, but you might get a clearer picture of what is happening in the midrange using something like mixcubes/auratones - no crossover or reflex porting does have advantages. 

As a quick, cheap and easily reversible experiment, you could try plugging the ports on your monitors, and/or running a high pass filter on the main bus to get an idea of whether reducing the amount of low end energy  in the room is going to make your life easier. If that brings a positive result, it might be worth making a trip to have a listen to some single driver speakers.

[Mornats]

Interesting option, I'll try putting a high pass filter on to see what effect that has. I'm using Yamaha HS7 monitors and Yamaha says this about the frequency range

• 43Hz - 30kHz (-10dB), 55Hz - 24kHz (-3dB) frequency response

Without measuring to find out for sure, the issue with my living room is that it's square and bass frequencies vanish in the middle and are only present in the corners. 

So I guess I'm wondering whether investment in a good pair of open back headphones or Sonarworks would be best as there's no space for bass traps.

[adamg67]

I didn't realise there was a Sonarworks headphone edition. My headphones are on the supported list, but with the comments above I'm wondering how much difference it will really make - they are a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s so I'd expect them to be pretty close without any tweaking. I havn't actually done a mix on them yet so that will be the test, although with my lack of mixing skills I might not be able to tell Something else to learn, which is fun.

I'm using the 'phones quite a bit now, I decided against trying to do anything with monitoring in a 2m x 2.5m box room, especially as I have the go-ahead to swap rooms in the next month or two, up to a whoppping 3m x 3m - I'll have a look again when I'm set up in there.

[Skol303]

On 29/09/2018 at 16:51, adamg67 said:

...I have the go-ahead to swap rooms in the next month or two, up to a whoppping 3m x 3m - I'll have a look again when I'm set up in there.

Not wanting to deliberately rain on your parade... but square (and worse still cubic) rooms with equal dimensions suffer from the very worst problems in terms of room modes (extreme peaks and dips in the low end). A good set of headphones will be your most trusted friend

[adamg67]

2 hours ago, Skol303 said:

Not wanting to deliberately rain on your parade... but square (and worse still cubic) rooms with equal dimensions suffer from the very worst problems in terms of room modes (extreme peaks and dips in the low end). A good set of headphones will be your most trusted friend

You’re fine, I had spotted that already. luckily it’s an 80s house so the room’s not 3m high

The big difference is that the new room will have space for some treatment, where the current one really does not. I’ll check out how bad it is and keep the headphones handy.

[Skol303]

12 hours ago, adamg67 said:

The big difference is that the new room will have space for some treatment, where the current one really does not. I’ll check out how bad it is and keep the headphones handy.

No domestic room is ever ideal, so you're in good company!  

If possible, when treating a square room that size you really need to go nuts. Anything less will just be p****** into the ocean, so to speak. By "nuts" I mean:

• Covering the entire ceiling with porous absorbers - i.e. create a false ceiling and fill it with mineral wool.
• Covering the entire rear wall with porous absorbers, ideally 60cm thick or more. As with the ceiling, you can create a wooden frame, fill it with mineral wool slabs and then finish with breathable fabric.

That would have a worthwhile impact on tackling standing waves. Putting up a few panels will help to some degree, but it may be barely noticeable as those standing waves are going to be strong. Just pointing this out as I've seen people waste money on trying to treat such rooms half-heartedly. If you're not able to "go nuts", then I'd recommend relying on headphones (certainly for mixing low end) and using your monitors for general stereo placement, etc.

For reference, here's a plot of the room modes assuming the space has a height of around 2.3m. The tall, red bars indicate the stronger standing waves:

PS: the Schroeder Fq mark shows the frequency beneath which your room will act like a resonant 'drum'; in this case around 350Hz.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Skol303

[adamg67]

Thanks for that. It does make me wonder if I'll still need the phones for mixing anyway in the new room. For things I care about I pay someone who knows what they're doing to mix anyway, so it's really just for demos and ideas, where headphones should be good enough.

I'm moving rooms so I don't feel so cramped when I'm working, so filling the space with bass traps would make that a bit pointless

Really appreciating the good advice on here.

[Skol303]

2 hours ago, adamg67 said:

Really appreciating the good advice on here.

You're very welcome.

If you're using someone for pro mixing then you don't really need a treated room. And you'd definitely struggle to make a decent job of a room that's 3x3m: "That way lies madness...".

In which case, best option is definitely to use headphones, which will get you 90% of the way there anyway. I do the majority of my mixing on headphones - sometimes just Apple earbuds - and then finish off with monitors. You can still use your speakers for mixing, just don't trust them for the low end and rely on headphones for adjusting the bass (comparing against reference tracks that you know well).

Most importantly, enjoy your new music room and have fun 

PS: some basic acoustic treatment at the main reflection points would still be of some noticeable benefit: side walls, ceiling, front/rear corners and back wall. Don't use foam; always use some form of mineral wool. Relatively easy to DIY or budget for around £600-1000 total if you want to buy ready-made.

Edited October 2, 2018 by Skol303

[adamg67]

2 hours ago, Skol303 said:

Most importantly, enjoy your new music room and have fun 

Now that's the best advice I've read on here in a long while