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[bert]

i was wondering if it's possible to calibrate your room/monitoring installation with just a small home studio budget, without big budget high precision microphones and metering hardware. is there some kind of good metering software plugin available, which i could for example use with a good budget condenser (and then of course with the help of the frequency response curve of the mic, correcting the metering result and if necessary the room/soundsystem)?

[hargerst]

The Behringer ECM8000 is a decent calibration mic at around $40.  Unfortunately, you can't just flatten the room response with eq; you'll need traps to do it right.

[Benmrx]

I've often wondered this myself.  We didn't have any kind of budget for hiring a pro to tune our room.  Our studio is 100% DIY.  

"The Behringer ECM8000 is a decent calibration mic at around $40"

sweet, will check that out soon.  What about frequency metering?  would this work at all when used with ECM8000 to at least have somewhere decent to start, to see what particular frequencies are building up?  

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/D1500/

[bert]

Do i really need an external RTA like the samson?
Are there no decent dx/vst software plugins or programs i can use to examine the frequencies?

Thanks alot,

B

[hargerst]

I'm sure there are RTA plug-ins around; I just don't know anything about them.

[natpub]

here's some free stuff that will help you:


http://www.realtraps.com/modecalc.htm

http://www.realtraps.com/sbirlbir.htm



Dig around this web site, I think the modecalc page there has a free software RTA you can download. If not, one of those pages on Ethan's site does have one.


cheers

[Weird Geoff]

If you have a rectangular room use modecalc which you can download from Ethan's site for free..use that to come up with some numbers..then fire a tone generator, one that sweeps the audible spectrum, i.e., 20Hz-20KHz (ebay for like 20-50$)..Take careful notes on where you hear it get louder or quieter at the mix position..make sure your speakers are positioned the best they can be first of course..then look for congruency between the mode calc and the listening test..what this will do is give you your general problem areas at mix position and you can compensate by other means..

[disco stu]

Yeah id agree with that - so long as youre not worried about what it sounds like outside the mix position you can get pretty good results without any sort of traps anywhere - but my mixing room has lots of soft furnishings so if you can cram a sofa in there and depending what else you use the room for you could try hanging a heavy rug behind the listening position which can sometimes help - also means "helpful" bandmembers who know nothing about production dont have room to sit with you and the producer and watch your every move telling you how to work

Stu