W7 alternatives to Fuzzmeasure / Spectre?

[Drumstruck]

Hi Guys,

After reading the writeup on "Fuzzmeasure" and "Spectre" in the latest AT mag I've concluded that I need some such app to further analyse my setup...... unfortunately these s/w's only run on the dreaded Mac OSX.

I had a quick look at Clio and emailed the company for pricing..... but was wondering if there are any other W7 compatible analysis apps...... any tips would be appreciated


thanks

[Sammas]

Check out "Room EQ Wizard" (also called REW). It is free and pretty comprehensive.

[Drumstruck]

thanks Nath - it looks a pretty good product for my needs

[Mark Bassett]

Whatever you do, don't EQ your speakers in an attempt to fix your acoustic deficiencies.

[Drumstruck]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the tip - I was definitely not planning on applying EQ to my speakers

To elaborate a little - my (small) studio is one L-shaped room on a concrete slab (with carpet tiles) and with concrete block walls. The ceiling is 2.4m high (unfortunately) as I'm downstairs.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9910326/Studi01 ... erhead.jpg

So the first phase of acoustic treatment involved using my ears and:
1/ applying some "Sound Acoustics" tiles (to reduce the room ambience / high flutter)
2/ obtaining five movable baffles (each on casters and 2.2m high x 1.5m wide x .2m thick - the top half laminated glass / the bottom half heavily absorbtive one side / reflective the other side). The baffles also function as room dividers or to change the control room into an amphitheatre shape.


For phase 2 I am planning on using a tone generator and an analysis tool to find the errant frequencies, then applying acoustic treatment to correct those - midrange reflections are the main offender now and I'm thinking of some diffusors to hang from the ceiling and bass traps in some corners.

[DwaneHollands]

Whatever you do, don't EQ your speakers in an attempt to fix your acoustic deficiencies.

Hey Mark, just a question!

Yeah I've got some be!@#$%^& Truth Active monitors. (B2030A's).

I set them up ages with the room compensation switches on the back of the monitors to dial off some low end and top end. Is this kosher, or as bad as using an EQ to tune your monitors? Would it introduce phase distortion or nasty stuff like that?

(I did find that my mixes translated better to the car, than when they were un-compensated. I wish the top end switches intervals were 1db instead of 2db as 2db is a little too much.)

[Mark Bassett]

Hi Dwane, you've got a few questions in there, I'll attempt to answer them all the best I can.

You are correct in saying that the EQ switches on the back of your monitors introduce phase distortion, how much of a problem this is is up for debate. Any digital EQ you use that's not linear phase and all analogue EQ's you use in your mix will all introduce phase distortion, they have to, it's just how they work.

If the settings on your monitors are working for you, that is, your mixes translate, and when you go to mastering the engineer does not have to fix your bottom end then I would suggest leaving the monitors as you have them. If you're pulling mixes that actually sound good, there is no reason to adjust things in my opinion.

Having said all that, it's hard to know what you're missing until you hear it. The acoustics of the room will be playing as big if not bigger part in the sound you're hearing.

[DwaneHollands]

Thanks for information Mark! Appreciate it.

Yeah, I might leave them as is for now. Haven't had any of my stuff mastered yet, so that would probably be the litmus test...

[Mark Bassett]

So how'd it all work out dwane?

[DwaneHollands]

Hi Mark,

Actually I'm not using those monitors at the moment. I got given a pair of Yamaha NS-690's that I've been using and they're great! I'm finding that mixes translate really, really well on them. They have better bass than the truth monitors and I find that I'm able to adjust the bottom end better with these monitors.

I also find that they tend not to let me get away with much. If I haven't compressed something enough I'll notice that the woofers will work really hard and so I adjust. They quickly showed me what I had done wrong with previous mixes, mixed on the other monitors.

I am noticing something in the midrange which might mean something is dying in them. When I use Tonehammers Emotional Piano VSTi, there is a distortion sound in the right speaker which I think is in the midrage. A buzzing sound. If I scoop the midrange it takes care of it. But maybe one of my drivers is dying.