Mastering Engineer TUNES UP my Home Studio Setup (part 2)

Brian Calhoon
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[@hummarstraful]

I love these type of videos. Everyone needs a guy like Brian to tune up their studio.

[@SteveGilbertson]

It was extremely refreshing to see REW used to measure a room and correct issues. But then equally disheartening to see the subwoofer adjustments supposedly influencing the 10kHz dip. A sub with a crossover of even 120Hz would have zero effect above 1kHz. Clearly this is a phase cancellation at the mic location due to playing the speakers in stereo. A tiny adjustment (1/4" - 1/2") to the mic placement would illustrate a very different result. I'd recommend powering a single speaker to see an accurate HF result. Back to the sub, once phase and level are set for proper integration of the sub, the low frequency anomalies can only be mitigated with moving the sub and/or listening position. And by addition of bass traps and broadband panels (OC703, etc) to reduce the RT60 and clean up that waterfall plot. Anything recorded in that room will be plagued by the room modes, and EQ room corrections can't improve poor decay times. Proper acoustic treatment will take you much further than oodles of vintage gear, but it's not as shiny 🥲

[@rickenbacker40011]

I absolutely love these videos, so cool to watch!!

[@itsKeaze]

Do part three, we need to see this man eq filter your setup!

[@prsticks74]

Very interesting and educational ,thanks for sharing !!

[@TomGranberg]

It's pretty cool how measuring your space is clarifying what you're listening too. I deployed a DBX Driverack PA2 in my space to let it do it's magic (room eq) after the same REW measurements. And I got within +/- 3db across at 1/3 smoothing. But yeah the engineer is pointing out some really valuable details, like beware of chasing your tail if the end speakers cannot give you what you want due to its construction. I didn't hear him talking about comb filtering, but maybe he did in part 1. But that's another issue that quite often leads to dips in the response curve.

[@themmasuwandana5404]

Amazing series. We should pay a lot of money for this kind of knowledge. Thank you, Gents!

[@laneysommer]

Part one and two have been very educational. Great interview and video! Thanks to you both.

[@AndrewMasters]

Thanks laney’

[@retta.]

Great job. What was killing me was having the blanket while testing. I know its super minor. But it was killing me knowing he got those great results.. with a blanket. lol It would of been rad to run another test without the blanket to see the Reference. I love watching people tune there room even though they already produced great results.

[@retta.]

@@mjrausch I understand lol I didn't say the blanket made the test better. I said they achieved the great tunning, with a blanket instead of allowing those reflection that we do hear without a blanket. If you say the mic is trying to mimic our ears we shouldn't put a towel since we don't mix with towels on our desk(?).

[@kingalysterianlion5542]

Hey Andrew. You should also consider raising your sub off the floor to decouple the sub. That will give you even more improvements. The 2x4 that make up your flooring does affect your sound. So I would definitely decouple the sub from the floor. Hope this helps.

[@cryingjordan8842]

Awesome vid series so far. Lots of great knowledge to be had. Even if you don’t end up eqing the speakers I’d love to see a vid where it’s explained what parametric eq he would suggest and maybe even him using it.. would be super helpful to your followers that don’t manage to get things as flat as you have here! Thanks so much for the A+ content🙏

[@vanmarkiton8336]

Produce like a pro has a video on room tuning. The guys he talks with use a box called mini DSP and a software called Room Eq wizard. They then apply the corrective eq from room eq wizard to the dsp box so it’s going whenever you’re listening on those speakers. Still trying to figure out how to rock that set up with multiple speakers and a sub. Cool stuff!

[@dougleydorite]

Best video you’ve done! Thanks!

[@ReedRobins]

Fantastic! Loved part 1...

[@AndrewMasters]

Thanks!

[@hakangurdol]

Superb correction, now you have the affordable listening spot to listen the character of your speakers with your rooms habit. Good subject for knowledge, thank you.

[@MrPeter924]

Great video sounds great audio sounds. Great interview

[@prime-mate]

I winged it for a long time. It wasn't until I got sonarworks and a reference mic did the room and my ears really open up. Once you hear the response changes it makes sense. Up till then, my brain was just plugging what I wanted to hear.. Major game changer

[@SecretFamilyMusic]

Yes, But console bounce is part of the room, if you calibrate you need all real reflection, or you want leave the console cover all times.

[@georgemickel6608]

Very cool Andrew!

[@jasonrmacomber]

I use REW and Equalizer APO for a window system using impulse response out of REW for EQ wizard. You can do this as well on a Mac using a program called Sound Source and then using a IR plugin with low latency and import the impulse response into that.

[@gigifara9312]

move your focals and the dip will go

[@JonAnderhub]

So at the beginning of this series, you said that your mixes were translating very well. It will be interesting to see if this changes how your mixes translate. Keep us posted on this, please. Thanks!

[@jakewells9788]

It's not as much about tuning your system but more about knowing your system for translation

[@chrismitchell523]

So, I'm curious why one would want to tune their NS10s flat? That 7db spike at 1.5K is kinda the point of mixing on NS10s.

[@sdanis]

Goodstuff! 😀

[@simondanielssonmusic]

I live in a small apartment with my monitors (T7V's) placed right against the wall in a corner. They're great speakers but my current setup/room sounds absolutely terrible for mixing, so I use headphones for the big decisions and the speakers for reference. Someday, I want to have a nice studio like yours.

[@derekjones9692]

Thank you for all of your knowledge and all you tend to continue to wanna learn. All of the information you give to us all is great. I have a question, I am actually building my Attic as a studio and my room has angled walls as you have as well. Does this effect the sound that comes out of the studio? Can you also share the dimensions of your room so I can have an idea of what I possibly can do with the space I have to work with. Thanking you in advance.

[@matoflynn]

This was so cool. Purchased monitors to begin learning more about testing

[@DominicOwen]

Great video

[@gavinlamp]

I love acoustic science.

[@MoogTheOne]

This video is a great demo of why you should buy Genelec SAM monitors and a SAM sub (or 2) over Focals. The GLM software perfectly blends your sub's phase with the mains for you. It's a giant easy button and the sound is absolutely stellar.

[@cao77]

I am surprisingly stoked with the Genelecs Sam monitors. My friend just bought them and they sound soooo good. His room is not even properly treated. It’s just a spare room with a bunch of equipment and some weird bass traps. When he switched his pair of adams to genelec felt like a noght and day difference

[@Tommyalpaca]

Dude this video is so helpful but also not sure if I know where to start lol. I know my room has a dip bc I’ve seen it on sonarworks but not sure if I can fix it. Gonna have to watch these back a few times. Thanks for your work Andrew!

[@Tommyalpaca]

I don’t have a ton of room in my room to rearrange my monitors.

[@Tommyalpaca]

Ironically that dip on the focals is the same dip I have on my focals so perhaps not the room but the monitors?

[@jorykevinberger7047]

@@Tommyalpaca how far are your focal from the front wall? How wide between cone to cone? And how far from the side walls? It plays a role in where the null is.

[@benwild5183]

Very interesting. I changed from a system with subwoofers to a System without. It’s much better now. (My speakers go down to 20 Hz) ofcourse the room is treated

[@joonasvahasalo6635]

Thats wild. Speakers that that goto 20hz

[@demob8630]

Great video!! I have (a beginner home studio and) a silly question to make: Is there a way to turn off the sound system without going to the back of the speaker to switch manually the Power button?thank you!!

[@scandinavianserialki]

ooo almost nailed the dip frequency. on the previous video I commented dip at 100

[@JAO53JAO]

This is terrific stuff. Turning the sub 90 degrees was genius, and I'm not sure many folks would have thought of this. However, what is the downside of having the sub face in only one direction (I understand that bass is less directional, but....?). Could you have achieved the same result with the sub's adjustable phase alignment? Another question: Did you consider using an EQ, like a DBX 231, to further flatten the response curve, or is this a bad idea? Finally, your Focal speakers are wonderful (and costly), but then you tell us that you mostly mix using the Avantone CLA10s, far less costly and not the same sound quality. Seems like a waste of the Focals - can you explain what they are used for? Thanks again for so many fabulous videos. JAlex

[@JAMPROSOUND]

The blanket on the desk should warm up your mixes a bit...

[@AndrewMasters]

Definitely the gear

[@curighuws15]

Hey what was the app/plugin used to measure the spl of the pink noise in the first video?

[@jasonblizzardmusic]

I have the focal solo 6be and I also have about a 10db bull at 60hz

[@szcallister]

I wish I knew as much about anything as much as brian knows about audio

[@thejawshop-AdventureRecording]

Curious, are the NS10's designed to be on a horizontal position due to the tweeter off-set?

[@CamariMusic]

Thanks for sharing. May I suggest that you also try Slate VSX...as additional monitoring? They work tremendously well

[@AndrewMasters]

Tried them, not a fan. I never work in headphones as it is.

[@CamariMusic]

@@AndrewMasters cool

[@commandojackass]

You talk about mixing/working at low volume (I do the same) but my Focal Twin Shape speaker has auto standby feat the keeps putting them to sleep. It really bugs me and I thinking of changing speakers. Do you have the same problem with your Focals? Would be great to hear your user experience. Thx for great vids!

[@TylerMarletteNY]

what is that soft box light setup behind the desk?

[@300687p]

I did that, just listening to music in the room 🙃

[@300687p]

Hey Andrew, is this really you???

[@AdamGotheridge]

I don't understand the sub screwing up the high end at all. REW - for me that's always been a totally depressing rabbit hole. A good thing to do maybe when initially figuring out where to place the speakers and listing position. Not that anyone asked, but in general, subs just seem to compound problems more than fix them. Particularly for the average Joe recording music enthusiast. Thanks for the video though, was fun!

[@insomnia1on1]

What software u using to do this speaker check?

[@marvsowell684]

I need this done in my room! Is Brian for hire in the Nashville area for this type of thing?

[@gtlittlejr.1608]

Great Series. Quite informative. Now, HOW MUCH does this type of consultation cost?

[@djole02]

For 300$ you can buy the SonarWorks bundle with the calibrated microphone and do this all yourself and get even better results. If you don't have a woofer you will get great results without much effort. If you have a subwoofer you just want to adjust the main speakers to not play the low frequencies (add low cut at 80-100hz) and adjust the subwoofer to not play high frequencies (add high cut at 80-100hz). For this you obviously need speakers that have these adjustments built-in or a separate unit like the 2x4HD from miniDSP, but that's another 200$ that I would use for better speakers instead...

[@timmyplastik4728]

I never really understand this test, I mean sure it works for fundamental harmonics (as the name implies) but when there are more frequencies added there surely are more variables at play right? I mean if you're in a really bad room and all you're screening is the mic at that point in the room, then aren't stacked frequencies in a track going to bounce around the room differently? Wouldn't you want mics in multiple parts of the room? I guess the answer would be to record entire tracks, then analyze the data. Never done this much just use my ears, but heaps of peeps have..

[@linndzproductions]

What application is used to measure the room I currently use Sonar works but this is way more advanced ?

[@sparkplugrecs.official]

whts teh software to do waterfall measures if your room?

[@AlecBoyd]

i'd be interested to hear what his thoughts on Sonarworks are.

[@brianmclendon1647]

Me too, I use it and have had awesome results!!!!!!!

[@yorkeoldfather3146]

What software were you using? REW? Looks similar to REW, couldn't tell.

[@shapesfilm]

I‘m wondering why a rotation of the sub cleans the 10k area? 7:40

[@anonymous_friend]

It's all subjective. Just send out the mix, cash the checks, and if someone complains you can tell them its probably their listening setup. 😂

[@WackyJackyTracky]

How can the Sub make a difference at 10kHz? Where was the Crossover frequency?

[@jeffboyd7719]

Surprised that the NS 10's are being used more than the Focal's.

[@djole02]

I fail to understand why the sub has an impact on the high frequencies. No high cut filter on the sub?

[@glo2ube786]

Awesome content guys! One small detail, I found it a little hard to listen to, because of the volume surges caused by the mic proximity as Andrew wandered around and snuck up behind me. Lol... Seriously it was a great discussion.

[@joshdavis9410]

9kopl0l99

[@joshdavis9410]

Lllpp

[@austinbridge]

That CLA mod is essentially necessary

[@enrock6683]

Can you do a part 3, but going further and using a parametric EQ…. Please?

[@tutubeos]

If you don’t use the Focals just send them to me 😅

[@daherb4me]

get some bass tuning in there!

[@JSSTUDIO-wr2jq]

👍

[@Jake_Sachs]

Andrew do you not use Sonarworks anymore? I know you used to in your previous room. I feel like that would take care of a lot of these issues.

[@AndrewMasters]

I did it briefly in my last room but honestly I don't like the workflow. I tried it again in this room and it's just not useful for me. Can't crank the speakers like I do with big eq moves on the speakers.

[@Jake_Sachs]

@@AndrewMasters Interesting, but totally fair. I def had to change my workflow a bit when I got it, but I'm loving the results. To each their own!

[@ronfrancois]

Andrew.. Q: What are the dimensions of the Studio? Do you have a floorplan sketch?

[@AndrewMasters]

It’s a 19’x19’ square with a staircase at the back.

[@cedricmi]

Don't get your Focals go to waste. If you don't use them, send them to me, I certainly will ;-)

[@birdcagestudios5584]

what measurement program was being used?

[@birdcagestudios5584]

and how are the corrections applied after? in the daw? is it a global thing?

[@mexa-fiofficial48]

what speaker calibration software is he using?

[@AndrewMasters]

REW

[@TheMadComposer]

what software were you using to measure the room?

[@AndrewMasters]

REW

[@bbfoto7248]

@Ken Candelas As Andrew said, it is "REW" which is "Room EQ Wizard" and it is free to download...though I would suggest a donation to the creator for this amazingly powerful software. Pick up a decent measurement mic that comes with a calibration file....on the cheap end there is the Behringer ECM-8000 (try to find and old one), or Earthworks or Josephson on the high end...check out Cross Spectrum Labs. For more accurate measurements, you would either want to use the Moving Mic Method (in and around the head space of the listening position) or a do "Spatial Average" of at least 8 measurements. As stated, 1/6th octave smoothing gives a good overview of the response. There are also good USB measurement microphones, such as the miniDSP UMIK-2, but you have more measurement options using a good XLR mic with at least a 2 channel audio interface so you can do a loop back for timing reference/IR.

[@kevinlentz7604]

Wow Andrew what an informative video,What is your room correction software ,do you have much treatment,so impressed,curious as to what to do with Focals ,amazing content

[@oleggolovetsky6385]

Get Trinnov!

[@jakewells9788]

I personally don't see the point In tuning a system to this degree. I feel after learning ur speakers from where they are, you can get stellar results. At the end of the day there is no perfectly flat speaker or a perfect room as it all just aids in the filter of our source material. I'd say just learn your filter. However not saying tuning your system is wrong and foolish. It's really just a luxury in my eyes

[@tdubbs026]

Love these vids. Why is your voice so muffled in this?

[@AndrewMasters]

Using an on camera mic instead of lavs, I’m holding the camera so I’m behind the mic.

[@lmrecorders]

I know Sweetwater doesn't sell them but you should at least get someone to demo a Trinnov ST2 in your room.

[@blue_mountains28]

Always.... always. Listen to a guy wearing a cardigan.

[@Guttalaser]

so... now the NS10 are better than the Focal? XD

[@bbfoto7248]

Besides what the room and console surface are contributing, you are limited by using a poor set of monitors that have a piss poor crossover implementation between the midwoofer and tweeter and horrible response overall. If you want to work using small nearfield monitors, at least start with good ones that have smooth, linear frequency response and smooth, even directivity. Unfortunately, placing the large computer display monitor between them also creates its own set of problems in regards to comb filtering and directivity which will have a negative impact on the spectral balance and imaging/focus/soundstage. :( Once you get all of that sorted, then try a miniDSP unit with DIRAC LIVE room correction, and then you'll have amazing in-room frequency response and incredible imaging/soundstaging focus, separation, width, height, and layered DEPTH. ;)

[@Chris11249]

Yeah those NS-10s aren't HD-1s that's for sure

[@JustinTutor]

sup

[@AndrewMasters]

sup bro

[@JustinTutor]

@@AndrewMasters these two videos are so useful man. Thanks for these!

[@seansvadlenak]

I wish he would have elaborated on the direct(?) relationship between the sub setup and the behavior at 10k.

[@johndraws6470]

Sub and 10k relationship ?? Hmmmm

[@seansvadlenak]

@@johndraws6470 yeah, from about 7:30 onwards they discuss the effect of reconfiguring the sub physically and with its built in phase rotation control on the response at 10k. I don't understand how this would be expected or directly linked. It's several octaves above where the sub operates.

[@johndraws6470]

@@seansvadlenak watched it, have no sense at all. The dip he's getting in around 10k is due the speaker angles direction to the measurement microphone ... still don't get this sub + phase to address 10k ...

[@seansvadlenak]

@@johndraws6470 I agree, I would like Andrew or the other guy to respond

[@kovacika]

@@johndraws6470 The mic position changes as well from the first measurement to the last ( you can see it set off to the side @ 3:32 ) which would wildly change the measurement, especially since it seems like they are sweeping Left and Right at the same time. A 2 cm difference in placement is about a half wavelength at 10k. This guy seems to have just enough info to be dangerous. Definitely moving the sub should not affect the response up at 10k. The difference in 10k is almost certainly related to measurement errors. Love to see the exploration and the use of measurement tools though. Crazy how accessible they have become. When I started in the audio field fifteen years ago real measurement tools cost thousands of dollars. These days you can have a very capable measurement setup for a couple hundred dollars.

[@hummarstraful]

Also, remember your recording will be mastered and the mastering engineer will correct whats off in your mix. You don't have to have a perfectly tuned studio, but it's got to be free of any big issues.

[@jasonblizzardmusic]

Help me fix my room 😅

[@studiogerk]

Have a really hard time with this one. Your voice is super loud, the engineers voice is super quiet in the background, the frequency sweeps are even louder. Sorry to be critical but for a pro audio video you should be using more mics and spending more time actually mixing things ...

[@AndrewMasters]

Yeah probably