IK Multimedia ARC

firubbi · Post by **firubbi** » Fri May 09, 2008 3:31 am

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/arc/
$700... does it really slove room problems? anyone tried yet?
thanks

chriskorff · Post by **chriskorff** » Fri May 09, 2008 3:40 am

In almost all cases, you'd be better off spending the $700 on acoustically treating your room. Didn't try it myself, but Hugh Robjohns did a review of it for SOS (I forget which issue) and came to the same conclusion, I think.

The big thing is that while it might be beneficial in getting a more even frequency response (and even then, only for a small part of the room — wherever you decide to put the measurement mic!), it won't do anything to cure time-domain problems, which are much worse than frequency-domain problems.

Say you've done a mix, but because the low-end response of your monitoring system and room is exaggerated, it ends up being bass-light elsewhere. This can be fixed with a simple shelving EQ in a properly treated room.

BUT!

Badly compressed/gated/expanded bass instruments, kick drums etc. (a likely outcome of poor time-domain response in your monitoring environment) cannot be corrected in this way (without resorting to extensive multiband dynamic processing, etc.)

Cheers,

Chris

chriskorff · Post by **chriskorff** » Fri May 09, 2008 3:51 am

To be fair to it though...

If your room is as treated as it can practically be but you still have frequency-domain issues, then it does an excellent job (to paraphrase Hugh's opinion of it — like I said, I haven't used it myself).

Cheers,

Chris

okantah · Post by **okantah** » Fri May 09, 2008 9:04 am

chriskorff thanx for the info.
cheer

Post by **garyb** » Fri May 09, 2008 11:38 am

NO.

there is no substitute for a properly treated room.

firubbi · Post by **firubbi** » Sat May 10, 2008 2:31 am

ya...such a waste of time of the programmer. first i thought i can fix my room problem with it...

darkrezin · Post by **darkrezin** » Sat May 10, 2008 3:34 am

This software was probably developed to jump on the bandwagon of recent monitor speakers which feature DSP analysis stuff to auto-equalize to the room (Focal monitors for example). But like ARC, these can only be really useful for minimal adjustments in an already treated room - they cannot work miracles.