I got my ARC Studio set-up yesterday. I played some music through the system (Kali IN-8s) and could notice the improvement. My studio is in an extra bedroom and I have panels up and bookcases. The best part is that I don't have to put the plug-in on my mix buss and then remember to turn it off before I do the mixdown.
@@belgradeboy1977 I put the DIP switches in the most appropriate setting for my room. After I did the calibration, it was pretty good, so I didn't try another DIP switch setting. Question: Does your ARC Studio box get warm after it's been on for awhile?
sold just bought it thank you for being so simple, everyone else is being way too technical, I have been doing this 20 years, just give me the skinny I understand the science
All Antelope interface and Pure 2 Mastering AD/DA running to Focal 65 Evos. This will help a lot, my room is not optimal and I never bought room correction outside of Trinnov bc of latency. This thing is perfect
Dude! Just got myself a nice pair of focal shape 50’s. While they arrive I’m starting with the tedious tasks of room acoustics treatment. Just after this video, man you got me. This device is a must. I want it, but as Fredie said. I want it NOW
@@Beatsnmotivation can’t tell you yet. They’re arriving tomorrow evening But funny enough, I had the chance to compare a bunch of monitors in Alfasoni (a great music store from Barcelona) from Kali to Newmann and these ones. At first I thought they sounded too beautiful for a studio monitor. In fact they were the one that impressed me the most, and I thought they were more in the league of HiFi rather than studio monitors, and I declined purchasing them for that reason. But after reading specifications, rates, soundonsound reviews and more, I thought I should give them a try. I also purchased a pair of auratones. I’ll try them as soon as my room is treated and corrected with the ARC and then I’ll get back to you Cheers
Thank you sooo much for explaining how the hardware and software works in detail. I think your explanations were the best I've seen so far. I just got the Arc 4 and it has been a learning curve. It is great that I don't have to put it on my mix bus.
I have been using ARC since V1 and just purchased the ARC Studio. Glad IK is providing a "standalone" box. I plan on purchasing another box for my 2nd studio monitors, this way I will no longer need to switch profiles on the ARC VST, and no need to even have it on my output bus.
Have been using ARC 3 plugin for 4 years. It beats the pants off sound ID. With sound ID, measurements would often fail and when I could get good measurements, I could never get the same room profile twice. With ARC 3 I can take several separate measurements and the room profiles are all very similar. This kind of reassures that I am correcting good data. The main thing is, my room sounds "good" and I can trust what I am hearing.
FWIW, that's not my experience on SoundID at all. I have both. SoundID produces a similar profile every time for me, and I much prefer the results to Arc.
I don't really have a studio (yet), but I do have a home cinema with huge speakers, and planning to sound isolate the walls for less reflection, must say, room correction and speaker correction is a HUGE factor in why my sound in my home theater is as good as it is, my receiver has Audyssey and Dirac room correction (although for Dirac you need a separate license)
I think a good point that people need to be aware of with this kind of software is that it is not a substitute for room treatment. It alters the EQ curve but not the reverb time. If you have a resonance at 50hz , and that 50hz ring takes a second to decay, then no EQ is going to fix that, that would require lots of very thick absorption.
Set mine up yesterday, very pleased with the results. Must say, I was sceptical, I mean 300€ for some sort of "magic box" but, it works. Set mine up in quick mode but I'm going to do the 21 mode when I have more time.
I got Arc 3’s software in a promo, but without the calibration mic, so I never got to use it, and didn’t like the idea of a plugin taking up processing power, anyway. I’ve been thinking about Arc Studio since I heard about it, though, and your review helped make my mind up. I have some decent acoustic treatment in my studio, but there are a few low-mid deaf spots in it that take some certainty out of my mixes.
I mix on a hardware console, and use the built in monitor section for my speaker outputs - this will finally allow me to run room correction on analogue mixes without passing the mix bus back through my converters for room correction, and it won't break the bank either! Sold sold sold!
Of course, now you need to get used to the sound of your speakers through ARC, otherwise you'll be adding more 150-200hz to your mixes than you usually do. (and cutting 50-60hz) (Based on your correction profile, ARC is reducing 150-200hz, etc.) I've always found it helpful to toggle ARC on and off for this reason. Maybe just flipping through some of the speaker emulations would also help, but that's always seemed a bit gimmicky to me. But I guess it's good for quick comparison sake. It would be nice if the ARC box had an external switch that would toggle the different speaker emulations... and also linear and natural mode.
I use the room correction for everything, Cubase, UA-cam Spotify, references...everything goes into room correction. I bypass it when using my headphones. Yes, it would be nice to have more options on the box, but the price wouldn't be the same :-)
Thank you for this great video and bringing this option to light Chris, I wasn’t aware of ARC. It’s definitely something I’ll be looking into. Keep up the great work fellow Cubase guy 🤜🤛
I have SoundID Reference and the plugin just does my head in. Great with headphones, but a pain with any thing else. I’ll be switching to the Arc Studio as soon as I can afford to.
Hi Chris. I also bought this unit. I just finished an advanced measurement. The difference is HUGE. I'm impressed. It's like I have totally different monitors all of a sudden 🙂 I have two questions for you though: 1) Have you gotten different/better results when doing more measurements? 2) My AFTER correction profile puts a +6dB bump at around 41Hz while the measurement showed the same bump but at around 2.5dB's. It should counter that instead of adding an extra bump, right? Cheers, Rob
You didn't completely show the final setup. So my question is do you plug your monitors into the ARC or does it stay plugged into your audio interface that you use.
Bought - came in the mail these days. I'll try it out soon. However, I had already measured the room using Genelec 1030A, which I bought over 20 years ago.
I tried the software version of ARC (v2 i think?) with two sets of Genelecs: 1030 and 1031. Dissapointing. Depending on which room it was set up, I still had lots of problems in translating my mixes to any other speakers. Then I bought my current monitors: Neumann KH750dsp+ kh120. The MA1 microphone and some measurments later... I asked "where have you been all my life?????". I won´t go back to third party solutions like this.
Ofcourse acoustic treatment is the go to. I am not allowed to hang up any panels in my current house however so would love to see how this unit fares in the shittier of rooms!
I have three pairs of speakers and a single speaker which I can switch between to hear different 'things'. Would it be best to calibrate each set of speaker(s), save them and then reload for each speaker set? Or does that defeat my object of having different listen environments? For example, I have some Tannoy Reveal X speakers to hear what the songs will sound on a home type hifi, and three Avantone Mixcubes (one for mono) to give the sound from a restricted frequency system.
Cool. I use Sonarworks. I like it a lot, with the exception that it is software and it’s always on, and I need to remember to turn it off when bouncing, it’s really annoying. Also I have to be careful because SW is installed in the system and in the DAW as a plugin… The ARC hardware box that stores the settings is very interesting.
Chris...imagine if there EWAS a way for the correction install had a way to recognize the calibration mic? An indicator on screen give you a check mark...would be great. Were you using Sonarworks ID previously? I have that, and DO appreciate the headphone correction with my HD650s. I suppose, for maybe $500 I could get a flatter response monitoring headphone. Nice video. For what it's worth, I had the original ARC software.
It would impress me more if it allowed you to load up more then one profile to the box and being able able to flip through them via the box faceplate like the 4 button system they make for the ik precision Loud speakers.
Just buy an IR pedal then capture the IR of the ARC4 box. Problem solved. This tech assumes a speaker is a linear time invariant system so an IR capture would be equivalent.
Hi At 8:37 you said you bypass the Arc studio if you want to ear the sound without correction in your headphone. I thought the Arc studio is applied only on the speakers that you connect it to. It makes no sense that when you bypass the Arc studio it will affect the headphone because it is on most cases in a different output. Am i right ?
More info about the Phase options: -NATURAL mode improves the phase coherency between the L and R channels, recovering a better center ghost image that might be compromised by the effects the room has on the sound, especially at low frequencies. This is the default and preferred mode for most applications. -LINEAR mode is a special correction mode where the original inter-channel phase response of the speakers’ system is maintained unaltered. In certain cases, this mode can be preferable for even better transparency. However, this mode adds a little bit of latency, around 50 milliseconds.
Thanks for this video. Great that your experience with the product is positive. This is most likely what I’m looking for. I’m not a fan of software measurement systems.
I imagine it would be easy to load a current profile from Arc 3 in the box for Arc 4, connect it, set it and forget it. Seems like a straightforward upgrade. My only complaint w Arc 3 is plugin cpu resources. The Arc 4 box seems like an awesome solution that should have arrived with version 3 and should soon be releasing solutions for multiple monitors. How do you miss a detail like this as a developer? Even a single profile selction toggle button on the box would have been nice.
Very timely video. I will be buying room correction next month. I've been using ACR 2 for years. Though about upgrading. Was look at Sonarworks because of the head phone option. But you can buy that separately. I like IK multimedia as a brand. So will go with this new system.
If headphone correction is important for you, Sonarworks is the way to go. On my side, I don't use Headphone Correction on my main Mixing Headphones, I like them and know them well the way they sound. There's only one pair of headphone I own that I like some correction on, and I don't use them much. So that's a personal choice :-)
curious if this can store multiple room corrections, so I could switch between different sets of speakers. The biggest issue for me is the quality of the DAC. I have a really great highend converter now and I would hate to be downgrading. I currently use SoundID.
The DAC are pretty good, clean and transparent, so for me, I'm good with that, even if, on paper, my interface DAC probably have better stats I assume. If you run several speakers, you will need to change profile from the software and load to the device. If you don't need or like the device, or your concern about the DAC, which is understandable depending on the gear/monitors you have, maybe stick with SoundID or invest in a Trinov System> Thanks for your comment :-)
Hi Chris and the rest of the Mixdown gang. I have a question regarding the converters. Did some research and saw on their website that ARC Studio is using AKM Velvet Sound converters which should be a very good quality converter and if I am not mistaking RME used these before for their interfaces. My question is: Does the ARC Studio make my audio interface converters, in a way, redundant?
Not at all, cause you still need to get out of your sound interface to go to the ARC Box. Some people will freak out over this because I'm DA out of my interface, AD into the ARC box, and DA again from the ARC Box to my speakers. IMO, it's a none issue for monitoring...High quality converter parts these days are not that expensive, so used in most audio interfaces out there, and the role of the ARC Box is to alter the sound anyways to give a "flatter" frequency response, so I don't think the converter quality will play a significant role here. Just adding this to your initial question, Lol! Thanks :-)
I used to use a TacT Audio RCS hardware corrector, went through ARC 1-3, then looked into the miniDSP Dirac hardware finally got the SoundID Studio a few years back. Use it in Cubase for speakers and headphones. Still happy. Thanks for the info. Cheers old neighbor! 😊
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, but I wish you could use an external controller to switch between emulations. Like the switch for some of their monitors. Still a game changing device, but switching emulations on the fly would take it over the top.
The ARC Studi suffers from the same issue as most hardware based solutions. It can only be used on a SINGLE monitor set! There is no way to, conveniently, switch between different monitors. On software based solutions, you can load different profiles for your monitors and easily switch between them. Cubase/Nuendo (and the latest WaveLab) users need not think about this at all. Just insert different instances of the plugins in the Control Room, and you'll have the correct profile applied when you switch monitors, automatically. This is why I find hardware correction solutions (and hardware monitor controllers) useless. They cause more problems for my workflow, than they solve. What I'd love to see is a dedicated hardware controller for the Control Room. But I guess that's for another video. 😉
That can for sure be a "con" if you have more than one set of speakers, and no hardware monitor controller. On my side, I always worked with a monitor controller, so that solve that problem. For the control room, you can setup your own sets of keyboard shortcuts, and key commands to control the features out of the Control Room, and assigned them to a physical MIDI controller. I might make a video on this :-)
@@mixdownonline Can you elaborate? I wouldn't know how to solve the multiple speakers problem with my hardware monitor controller if the ARC studio hardware box only has one profile loaded at a time...
@@ArijalmariMxllrIt seems that only solution is (as long as Arc4 is quite cheap) to buy separate Arc4 hardware for each pair of speakers and connect it after monitor controller.
@@ArijalmariMxllrYou're right! It all depends on the scale. I suppose some of us are professional sound engineers and some are home recordist. Depending on how much 1 of your monitors is worth ($200 or $2,000), the price seems low or high 😀
Sorry if this was answered somewhere, but since there is no power button do people just leave it on all the time, or unplug it when they are done for the day?
Has anyone used this with an untreated home audio system? There is no way for me to treat my living room where my stereo is. Since it’s untreated and an odd shaped room I have a lot of reflections. Would this help me get a flatter response?
My main concern would be the additional AD/DA conversion of an unexpensive device like this: I guess it is NOT on the same level as my UAD or MOTU 929ES soundcards, or a Neumann or whatever of that kind of top level consumer soundcard would be. I am aware that folks with luxury converters use their own expensive room correction and would not face this problem.
@@fededj2002 My question was if it might be an issue for UAD quality level converters: I don't want to trade room correction against an inferior (compared to my UAD equipment) additional AD/DA converter in the ARC.
I also do have high quality converters, and took the time to test the box a lot to make sure I didn't get any degradation in the sound. I don't know what brand of converters they use or the full specs, but they sound transparent, and very clean, so that's good enough for me. But I understand that can be a concern for some.
Call me suspicious, but it wuld be interesting to take the measurements a second time, this time with the box running, and see weather it actually comes up with the corrected curve. Also I'd find it interesting to see how you decide on specific room treatment based on the measurements. Maybee an idea for a follow up video?
Good question. I don't base myself on that correction graphic, there's other softwares designed for this. Yes, once my panels are up and running (that's lots of work Lol!) I will make a follow up video :-)
Thank you for the reply. What confusing me is, the manual say it has high end A to D - D to A convertors and it also say real analog at the same time. Logically it should have converter to pass the dsp, and not sure if it’s good to have extra layer converter in between and how reliable is that.
I didn't check the manual, but the sound goes in the ARC box out of the interface as an analog signal, then to my speaker controller, which is again analog.
Correct, this is converting the signal both ways. I want waaay more info on the conversion chip and spec before I put it between me and my stand alone converters, which I have lots of data on and have spent good money on. This now becomes the piece doing all the heavy lifting. Also, how is the setup for clocking this to my master clock?
Thanks for all the great videos you make! Considering switching from Sonarworks to this. I use Cubase, with Sonarworks on controllroom, so not worried about bouncing with effect on, but the zero latency and no driver or software to potentially mess with my system sounds interesting to me. Have you used both? How do you think they compare? Much love - v
Hello Chris Thanks for another valuable video and explanation. I am following your tutorials for long period thus I feel free to ask: When you say results are better, What does it really means? How this contributes to your Mastering flow and quality? And last: As the ARC Box inputs connects between the audio I/F and the monitors thus I am still not sure about the workflow when working with a reference track. Is there a way to activate/disactivate the ARC function from Cubase control room when switching to the reference track back and forth? Thank you for your attention. Amram
In my studio, I use the room correction for everything, Cubase, UA-cam Spotify, references...everything goes into room correction. That's the best way to learn your listening environment, and make better mixing decisions.
Do you know if this is acting like an AD/DA device by doing some sort of conversion? I talked to IK Multimedia, and they said it is NOT! I use all Lynx AD/DA devices and DO NOT want some crappy conversion going on afterwards! When I read the box, it seems it is doing something, as it is talking about the 120db Dynamic Range etc... What's up with this? I asked about this after they replied to my email and said it is NOT converting, with a follow-up question of why it is saying the 120db Dynamic Range info, and they stop responding! What is going on here?
I have to say that it's sounds super clean on my end. But seriously, if you like the plugin version, stick with it, don't spend on stuff you don't need :-)
@@mixdownonline Agreed! I will say that I think the ARC system is great. I have received some compliments on how well my mixes "travel" from one system to another.
@@mixdownonline By the way, thank you. Your videos are helpful.
9 місяців тому
Any reason to plug the box before the Heritage Audio monitoring control station? I was thinking about pluging it after so it doesn’t affect the headphones output (and remove the needs to turn the correction off) but maybe I’m missing something.
Yes, and no...If the sub woofer is on, it will make the measurements according to what comes out of you speakers, and room, so it will add the sub sound by default. But it will not give you a separate analysis of the Sub vs Speakers
Thanks for the honest take, the obvious comparison here for most of us is going to be....does this this sound better than sonarworks? I used the old version of ARC many years ago but switched to sonarworks because I felt like it did a much better job with correction, lately the software has become super annoying and full of bugs and driver crashes so an affordable hardware unit would be a blessing. Of course it is not going to compete with a trinov system but as a sonarworks user yourself did you compare the measurements between sound ID and ARC? Was it the same but it's way better to have a hardware bypass? Thanks!
I'm actually gonna make a video on this sooner than later, but in a nutshell, both measurements are very close, and the end result are in the same ball park....What made me switch is the Box, not the room correction outcome. The Trinov system is at another level, for sure!
Yes! Me too, exactly, this is what I want to know! I switched from ARC to sonarworks for the same reason, prefered the sound, but a hardware solution would be much more convenient. Cant afford Trinnov right now and i believe the latency of Trinnov is also significantly more... around 20ms corrected vs 1.5ms of the ARC. At 1.5ms I can still track in the control room with correction, very appealing.
I use the bheringer Ultracurve DEQ2496 for room correction, which I got 2 years ago. What are your thoughts on it? Have you used it? I like the fact that the ARC gives you a parametric EQ as opposed to a graphic EQ on the Behringer and not to mention the monitor simulations. Guess it's time for me to upgrade :D
I have SoundID ARC3 and REW, with a hardware correction filter box. But the HW box only has 8 filters and it is not enough and I have to configure manually the filter coefficients. SoundID does a good job but the systemwide CRASHES AND CRASHES - and crashes - and has to be removed and reinstalled and it is an utter pain. I want system-wide EQ on multiple monitors and so I ordered this box the day I saw it was released. I figure ARC3 and SoundID were roughly equivalent in sound, but now I look forward to zero latency system-wide correction, hurray. Hurry up Amazon!
I use a YAMAHA subwoofer and Fostex nearfield monitors. The signal goes from my MACKIE BIG KNOB through the YAMAHA to the monitors. Is it possible to use the ARC studio with a subwoofer as well?
I have a similar system and the rig should be like that: audio interface-> (Macie Big knob) ->ARC studio ->sub->monitors I gave brackets at the Mackie since you don’t say if it’s Mackie big knob studio audio interface or just Mackie big knob sound level knob.
So, I got mine and was like; why doesn't it come with a rackmount kit, or something! So, after talking to IK Multimedia and saying there is not one, I decided to do some research and came up with this under-desk mount. Easy install, secure and most of all it works lol...! I mounted it to my right within arm's length, so I can use the bypass at ease without having to take up unneeded space on top of my mixer and desk.... I wonder if they thought about this when they made it? Who wants this little box sitting on the desk? In addition, when you try to use the bypass just sitting on the desk, you have to hold the box and then push the button, otherwise it will slide backwards, or place it against the wall or something keeping it from moving. Overall, awesome unit, save me from taking the software off the mixbus at bouncing and many times forgetting to do so...lol! Anyway, I got two in the shipment, so I msg them, and they said to just keep it or give it away. Msg me, and it's yours, just cover the shipping cost! Cheers, love the channel and content. Learned a lot! ARC Hardware Under-Desk Mounting Kit: reverb.com/item/81951079-mountz-ik-multimedia-arc-studio-room-correction-hardware-specific-mounting-kit-with-mountz-locking-system-2024-black
Another comment, I have a control room with an engineers desk with one set of speakers, and to my right another set of speakers at my composer station with my keys. I did two tests because of the two locations, I then change the profile for what system I am using. Can ARC provide separate speakers tests for different locations?
Hi Chris. I use the iLoud MTM monitors which came with the software and room measurement mic. I use it and it works great. What am I missing by not having the box?
they could have easily added a digital input to avoid double conversion, sure it would have raised the cost a bit but to me it would have well worth it.
Hello Chris, thank you for this nice video. However, I think you should be more skeptical. If you see a nice flat alignment curve on your screen, you should not believe too much in what you see. Unlike the Neumann system, the alignment curve of the arc is only calculated - not a measurement. I measured the real sound with my Neumann MK 120 II in my (acoustically untreated) room before and after aligning the speakers and can say that the frequency response curve was better than before, but nowhere near as good as the alignment curve would have you believe. Better measure again - with REW, for example, this is not a problem. In my opinion, this also increases the credibility of such a report.
We need sub as well and secong speaker set output that would be a game changer till then not relevant for for sub and teo aer of speaker which is most studios mixing setup
J'utilise Arc 3 pour les enceintes et Reaphones pour le casque. Et j'avoue que quand je suis sur Cubase c'est cool grace a la control room, mais quand je travaille avec logic c'est compliqué de toujours penser a désactiver avant l'export. Ce genre de petite boite pourrait me brancher.
In natural mode it adds about 2ms of latency. When you add that to other latency in a studio setup, that means latency will be problem when tracking using Arc Studio. Arc Studio uses a 96kHz sample rate.
@@bill-sr1vd thank you, I recently spent a couple hundred euros on an analog behringer graphic equaliser to correct my monitors specifically to not have any noticeable latency when monitoring my guitars through the interface internal mixer. Sonarworks wasn't able to correct accurately my acoustic space, I did a batter job on my own with pink noise and a mesure microphone but maybe this ARC is the way to go🤔🧐
It's a nice solution for project studio's, and standalone smaller B or C monitor- or homecinema systems, but I would never put my main monitors through an EXTRA €300,- AD-DA converter...Better use the software version and your high end converters for that purpose.
That's understandable, but for me, I did AB testing with and without the box, and the results are super clean and transparent, so not a concern for me, anyways. What's important is what I listen to, and not the specs. But again, I completely understand, and not trying to convince you otherwise, it's a fair point :-)
Hi, very interesting unit! I got some questions for the workflow with it: How do you switch between multiple monitors then? Even with a monitor controller, switching the monitors on with the box inbetween doesn’t switch the different captures of every pair of monitors which you saved. So you would have to load it / change it every time you switch monitors, when you want to have the correction of both simultaniously inside the plugin? Or can you use 2 boxes for two different monitors? would that work? When i listen to mixes i like to move fast back and forth between my speakers. That would be impossible with this using one arc box and one monitor controller right? Best regard
Yes, it's not designed to switch profile simultaneously inside the box, you would need to load the other profile first before switching, or get a second unit for fast switching. That's probably why the price is low for this type of device.
@@mixdownonlinethx! Are you sure it would work with a second box? No errors to expect from the plugin, when loading the capture on one box and then unplug the usb? Best regards
@mixdownonline thanks, what is your interface? I use a Focusrite Clarett Pre 8 USB. What is your Total Round Trip time without the correction box, please? Additionally, I am a Windows user. My PC is a dedicated DAW i9 14000k 32gig ram, 4 NVMe SSD disks
I got my ARC Studio set-up yesterday. I played some music through the system (Kali IN-8s) and could notice the improvement. My studio is in an extra bedroom and I have panels up and bookcases. The best part is that I don't have to put the plug-in on my mix buss and then remember to turn it off before I do the mixdown.
Hey, I also have IN8s with ARC Studio. Did you fiddle with dip switches at all or you just leave them down and let the ARC do the job?
@@belgradeboy1977 I put the DIP switches in the most appropriate setting for my room. After I did the calibration, it was pretty good, so I didn't try another DIP switch setting. Question: Does your ARC Studio box get warm after it's been on for awhile?
@@soloridertv A bit only. Not too much but you can definitely feel it
If you would use the Control Room in Cubase, you wouldn't have that issue at all... ;-)
sold just bought it
thank you for being so simple, everyone else is being way too technical, I have been doing this 20 years, just give me the skinny I understand the science
All Antelope interface and Pure 2 Mastering AD/DA running to Focal 65 Evos. This will help a lot, my room is not optimal and I never bought room correction outside of Trinnov bc of latency. This thing is perfect
Great review.
I wish it had a volume know on top of the box so that it could be a passive volume control for my monitors.
Dude!
Just got myself a nice pair of focal shape 50’s. While they arrive I’m starting with the tedious tasks of room acoustics treatment. Just after this video, man you got me. This device is a must. I want it, but as Fredie said. I want it NOW
Lol! That's your decison, I know I like it :-)
How u liking the focal shapes?
@@Beatsnmotivation can’t tell you yet. They’re arriving tomorrow evening
But funny enough, I had the chance to compare a bunch of monitors in Alfasoni (a great music store from Barcelona) from Kali to Newmann and these ones. At first I thought they sounded too beautiful for a studio monitor. In fact they were the one that impressed me the most, and I thought they were more in the league of HiFi rather than studio monitors, and I declined purchasing them for that reason.
But after reading specifications, rates, soundonsound reviews and more, I thought I should give them a try. I also purchased a pair of auratones.
I’ll try them as soon as my room is treated and corrected with the ARC and then I’ll get back to you
Cheers
Thank you sooo much for explaining how the hardware and software works in detail. I think your explanations were the best I've seen so far. I just got the Arc 4 and it has been a learning curve. It is great that I don't have to put it on my mix bus.
I've already got a few IK products, thanks for this, I'm definitely gonna get Arc, thanks.
Did you also do an independent measurement with the correction engaged (e.g. with REW) to confirm the result?
I have been using ARC since V1 and just purchased the ARC Studio. Glad IK is providing a "standalone" box. I plan on purchasing another box for my 2nd studio monitors, this way I will no longer need to switch profiles on the ARC VST, and no need to even have it on my output bus.
Have been using ARC 3 plugin for 4 years. It beats the pants off sound ID. With sound ID, measurements would often fail and when I could get good measurements, I could never get the same room profile twice. With ARC 3 I can take several separate measurements and the room profiles are all very similar. This kind of reassures that I am correcting good data. The main thing is, my room sounds "good" and I can trust what I am hearing.
Awesome
Thanks for sharing, David!
FWIW, that's not my experience on SoundID at all. I have both. SoundID produces a similar profile every time for me, and I much prefer the results to Arc.
I think my ARC 3 is an essential tool for my Studio.
Same here, room correction is essential for my studio
I don't really have a studio (yet), but I do have a home cinema with huge speakers, and planning to sound isolate the walls for less reflection, must say, room correction and speaker correction is a HUGE factor in why my sound in my home theater is as good as it is, my receiver has Audyssey and Dirac room correction (although for Dirac you need a separate license)
@@mixdownonline before I did the calibration with Audyssey, the frequency response was ALL OVER the place, huge spikes in all kinds of frequencies 😅
I think a good point that people need to be aware of with this kind of software is that it is not a substitute for room treatment. It alters the EQ curve but not the reverb time. If you have a resonance at 50hz , and that 50hz ring takes a second to decay, then no EQ is going to fix that, that would require lots of very thick absorption.
Set mine up yesterday, very pleased with the results. Must say, I was sceptical, I mean 300€ for some sort of "magic box" but, it works.
Set mine up in quick mode but I'm going to do the 21 mode when I have more time.
I got Arc 3’s software in a promo, but without the calibration mic, so I never got to use it, and didn’t like the idea of a plugin taking up processing power, anyway. I’ve been thinking about Arc Studio since I heard about it, though, and your review helped make my mind up. I have some decent acoustic treatment in my studio, but there are a few low-mid deaf spots in it that take some certainty out of my mixes.
I mix on a hardware console, and use the built in monitor section for my speaker outputs - this will finally allow me to run room correction on analogue mixes without passing the mix bus back through my converters for room correction, and it won't break the bank either! Sold sold sold!
But it has converters)
Of course, now you need to get used to the sound of your speakers through ARC, otherwise you'll be adding more 150-200hz to your mixes than you usually do. (and cutting 50-60hz) (Based on your correction profile, ARC is reducing 150-200hz, etc.) I've always found it helpful to toggle ARC on and off for this reason. Maybe just flipping through some of the speaker emulations would also help, but that's always seemed a bit gimmicky to me. But I guess it's good for quick comparison sake. It would be nice if the ARC box had an external switch that would toggle the different speaker emulations... and also linear and natural mode.
I use the room correction for everything, Cubase, UA-cam Spotify, references...everything goes into room correction. I bypass it when using my headphones.
Yes, it would be nice to have more options on the box, but the price wouldn't be the same :-)
@@mixdownonline it's just helpful to remind ourselves every now and then what an uncorrected room sounds like.
Awesome explanation Chris, very neatly explained great product, thank you for posting for such a detailed explanation
You're welcome, my friend!
Thank you for this great video and bringing this option to light Chris, I wasn’t aware of ARC. It’s definitely something I’ll be looking into. Keep up the great work fellow Cubase guy 🤜🤛
Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed this video :-)
I have SoundID Reference and the plugin just does my head in. Great with headphones, but a pain with any thing else. I’ll be switching to the Arc Studio as soon as I can afford to.
Hi Chris. I also bought this unit. I just finished an advanced measurement. The difference is HUGE. I'm impressed. It's like I have totally different monitors all of a sudden 🙂 I have two questions for you though:
1) Have you gotten different/better results when doing more measurements?
2) My AFTER correction profile puts a +6dB bump at around 41Hz while the measurement showed the same bump but at around 2.5dB's. It should counter that instead of adding an extra bump, right?
Cheers, Rob
You didn't completely show the final setup. So my question is do you plug your monitors into the ARC or does it stay plugged into your audio interface that you use.
Bought - came in the mail these days. I'll try it out soon. However, I had already measured the room using Genelec 1030A, which I bought over 20 years ago.
Enjoy!
I tried the software version of ARC (v2 i think?) with two sets of Genelecs: 1030 and 1031. Dissapointing. Depending on which room it was set up, I still had lots of problems in translating my mixes to any other speakers. Then I bought my current monitors: Neumann KH750dsp+ kh120. The MA1 microphone and some measurments later... I asked "where have you been all my life?????". I won´t go back to third party solutions like this.
I use Arc 3 and have the plugin inserted in Control Room, I like the result, it´s better than Sound ID IMO
The Control Room is great for that! I might do a video on one vs the other
What do you like about it versus Sound ID I'd like to hear your thoughts. Thanks in advance
@@mixdownonline Please do :) !
Sounds nice altough one thing is still missing which is phase correction. If they add phase correction the Trinnov won't be necessary to buy
Yes, but the price wouldn't be $299. Trinnov is another ballpark. There's a reason why it's expensive also :-)
The built in arc correction on the MTMs was my secret haha
Ofcourse acoustic treatment is the go to. I am not allowed to hang up any panels in my current house however so would love to see how this unit fares in the shittier of rooms!
Same boat here ❤
There's alternative ways, I went through the same when renting a home last year ua-cam.com/video/e1Nmxa6XUPQ/v-deo.htmlsi=AYpNvQY8AnsCAYdk
I have three pairs of speakers and a single speaker which I can switch between to hear different 'things'. Would it be best to calibrate each set of speaker(s), save them and then reload for each speaker set? Or does that defeat my object of having different listen environments? For example, I have some Tannoy Reveal X speakers to hear what the songs will sound on a home type hifi, and three Avantone Mixcubes (one for mono) to give the sound from a restricted frequency system.
Cool. I use Sonarworks. I like it a lot, with the exception that it is software and it’s always on, and I need to remember to turn it off when bouncing, it’s really annoying. Also I have to be careful because SW is installed in the system and in the DAW as a plugin… The ARC hardware box that stores the settings is very interesting.
Room correction plugins go on your monitor bus, not your master bus. That way they don't interfere with your bounces.
Chris...imagine if there EWAS a way for the correction install had a way to recognize the calibration mic? An indicator on screen give you a check mark...would be great. Were you using Sonarworks ID previously? I have that, and DO appreciate the headphone correction with my HD650s. I suppose, for maybe $500 I could get a flatter response monitoring headphone. Nice video. For what it's worth, I had the original ARC software.
It would impress me more if it allowed you to load up more then one profile to the box and being able able to flip through them via the box faceplate like the 4 button system they make for the ik precision Loud speakers.
Me too, but don't forget that we're talking about $299 compared to a Trinnov system at $4k
Just buy an IR pedal then capture the IR of the ARC4 box. Problem solved. This tech assumes a speaker is a linear time invariant system so an IR capture would be equivalent.
Hi
At 8:37 you said you bypass the Arc studio if you want to ear the sound without correction in your headphone. I thought the Arc studio is applied only on the speakers that you connect it to. It makes no sense that when you bypass the Arc studio it will affect the headphone because it is on most cases in a different output. Am i right ?
Friend if im just us it for music listening not editing would this ARC works? I mean the sound eq amd quality wise…
More info about the Phase options:
-NATURAL mode improves the phase coherency between the L and R channels, recovering a better center ghost
image that might be compromised by the effects the room has on the sound, especially at low frequencies. This
is the default and preferred mode for most applications.
-LINEAR mode is a special correction mode where the original inter-channel phase response of the speakers’
system is maintained unaltered. In certain cases, this mode can be preferable for even better transparency.
However, this mode adds a little bit of latency, around 50 milliseconds.
It'd be nice if one could apply crossovers (hpf comes to mind)
Thanks for this video. Great that your experience with the product is positive. This is most likely what I’m looking for. I’m not a fan of software measurement systems.
can we use the Ark Systeme to calibrate a bigger room ? Like a 100 feet by 50 feet room ? Example a house of worship ?
After waiting with my fingers crossed till you finish speaking, then..... YEAH, I am interest in this box, too! Thanks!
Hope you like it!
I imagine it would be easy to load a current profile from Arc 3 in the box for Arc 4, connect it, set it and forget it. Seems like a straightforward upgrade.
My only complaint w Arc 3 is plugin cpu resources. The Arc 4 box seems like an awesome solution that should have arrived with version 3 and should soon be releasing solutions for multiple monitors. How do you miss a detail like this as a developer? Even a single profile selction toggle button on the box would have been nice.
Im stil rocking the KRK Ergo from 10 years ago!
Very timely video. I will be buying room correction next month. I've been using ACR 2 for years. Though about upgrading. Was look at Sonarworks because of the head phone option. But you can buy that separately.
I like IK multimedia as a brand. So will go with this new system.
I really dislike the headphone option it sounds terrible in my opinion. The speaker correction was better in my opinion.
If headphone correction is important for you, Sonarworks is the way to go. On my side, I don't use Headphone Correction on my main Mixing Headphones, I like them and know them well the way they sound. There's only one pair of headphone I own that I like some correction on, and I don't use them much. So that's a personal choice :-)
curious if this can store multiple room corrections, so I could switch between different sets of speakers. The biggest issue for me is the quality of the DAC. I have a really great highend converter now and I would hate to be downgrading. I currently use SoundID.
The DAC are pretty good, clean and transparent, so for me, I'm good with that, even if, on paper, my interface DAC probably have better stats I assume. If you run several speakers, you will need to change profile from the software and load to the device.
If you don't need or like the device, or your concern about the DAC, which is understandable depending on the gear/monitors you have, maybe stick with SoundID or invest in a Trinov System>
Thanks for your comment :-)
Hi Chris and the rest of the Mixdown gang. I have a question regarding the converters. Did some research and saw on their website that ARC Studio is using AKM Velvet Sound converters which should be a very good quality converter and if I am not mistaking RME used these before for their interfaces. My question is: Does the ARC Studio make my audio interface converters, in a way, redundant?
Not at all, cause you still need to get out of your sound interface to go to the ARC Box.
Some people will freak out over this because I'm DA out of my interface, AD into the ARC box, and DA again from the ARC Box to my speakers.
IMO, it's a none issue for monitoring...High quality converter parts these days are not that expensive, so used in most audio interfaces out there, and the role of the ARC Box is to alter the sound anyways to give a "flatter" frequency response, so I don't think the converter quality will play a significant role here. Just adding this to your initial question, Lol!
Thanks :-)
Some yrs ago Focusrite made a sort of the same box the VRM BOX, THOUGH without the room meassure capability, =) the ARC seem to be a cool device,...=)
I used to use a TacT Audio RCS hardware corrector, went through ARC 1-3, then looked into the miniDSP Dirac hardware finally got the SoundID Studio a few years back. Use it in Cubase for speakers and headphones. Still happy. Thanks for the info. Cheers old neighbor! 😊
Looks like you're all set! Good to hear from you, it's been a while, hope you're doing well :-)
Busy year. Yours too I guess. Best, T.
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for, but I wish you could use an external controller to switch between emulations. Like the switch for some of their monitors. Still a game changing device, but switching emulations on the fly would take it over the top.
Yes, that would be nice for sure, but the price would not be the same the more you add stuff to it.
In the old days we used to do this with a graphic EQ and tone generator. It worked.
Honestly, if you're still doing this and it works for you, keep it goind!
@@mixdownonline Frankly. I'm all about the headphones now!
Hi Chris, can you please direct me to your video that shows how to export batch on Cubase LE AI 9.5 basic, please? Thank you so much
The ARC Studi suffers from the same issue as most hardware based solutions. It can only be used on a SINGLE monitor set! There is no way to, conveniently, switch between different monitors. On software based solutions, you can load different profiles for your monitors and easily switch between them. Cubase/Nuendo (and the latest WaveLab) users need not think about this at all. Just insert different instances of the plugins in the Control Room, and you'll have the correct profile applied when you switch monitors, automatically.
This is why I find hardware correction solutions (and hardware monitor controllers) useless. They cause more problems for my workflow, than they solve. What I'd love to see is a dedicated hardware controller for the Control Room. But I guess that's for another video. 😉
That can for sure be a "con" if you have more than one set of speakers, and no hardware monitor controller. On my side, I always worked with a monitor controller, so that solve that problem.
For the control room, you can setup your own sets of keyboard shortcuts, and key commands to control the features out of the Control Room, and assigned them to a physical MIDI controller. I might make a video on this :-)
@@mixdownonline Can you elaborate? I wouldn't know how to solve the multiple speakers problem with my hardware monitor controller if the ARC studio hardware box only has one profile loaded at a time...
@@ArijalmariMxllrIt seems that only solution is (as long as Arc4 is quite cheap) to buy separate Arc4 hardware for each pair of speakers and connect it after monitor controller.
@@radwoc That's where my mind went too. Quite cheap? My wallet disagrees.
@@ArijalmariMxllrYou're right! It all depends on the scale. I suppose some of us are professional sound engineers and some are home recordist. Depending on how much 1 of your monitors is worth ($200 or $2,000), the price seems low or high 😀
Sorry if this was answered somewhere, but since there is no power button do people just leave it on all the time, or unplug it when they are done for the day?
Thx for sharing Chris. Will give it a try 🖖🤓
You're welcome!
Has anyone used this with an untreated home audio system? There is no way for me to treat my living room where my stereo is. Since it’s untreated and an odd shaped room I have a lot of reflections. Would this help me get a flatter response?
My main concern would be the additional AD/DA conversion of an unexpensive device like this: I guess it is NOT on the same level as my UAD or MOTU 929ES soundcards, or a Neumann or whatever of that kind of top level consumer soundcard would be. I am aware that folks with luxury converters use their own expensive room correction and would not face this problem.
Yea, the big boys use Trinnov, or something little less than that like Dirac. So, not really an issue as you said
@@fededj2002 My question was if it might be an issue for UAD quality level converters: I don't want to trade room correction against an inferior (compared to my UAD equipment) additional AD/DA converter in the ARC.
I also do have high quality converters, and took the time to test the box a lot to make sure I didn't get any degradation in the sound. I don't know what brand of converters they use or the full specs, but they sound transparent, and very clean, so that's good enough for me. But I understand that can be a concern for some.
Oh man, does this mean I have to buy this? Haha! If this works they can take my money... NOW! Thanks from dark & chilly Ireland! ☘💪🏽👀👍🏽☘
LOL! No, no...don't buy what you don't need, but if you like this kind of product, that's a pretty good option.
Call me suspicious, but it wuld be interesting to take the measurements a second time, this time with the box running, and see weather it actually comes up with the corrected curve.
Also I'd find it interesting to see how you decide on specific room treatment based on the measurements. Maybee an idea for a follow up video?
Good question. I don't base myself on that correction graphic, there's other softwares designed for this. Yes, once my panels are up and running (that's lots of work Lol!) I will make a follow up video :-)
Would you get this if you have the New Adam A7Vs with built in Sound ID that give me Zero Latency?
In that case, looking for another system would not be a priority, since there's already one built in
I have used the ARC system from version 1 and will definitely upgrade to version 4. Been waiting for this for years!
Awesome!
@@mixdownonline Got the upgrade and set it up last night. Amazing to listen to music the right way and not have to open Cubase for the ARC 3 plugin.
About time tbh. Have been using minidsp dirac system for years.
Thanks for the video. What about the box AD/DA converter? Is it will effect the signal which going to my studio monitors controller?
The box is analog, the converters are from my sounf interface
Thank you for the reply. What confusing me is, the manual say it has high end A to D - D to A convertors and it also say real analog at the same time. Logically it should have converter to pass the dsp, and not sure if it’s good to have extra layer converter in between and how reliable is that.
I didn't check the manual, but the sound goes in the ARC box out of the interface as an analog signal, then to my speaker controller, which is again analog.
@@mixdownonline The correction, though, is happening digitally inside the box. So it has to have both an ADC and a DAC.
Correct, this is converting the signal both ways. I want waaay more info on the conversion chip and spec before I put it between me and my stand alone converters, which I have lots of data on and have spent good money on.
This now becomes the piece doing all the heavy lifting.
Also, how is the setup for clocking this to my master clock?
Thank you for thereat video and the valuable info. Are buying tuned panels or doing it yourself?
DIY, but I'm not a very handyman, so I'm starting to wish I went the other route LOL
Can this be used on car audio?!?!
I'm running it now. So far so good
Thanks for all the great videos you make! Considering switching from Sonarworks to this. I use Cubase, with Sonarworks on controllroom, so not worried about bouncing with effect on, but the zero latency and no driver or software to potentially mess with my system sounds interesting to me.
Have you used both? How do you think they compare?
Much love
- v
Glad you love my videos :-) I'm actually working on a video to compare both :-)
@mixdownonline Fantastic! Looking forward to it. Keep up the good work!
Hello Chris
Thanks for another valuable video and explanation. I am following your tutorials for long period thus I feel free to ask: When you say results are better, What does it really means? How this contributes to your Mastering flow and quality? And last: As the ARC Box inputs connects between the audio I/F and the monitors thus I am still not sure about the workflow when working with a reference track.
Is there a way to activate/disactivate the ARC function from Cubase control room when switching to the reference track back and forth?
Thank you for your attention.
Amram
Why do you want to do that?
In my studio, I use the room correction for everything, Cubase, UA-cam Spotify, references...everything goes into room correction. That's the best way to learn your listening environment, and make better mixing decisions.
Chris nice to see you again on the Air after long time...welcome
Thanks, but I've been here all along :-)
Do you know if this is acting like an AD/DA device by doing some sort of conversion? I talked to IK Multimedia, and they said it is NOT! I use all Lynx AD/DA devices and DO NOT want some crappy conversion going on afterwards! When I read the box, it seems it is doing something, as it is talking about the 120db Dynamic Range etc... What's up with this? I asked about this after they replied to my email and said it is NOT converting, with a follow-up question of why it is saying the 120db Dynamic Range info, and they stop responding! What is going on here?
I have the ARC 2. I don't mind the plugin format. If anything, I don't want any more desk clutter and the signal path should be cleaner.
I have to say that it's sounds super clean on my end. But seriously, if you like the plugin version, stick with it, don't spend on stuff you don't need :-)
@@mixdownonline Agreed! I will say that I think the ARC system is great. I have received some compliments on how well my mixes "travel" from one system to another.
Thank you for the video. Unfortunately those who use headphones for mixing will not be able to use.
Manufacturer should consider this.
dude check out Realphones 2.0 , thank me later
Yes, it does not support headphones. Maybe they will on a future version
@@mixdownonline By the way, thank you.
Your videos are helpful.
Any reason to plug the box before the Heritage Audio monitoring control station? I was thinking about pluging it after so it doesn’t affect the headphones output (and remove the needs to turn the correction off) but maybe I’m missing something.
I'm curious to try arc4 but im not convinced on ditching sound id reference yet. sound id picked up on mids I was missing out on that arc3 missed
Honestly, stick with SoundID if your happy with it, it's a great room correction :-)
@nonline I am but just curious if arc4 is improved even more over soundid and arc3
@@campar1043 Hard for me to say since I never tried ARC prior to ARC4. I assume they improve when releasing a new version
Would you use this on a pair of "Auratones", or would that defeat the purpose?
I wouldn't, you're right, it would defeat the purpose in a way
You're too kind. Thank you! I also love your courses. Huge help.
The old KRK Ergo used to be just like this , and was amazing and cheap.
what were you using before, if anything?
SoundID
Does this device considerates a subwoofer or only studio monitors?
Yes, and no...If the sub woofer is on, it will make the measurements according to what comes out of you speakers, and room, so it will add the sub sound by default. But it will not give you a separate analysis of the Sub vs Speakers
I use the sonarworks. Changed my mixes beyond recognition
Sonarworks is great!
Thanks for the honest take, the obvious comparison here for most of us is going to be....does this this sound better than sonarworks? I used the old version of ARC many years ago but switched to sonarworks because I felt like it did a much better job with correction, lately the software has become super annoying and full of bugs and driver crashes so an affordable hardware unit would be a blessing. Of course it is not going to compete with a trinov system but as a sonarworks user yourself did you compare the measurements between sound ID and ARC? Was it the same but it's way better to have a hardware bypass? Thanks!
I'm actually gonna make a video on this sooner than later, but in a nutshell, both measurements are very close, and the end result are in the same ball park....What made me switch is the Box, not the room correction outcome. The Trinov system is at another level, for sure!
Cool, will keep a look out for that! The idea of having it on hardware seems way better for how I need to use it
@@mixdownonline
Yes! Me too, exactly, this is what I want to know! I switched from ARC to sonarworks for the same reason, prefered the sound, but a hardware solution would be much more convenient. Cant afford Trinnov right now and i believe the latency of Trinnov is also significantly more... around 20ms corrected vs 1.5ms of the ARC. At 1.5ms I can still track in the control room with correction, very appealing.
Whyd it have to work though 😂😂 was just looking at this on Sweetwater.... well looks like i know what my next purchase is
i just wonder how this is going to compare to Sonarworks SoundID
I'll make a video on this :-)
Here is the video I made about it :)
ua-cam.com/video/KzKN7-uS5SM/v-deo.html
Is this good to correct home audio..like using on the bookshelves to correct the audio by adding this between the the integrated amp and speakers?
Mainly designed for music studios, but they do have an analysis option for home theatres
It can't work between the amp and speakers. It works at line level. If your amp has pre-out and in you could insert it there.
I use the bheringer Ultracurve DEQ2496 for room correction, which I got 2 years ago. What are your thoughts on it? Have you used it? I like the fact that the ARC gives you a parametric EQ as opposed to a graphic EQ on the Behringer and not to mention the monitor simulations. Guess it's time for me to upgrade :D
Never heard of the Ultracurve DEQ2496
I have SoundID ARC3 and REW, with a hardware correction filter box. But the HW box only has 8 filters and it is not enough and I have to configure manually the filter coefficients. SoundID does a good job but the systemwide CRASHES AND CRASHES - and crashes - and has to be removed and reinstalled and it is an utter pain. I want system-wide EQ on multiple monitors and so I ordered this box the day I saw it was released. I figure ARC3 and SoundID were roughly equivalent in sound, but now I look forward to zero latency system-wide correction, hurray. Hurry up Amazon!
Hope you like it!
I use a YAMAHA subwoofer and Fostex nearfield monitors. The signal goes from my MACKIE BIG KNOB through the YAMAHA to the monitors. Is it possible to use the ARC studio with a subwoofer as well?
I have a similar system and the rig should be like that: audio interface-> (Macie Big knob) ->ARC studio ->sub->monitors
I gave brackets at the Mackie since you don’t say if it’s Mackie big knob studio audio interface or just Mackie big knob sound level knob.
So, I got mine and was like; why doesn't it come with a rackmount kit, or something! So, after talking to IK Multimedia and saying there is not one, I decided to do some research and came up with this under-desk mount. Easy install, secure and most of all it works lol...! I mounted it to my right within arm's length, so I can use the bypass at ease without having to take up unneeded space on top of my mixer and desk.... I wonder if they thought about this when they made it? Who wants this little box sitting on the desk? In addition, when you try to use the bypass just sitting on the desk, you have to hold the box and then push the button, otherwise it will slide backwards, or place it against the wall or something keeping it from moving. Overall, awesome unit, save me from taking the software off the mixbus at bouncing and many times forgetting to do so...lol! Anyway, I got two in the shipment, so I msg them, and they said to just keep it or give it away. Msg me, and it's yours, just cover the shipping cost! Cheers, love the channel and content. Learned a lot!
ARC Hardware Under-Desk Mounting Kit:
reverb.com/item/81951079-mountz-ik-multimedia-arc-studio-room-correction-hardware-specific-mounting-kit-with-mountz-locking-system-2024-black
Is it DSP with Conversion happening or is in Digitally controlled Analog EQ?
Cool. Way cheaper as a new left Genelec I somehow distroid in a certain frequency band ;-)
Another comment, I have a control room with an engineers desk with one set of speakers, and to my right another set of speakers at my composer station with my keys. I did two tests because of the two locations, I then change the profile for what system I am using. Can ARC provide separate speakers tests for different locations?
Yes, you can create several profiles, but you will need to load them in the hardware when switching from one to the other.
Hi Chris. I use the iLoud MTM monitors which came with the software and room measurement mic. I use it and it works great.
What am I missing by not having the box?
You missing additional adda convertion)
You're just missing the box, no big deal if you don't need it.
they could have easily added a digital input to avoid double conversion, sure it would have raised the cost a bit but to me it would have well worth it.
Lots of people would like that, but like you said, it would raise the cost.
Hello Chris, thank you for this nice video. However, I think you should be more skeptical. If you see a nice flat alignment curve on your screen, you should not believe too much in what you see. Unlike the Neumann system, the alignment curve of the arc is only calculated - not a measurement. I measured the real sound with my Neumann MK 120 II in my (acoustically untreated) room before and after aligning the speakers and can say that the frequency response curve was better than before, but nowhere near as good as the alignment curve would have you believe. Better measure again - with REW, for example, this is not a problem. In my opinion, this also increases the credibility of such a report.
Can it handle multiple speaker profiles?
yes
Is there a DAC inside the HW? Say I wanted to send audio through usb, will it convert it and output through XLR?
yes, it is analog in / analog out (XLR)
I got one but the analysis won’t show any signal. Checked everything - there must be a software compatibility issue for me
We need sub as well and secong speaker set output that would be a game changer till then not relevant for for sub and teo aer of speaker which is most studios mixing setup
With more options, the price wouldn't be the same though.
I do my measurements with the sub ON, and the crossover applied. Works well!
What sub r u using most subs have shitty cross thats why inwpuld appriciate a unit that can cross as well
@@TheTomallon Dynaudio bm9s
J'utilise Arc 3 pour les enceintes et Reaphones pour le casque. Et j'avoue que quand je suis sur Cubase c'est cool grace a la control room, mais quand je travaille avec logic c'est compliqué de toujours penser a désactiver avant l'export. Ce genre de petite boite pourrait me brancher.
D'accord avec toi, c'est la boite qui m'as fait "switcher"
How many samples of delay does it introduce? What sampling rate does it work at?
In natural mode it adds about 2ms of latency. When you add that to other latency in a studio setup, that means latency will be problem when tracking using Arc Studio. Arc Studio uses a 96kHz sample rate.
@@bill-sr1vd thank you, I recently spent a couple hundred euros on an analog behringer graphic equaliser to correct my monitors specifically to not have any noticeable latency when monitoring my guitars through the interface internal mixer. Sonarworks wasn't able to correct accurately my acoustic space, I did a batter job on my own with pink noise and a mesure microphone but maybe this ARC is the way to go🤔🧐
Great video, my friend! Many thanks!
Thanks!
It's a nice solution for project studio's, and standalone smaller B or C monitor- or homecinema systems, but I would never put my main monitors through an EXTRA €300,- AD-DA converter...Better use the software version and your high end converters for that purpose.
That's understandable, but for me, I did AB testing with and without the box, and the results are super clean and transparent, so not a concern for me, anyways. What's important is what I listen to, and not the specs. But again, I completely understand, and not trying to convince you otherwise, it's a fair point :-)
Can you do two sets of monitors with one box?
Yes, you will then have 2 different profiles to choose from!
@@mixdownonlineexcept there is only one i/o.
Hi, very interesting unit! I got some questions for the workflow with it: How do you switch between multiple monitors then? Even with a monitor controller, switching the monitors on with the box inbetween doesn’t switch the different captures of every pair of monitors which you saved. So you would have to load it / change it every time you switch monitors, when you want to have the correction of both simultaniously inside the plugin? Or can you use 2 boxes for two different monitors? would that work? When i listen to mixes i like to move fast back and forth between my speakers. That would be impossible with this using one arc box and one monitor controller right? Best regard
Yes, it's not designed to switch profile simultaneously inside the box, you would need to load the other profile first before switching, or get a second unit for fast switching. That's probably why the price is low for this type of device.
@@mixdownonlinethx! Are you sure it would work with a second box? No errors to expect from the plugin, when loading the capture on one box and then unplug the usb? Best regards
How much latency does it add to the interface latency?
Can you use it when recording?
Or do you bypass during capture?
No latency, so you can record using it
@mixdownonline thanks, what is your interface? I use a Focusrite Clarett Pre 8 USB. What is your Total Round Trip time without the correction box, please?
Additionally, I am a Windows user. My PC is a dedicated DAW i9 14000k 32gig ram, 4 NVMe SSD disks
@@thewookiee9511I seen in a review on gearspace that it has some latency.
Hi, did you say the ARC studio retains room measurements even if it's not hooked up via the USB port to a computer? Let me know. TX
Yes, that's what I said :-)