All home studio punters know the frustration of mixing and mastering a great song, only to find it sounds all wrong on the ghetto-blaster or played back in the car.  We also know what the issue is – THE BOOM is in the ROOM!   I have personally tried for years to correct the acoustics using bass traps and foam and in the end decided to purchase the IK Multimedia Advanced Room Correction system (ARC 2).  I know the purest will say it’s not the best solution, but it has worked for me in my project studio (converted bedroom).

Note from the screen shot just how far my room acoustics are from flat!
 

Using ARC 2 with SCOPE is a little tricky if you are mixing (or mastering) in SCOPE as you have to return the mix back to you DAW to monitor through ARC2 (to get the advantage of the correction that ARC 2 provides).

The good news is this is simple for SCOPE users.

Basically:

  • Return the mix via ASIO2 module back into you DAW.

  • Set a record channel in your sequencer to receive the mix and insert ARC 2 into that channel.

  • Direct that channel (the record channel) back to SCOPE via a separate ASIO2 channel and connect to you monitoring setup.

Note: Your mix environment does not have to be a complex as the one I have shown. Mine also set includes a mono mixing set-up (utilizing the STM 1632 and the control room module) and I am utilizing the wonderful Spacef Mix7 to mix ‘stems’ coming from the STM 2448.

  

 

Now the trick is to activate ARC 2 whilst mixing and/or mastering (initially you need to establish your studio correction pattern of course).

When you are finished, you must turn off the ‘correction’ before recording the results into the record channel you set-up with ARC 2 inserted. Now you have a stereo file you can import into a DAW for mastering or burning to disk.

I have read that some people have learned to ‘mix’ to their room acoustics and hence they don’t need ARC or room acoustic treatments.

My experience says this would be almost impossible as (in my case) the two are quite different and once I have completed a mix and have turned the correction off I don’t like what I hear from the monitors (Event ASP 8s), but when I render to disk and play outside the studio all the mud is gone and it sounds great!!

 

  

 
     

MausMuso September 2012