MusicRadar

The ARC plug-in sits on the master bus of your DAW.

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• Review

Acoustics and room response are frequently overlooked during the mixing process. You may be familiar with the likes of bass traps, foam shapes and high-end products like diffusers, but there are downsides to traditional acoustic treatment methods such as these.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s not easy to use them effectively, and they aren't always suitable for people using rented space, those who mix in many different environments (such as laptop musicians or roving engineers), or, indeed, musicians whose studio overlaps with their living space.

A room's 'response' refers to how the acoustics and the speakers interact with each other. Obviously, as flat a response from the room as possible is ideal, so that you don't overcompensate in your mix for any frequencies that the room absorbs, or cut any that it enhances, thus creating something that's unbalanced on other systems.

Overview

Seemingly spotting a gap in the market, IK Multimedia has teamed up with Audyssey Laboratories to produce the ARC System (ARC stands for Advanced Room Correction), which is aimed squarely at improving the sound of your mixing environment, whether you already have acoustic treatment in place or not. The package consists of a plug-in to run inside your DAW (which always needs to be inserted last in the chain on the master bus), a separate measurement program and a reference microphone (which also doubles as a decent recording mic) in a carry case.

Powered by Audyssey's existing MultEQ technology, ARC is designed to provide a wider 'sweet spot' and to correct multiple listening positions rather than improving just one while compromising others, as is often the case with conventional EQ. IK boasts that, unlike other systems, it corrects frequency and time domain issues (such as phasing), while keeping within the inherent frequency limits of your speakers.

Before you can use the ARC plug-in, you have to pull out a mic stand and get the measurements out of the way. To avoid soiling the results, you must use a clean, uncoloured input channel with phantom power for the measurement mic. Also, ARC is calibrated to work only with the supplied mic – using another model will give inaccurate results

The measurement software is a standalone application and is extremely easy to operate, with on-screen instructions. At step three, you set the required volume for the test signals that the software pumps out to analyse your setup, before step four, where measurement proper begins.

It’s essential to take the initial measurement from the centre of your listening position and then in an alternating left/ right symmetrical pattern, which is actually easier than it sounds.

You need at least 12 measurements to proceed to the last stage, where the compensatory EQ curves are generated and stored for use, but you can take up to 32 for more precise results. Each curve can be given a name and a picture of some speakers assigned to it – handy when using multiple monitoring setups.