Complete noob - Before I start......

Can I just say hi, good to find this place.

I'm from the Uk and have a project music studio. I have a nightmare space to mix in (nearly square with a low ceiling) and although I have lots of broadband absorption I'm still not happy with the sound coming out the speakers (commercial mixes). My mixes don't translate well, on my net machine however (in a house with a hifi amp and cheap monitor speakers) I can easily make good sounding mixes that sound good on all systems. So it must be down to the room.

So here I am.

I'm reading the instructions and although I have a basic digital spl meter (AZ 8928) I don't think it will be suitable for the task at hand. So do i need to buy a radio shack one? What I'd like to do ideally is run my Neumann U87>avalon 737sp (preamp)>motu2408mkII(soundcard) to take the measurements, would this be possible?
I ask because the inputs on the motu2408mkII are adat lightpipe, fed from a mackie d8b mixer so it's not as simple as plugging a 3.5mm jack into my soundcard.

Can you see a way to do this or would be quicker an easier to buy a known spl meter and borrow a laptop?

Thanks for any responses

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Welcome to the Forum!

I don’t know if REW can help you compensate for an inadequate mixing room, but it can let you know what your frequency response is; maybe that will help.

Most of us aren’t too familiar with recording gear, but I’ll take a stab at this anyway. I’ll make some of our pro-audio members aware of your thread, so maybe they can chime in and correct me where needed.

Basically all you need for REW is a USB soundcard with line in and line out connections. If your Motu has those connections (and I’m sure it does), you should be in good shape. I’m sure balanced ins and outs will work, if that’s all it has (I can’t tell from your post if the Motu is serving as your soundcard, or if you have another one).

The only problem with using your mic, preamp and anything else in front of the soundcard is that you need calibration files for each piece. REW can create one for the pre-amp (and Motu, if needed) in the same manner that it would for the soundcard (see the REW help files), but for the mic you’ll have to have a frequency response plot to create a .txt calibration file.

If you are able to use all the gear you mentioned, then the SPL meter you have will work fine. If not, you’ll need the RS SPL meter. We have calibration files for it available at this site. It’s only good up to about 7kHz, but that should be plenty high to help you figure out where your mixes are breaking down (I expect that the problems you’re having are not in the high frequencies anyway). As an alternative, the Galaxy meter is good even higher – you can find some posts on it in our SPL Meters – Mics – Calibration area:

http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...s-calibration/

Regards,
Wayne

Hi Wayne,

Thanks for the warm welcome. You're right, the high end is pretty easy to sort out, it's the lower end with all it's modes, nodes and standing waves that's the hard part!

For the sake of £25/$50 I think it's much easier to go the tried and tested route, so I'll order a RadioShack meter asap, then borrow a friends laptop. TBH I think the speakers I have are too much for the room. I've just spent all afternoon trying the sub in different positions (man that thing is heavy! My back will be complaining tomorrow!) only for it to end up where it was!

Thanks for the input, going to re-read your hard knee post!