Discussion of Bruce's response graph tutorial

Brucek just wrote up a very nice "tutorial" for rlammi, with step by step instructions on how to capture one's very first room response graph. You can find it here. As a newbie who has not yet tried to do this, I'm thrilled to find this document and I'm hoping it will be saved (stickied?) somewhere easy to find for future newbies.

I'm going to ask a few dumb questions that sprung to mind as I read through this "doc". Perhaps some of the answers can make it in to version 2.

Start REW and observe down in the bottom left of the screen as shown in the attached picture. Be sure your soundcard is recognized and selected in the two pulldowns as shown.
You can see in the example that my soundcard is a RealTek AC97.

Also select LINE_IN as shown and SPEAKER as shown.

What's the story with that "SPEAKER" designation for what (I believe) is a line-out? I see that same choice in my drop-down menu, along with an even more confusingly labeled choice. From memory, I think the second choice on my M-Audio Transit is "Mic/Line-out". Ignoring that crazy label for a moment, both of those choices seem to work. I hear the test tone no matter which I pick. However, the level is a bit hotter if a choose the second option. (not "SPEAKER") How does one know which one to use?

Now we need to load the calibration file for the specific type of Radio Shack (RS) meter you own. Once the file is loaded it will reload automatically every time you start REW in the future.

This instruction was "custom written" for rlammi, but if this tutorial makes it into a FAQ or something, it might want to mention that one doesn't have to use a RadioShack meter as your measurement mic. , you might even want to add a link to Sonnie's ECM8000 calibration file, since that's another popular option.

Well, I can't comment on any of the later steps, since I haven't gotten that far yet, but they look nice and easy to follow. Lots of pictures!

[brucek]

What's the story with that "SPEAKER" designation for what (I believe) is a line-out?

Well for sure, it is a line-out. REW will show a list of devices that it finds and the available input/output options that they provide. It may show line-out for a USB card, but most internal cards will show speaker. The assumption is that most people may not know what a line-out is on a soundcard and just want to know where to plug their powered speakers.

If REW says line out when you start REW, then select that....

one doesn't have to use a RadioShack meter as your measurement mic

Indeed, but as you say, I wrote this for someone who was having a bit of trouble getting going, and they have an RS meter. I am removing confusion factors in my response. In my opinion, REW really isn't entry level stuff, and as such can be confusing for many people. If you are someone who is quite adept at these things, simply use the HELP files and you're done.

brucek

[Sonnie]

We can add it to the REW Tips thread for reference... maybe with a little modification to better apply to all concerned. I think it would be a good addition too.

[brucek]

I don't know Sonnie. If we start adding all the variables it becomes Johns help file, which is already really, really well done.

[brucek]

And of course, as you've alluded to many times - Once you sentence a thread to Sticky status, it's the kiss of death........ never to be read again....hehehehe :raped:

[Sonnie]

brucek wrote:

And of course, as you've alluded to many times - Once you sentence a thread to Sticky status, it's the kiss of death........ never to be read again....hehehehe :raped:

lol... yeah... I wonder why that is/be? I guess it's good to have a place to link to anyway so we don't have to repeat it quite so many times. Of course we all love to talk too, so if we give them everything we won't have anything left to talk about.