Just purchased ECM8000 and MP13

[hoteltango]

Hello all this is my first post on this forum. I am a huge home theater fan and bought a complete speaker system by Acoustech (BIC) http://www.audaud.com/audaud/MAR04/component/comp1.html and Marantz HDMI sr4001 receiver. Absolutely love the 1100 dollar setup. i have had it for a few months but wanted to dial in my subwoofer to match the the L/R speakers for music.

I purchased the Behringer ECM8000 and Rolls MP13. I am familiarizing myself with the awesome free Room EQ just wondering if I need anything else besides cables to make this work for me.

Thank you for any input and thank you for the free software. TrueRTA is another great option but dont feel that it can compete with the support that this forum offers and the overall price. Free!

Thanks HTS

Brandon
edit: just saw that this should have been posted in calibration area. forgive the new guy please.

[robbo266317]

Hi Brandon,
I found the shack late last year and it's great.

You need to run a loopback configuration for your soundcard and load the ecm8000 calibration file before you make any measurements.
It's truly amazing that the REW is freeware - it's such a powerful tool.

I look forward to seeing the results of your effort.

[brucek]

just wondering if I need anything else besides cables to make this work

Read and become familiar with the REW HELP files and the REW Cabling and Connections Basics.

Also note the REW information Index and the Download Page.

[hoteltango]

Ok, I have read till my head hurt but I played with my room eq at church and we have a nice little setup. We are running peavey eq's, amps, 32 channel board, etc.

Anyway this is what I came up with.

We have 4 mains 15 inch with horns, they are old and I have a lot of work to do with them but here is our setup.

4500 square ft. We are running about 85db with the radioshack db meter.
Chruch dimensions are 61ft long, 100ft at the widest point and the back of the church is 41ft wide. Its shaped like a diamond.
The ceilings are 20ft tall and have a drop ceiling that is removable to open the roof all the way up to 40ft. Very tall building.
We have 250 seats and the ability to knock out the back wall adding an additional 100 seats with a balcony. (purposely designed that way)
The seating are benches stretching as wide as the church with full bodies in them. The walls are double drywall with paint. There are small wall hangings but no sound absorbing for the walls. Carpeted floors with new high tread material, no padding, and concrete floors

This graph is after the adjustments on the eq main speakers 40 feet from mains. Is this what I want? To get it as flat as possibel? I also got some error telling me that I am not at the -10 decibels or something like that, I got it to -20 decibles I should have wrote down these messages.


PLATFORM MONITORS

These are the two 10" woofer center monitors BEFORE ADJUSTMENT on the eq and the tweets ARE BLOWN they are horn types and need replaced bad. This is with the eq at 0 all the way across the 31 sliders. 1/3 octive eq.


Outter cheap 10" monitors and about blown horns. AFTER ADJUSTMENT IS THIS GOOD?


This is what my sound card is doing but its all within 1 dB so I dont think it matters but this is with the loop back perfromed.


From what I see here we need subwoofers, new monitors on the stage and more amplifiers to split up the 8 total monitors on the platform so we can dial in vocals and instruments better. We need to mic the drums and get a drum cage.

Can you help me with the error I get after a test. "The highest level should ideally be above -10dBFS"
The best I got was -20dBFS after the test. Is this due to the mic being 40 feet from the speaker? We cranked the system and were peaking at 105 dB SPL. What am I missing?

This pic was taken from the mic position.



One more thing, is the second graph of the monitor good? Cause that is after my adjustment of the graph above it? any help would be great, thanks.

[JohnM]

The measurements look fine, well done on getting everything running. You will see the underlying response more easily if you apply some smoothing (e.g. 1/6 or 1/3 octave). -20dBFS is sufficient level, but to increase it you would need to increase the gain at the mic end of the system rather than run the system louder. For advice on where to go from here it would be best to consult the folk in the Installation and Systems part of the forum.

[brucek]

Can you help me with the error I get after a test

Your measurements appear low.

When you run Check Levels setup, your goal is to first set the level at the mic to 75dBSPL using a hand held SPL meter (Radio Shack). Simply hold it near the real mic and raise your system level to get ~75dB on the SPL meter. Now put the meter away knowing that the real mic is receiving 75dB.

Then set the input level in REW on the VU meter.

Then run the Calibrate routine and match that 75dB in REW's SPL meter.

Now measure.

Set your graphs to the standard Vertical graph axis of (45dB - 105dB) and the Horizontal graph axis of (15Hz - 20000Hz) using the Graph Limits button in the top right corner of REW.

Turn on smoothing of 1/3 octave.

brucek