ARC 3 when my studio is my listening room

[dmitch]

I have a sort of philosophical question on using ARC.

I just got ARC3, with the MEMS mic. I calibrated my project studio using my (pretty decent) near-field monitors. I used the ARC plugin on some existing ProTools projects that I'd mixed and mastered (I.e., finished) in the past, and did some tweaking to get them to sound "OK" with the ARC plugin active.

OK here's the thing. To bounce one of these new mixes to disc, I turn off ARC. I understand all this. But...the resulting bounced mix doesn't sound anything like the mix I just worked on. The details of how it's different don't matter here. What matters is: my studio is where I listen to a lot of music. It's not just for working. It's the best sounding sound system in my house. When I demo my own music for someone, I want to demo it in the studio.

But if I mix with ARC, and print without it, the final printed mix doesn't sound like what I worked so hard to get. What I worked on when I mixed it is what sounds best to my ears (of course). If that mix had ARC enabled, and the printed mix doesn't, nobody but me is ever going to hear what I really want to mix to sound like. (Unless I fire up Pro Tools and load the session and turn on ARC just to listen to a finished tune. But, I don't think I should have to do that. I just want to play the high-res stereo master.)

So. Given that my studio is my ideal listening room (I know it's not perfect, but it's the best one I have), and I want my mixes to sound good there...does that mean that I really should not be using ARC? I didn't really think this through before I bought this thing. Maybe it was a mistake...?

Any words of wisdom? Thanks.

[DylanLoff]

This might be a dumb question, but is your ARC plugin definitely the last plug in in your signal chain? If so, do the printed mixes sound good in other rooms/on other playback systems etc? If they do maybe your mix room has particularly bad accoustics and youve been compensating for that the whole time before you used ARC. What do your 'before' curves look like in ARC, are they all over the place? Also maybe working with ARC on a mix you finished before you had ARC might throw everything out of whack, as ARC wasnt used in the original root mix on individual tracks etc if you get my drift. Maybe that shouldnt be a problem, Im not sure as I havent tried that yet. Just a thought. Also check your target curve is set to flat, maybe youve accidently left it on one of the custom settings such as laptop speakers.

[pkward88]

What you may be experiencing is that your playback is not “tuned” to your room because you’re listening back through a sound path that is not through your DAW.

Think of it this way: Without ARC 3, putting pink noise through your speakers would probably indicate a colored response at the listening point; mix with ARC 3, you’re mixing at that listening point with a flatter response; export without ARC 3, you’re getting a good mix file; but playing it back through your system WITHOUT ARC 3, it’s going to be colored and not sound as you intended.

The answer is to direct the sound from the file through your computer playback system so it “goes through” the ARC correction. On a Mac you can use Rogue Amoeba’s SoundSource. It’s terrific. Indeed, you can map it so that you don’t need the ARC 3 plugin on your DAW, and you’ll still be hearing everything through ARC 3 through your monitoring system. Simplifies things.

I am a total fan of ARC 3, and with SoundSource, the convenience factor, and quality of playback, is huge.

I hope this helps.

[dmitch]

What you may be experiencing is that your playback is not “tuned” to your room because you’re listening back through a sound path that is not through your DAW.

Correct, that's exactly the problem. I don't want to have to fire up my DAW to listen to a finished tune. So, currently, what I hear when I listen to my finished mix - not thru my DAW - is not what I heard when I mixed using ARC.

So you can use the ARC plugin in SoundSource? (I've never used any Audio Unit plugins, which is what SoundSource appears to use - only AAX these days). If so, then yes, that is exactly what I think I need. I didn't know there was a system-wide way to use the ARC plugin. (I actually searched the forums for this, and it seems that this is not common knowledge.) That is great! I'll try it.

Thanks!