# Studio Setup - Calibration, Monitoring, Metering, Audio Analysis



## 3DC (Apr 22, 2022)

How would deaf person (as example) know how to correctly setup trough knobs and sliders values its studio monitors, headphones, audio interface and then finally DAW channels for mixing and mastering. 

I am not deaf but the confusion on this topic for beginners like me is unbelievable. 
Just for example: I am reading in one book you need to calibrate you studio monitors to 85 dB, some say to your acceptable levels, other strictly half of its volume range. Then how do you setup you headphones, audio interface, channels?  

In short how do you setup your studio so you know, hear and see exactly what you are hearing in your studio?
Any really, really good YouTube tutorial, book or even online course on this subject would be greatly appreciated. 

Thanks for help.


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## rgames (Apr 22, 2022)

Acoustic treatment/setup is about 5% science and 95% religion. The only two areas where's there's broad consensus are:

1. You don't want a highly reverberant space for mixing/mastering.
2. You want to try to control the bass frequencies to some extent to improve clarity.

Trying to address anything else is a fool's errand because there is no practical application where it matters. There is no other room that is like yours, so why bother trying to match yours to some standard? Nobody else will experience what you experience.

It's more important that you understand the characteristics of your space than it is to try to match them to someone's standard of excellence. You get a lot more benefit by listening to and evaluating your music in many different spaces than in one "pristine" space.

rgames


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## rgames (Apr 23, 2022)

3DC said:


> but for newbies like me its a chaotic nightmare


Nah it's not a big deal. When you start out you think there's some magic room setup that will give you a perfect understanding of how someone's going to experience your music. There's not.

Here's an example that explains why: let's say you follow some guru's advice to perfection. You calibrate, absorb, diffuse, isolate, etc. exactly as this person specifies. Then you mix/master a track and make it sound just like you want. It sounds awesome!

Let's say it's in A. So 440 Hz is a key element of the track.

Now let's consider two people who listen to the track: Alice and Bob. Alice listens to your track in a spot where there's a null at 440 Hz and Bob listens to your track in a spot where there's a peak at 440 Hz. What do Alice and Bob think about your perfectly mixed/mastered track?

Well, Alice can't hear the root note, so to her you're a terrible mixer because there's not enough bass. Bob, on the other hand, thinks you're a terrible mixer because there's way too much bass.

So either way you're a terrible mixer but for exactly opposite reasons on the _exact same track_: one for not enough bass and one for too much.

There's no way you can possibly account for every listening environment. So make yours as pristine as you want. Nobody else is going to hear it that way and you're better off understanding how the track translates to a bunch of listening environments than how it sounds in any given one.

Put up some bass traps in corners and kill some reflections. That's all you really need to do. Everything else is religion.

rgames


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## b_elliott (Apr 23, 2022)

I like what rgames wrote. 

Another approach as given by Frank Zappa on his recordings: (rephrased) he made it so he could enjoy listening back to his creations later. Should others buy his LPs and enjoy them, fine; but it did not sway his #1 audience: his ears. 

Sure simplifies matters. 

Cheers, Bill


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## gsilbers (Apr 23, 2022)

3DC said:


> How would deaf person (as example) know how to correctly setup trough knobs and sliders values its studio monitors, headphones, audio interface and then finally DAW channels for mixing and mastering.
> 
> I am not deaf but the confusion on this topic for beginners like me is unbelievable.
> Just for example: I am reading in one book you need to calibrate you studio monitors to 85 dB, some say to your acceptable levels, other strictly half of its volume range. Then how do you setup you headphones, audio interface, channels?
> ...




There are apps for iPhone that measure SPL. Put a 1k tone at -20db (peak) in your DAW and measure on your iphone. 85db is a lot. better go for 72-79db . And change your interface volume or monitor controller so the iphone picks up at 72-79 spl (depending on the size of the room and your confort level)

The reason is complicated is because that measurement is normally done for pro studios or post sound studios. IF you are doing your own mix and mastering and you are doing the loud thing of trying to hit -6LU loudness levels for the whole track then that shit is gonna be loud as fuk. Like very loud.

In general the philosophy is that you are mixing confortably and if you are going loud then you will turn your tracks down. And it has to do with the fletcher munson curve which establishes how the human ear hears. We will hear 1k-5k a lot more than 100hz at the same level.
So if you mix with speakers too quiet you will want to turn that bass a LOT to get that bass balance in that context and then when someone else listen to your same mix at louder levels they will hear a very boomy mix. So calibrating helps a lot with the low and low mids where so many poeple have issues in their mix.

Also keep in mind the idea is to mix for the average levels. So after you finish clibrating you have to play music and tv shows and movies etc and get used to that mix and normally for calibration you want to hear dialogue or vocals at confortable levels. Calibration as you see is related a lot with post production as thats more standardized.

Calibrating just establishes a standard as to what most studios and poeple listen to and therefore the bass vs treble will sound about the same. Then TV commercials fucked it up for everyone and math geeks came out with algorithms for loudness and its relation to those specs about calibration.
See, for music you have 1-3 min to make it sound good. For TV its a lot more and dialogue sits at a much quieter levels and loudness specs says to keep dialogue low to hit the TV mix at -24LU which is low compared to music. So 85db calibration makes sense for that context. for music it can be less. also the size of the room matters here.

Also, keep in mind you dont have to produce at those levels and headphones dont belong in this context.
Sometimes its a little hard to grasp all these things when the end result is that you just produce and mix at the same levels when you are listening to music you like and tv shows you like. Calibrating just ensure you are listening to around the same levels so you dont miss that bass info or hear as the mixer intended.
And if you get used to mixing at 68db SPL and match how music you listen to then you're golden. Its not strict and too many other variables affect the mix as well. But higher SPL will let you hear high frequencies too harsh and therefore you will EQ some of it out while at lower SPL you will just do nothing. This overall affects your mix but if you have good memory of how frequencies should sound at lower SPL then its ok. But for starting out, calibrating might be better and getting used to mixes at these levels as well.

Basically, just do a calibration like some of the articles (or menioned above) and then play netflix and spotify through your speakers and learn those levels. Have a dim switch and a 2nd pair of speakers as well as headphones.
Produce at dim levels or with headphones and then mix at non dim levels and compared in diferent speakers and phones. also in mono. And thats it. When you mix and listen at these levels then spotiy loudness specs of -16LU make sense as you would have to playback at louder levels. Most poeple in home studios listen in apartments etc where you can't crank it or its spotify vs your mix thats getting to -6LU levels (very loud) so they dont like when spotify lowers the loudness to average levels making the mix sound weak or not as good compared to profesional mixes.

As for sound treatment, use bass traps and abosrbers and just check out a few artciles etc. Everyone will try to sell you a million dollar studio at any acustic question you have w/o even seeing your room or the context of your music. Mixing also takes time to learn. Just try to not have so many reflections by adding either sound foam (any will do, auralex etc is just a scam), carpets, couches, bookshelfs etc. Or buy one of those acustic kits from these stores. Most rely on Owens Corning 703 which is an industrial fiberglass material or Roxul Rockwool and most just add some cloth and a frame and done. Covers a big freq range. And by just seeing a few artciles or videos you will have more information that anyone of us did around 2006. Like gazillions times more but some are stuck in this technical pissing contest with reflection patterns and numbers and charts and other stupid things men do in their eternal pissing contest of who knows more specs and please pet my ego antics. Just make it sound good to you, check some video out and make music/mix.
Its a different topic but related as mixing at 70db+ will increase more reflections and dispersion (think like you are underwater and soundwaves are water movements so they bounce/move more)


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 23, 2022)

Sonarworks isn’t a magic bullet, but a tool for helping translate your mixes. It’s sole purpose is to make your listening medium as flat (neutral) as possible, so that you are not hearing any hyped frequencies. Once you start hearing your music like this, it takes time for your brain to adjust, so make sure your Sonarworks calibrated setting(s) is always turned on….for both monitors and headphones (if you have the studio edition). I also didn’t used to think room treatment would make a difference….boy, was I wrong! Once I added simple acoustic panels, it was night and day. 

Once you spend time learning your calibrate environment, experiment by listening to your new mixes in the car, cheap ear buds, laptop speakers, etc. You’ll suddenly realize how your mixes are translating.


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## sathyva (Apr 24, 2022)

Nice article from Gearspace here :








K-System? Try the T-System! - Gearspace.com


News, Dec 2015: The entire tutorial is now available as a downloadable PDF, attached to the bottom of this post. +++ The name is just a play on Bob Kat



gearspace.com





Although for my own needs, 83dbc is a bit loud for me…


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## wst3 (Apr 24, 2022)

There are as many systems and standards and design philosophies as their are people. OK, maybe not quite.

As posted previously, your ears are the final arbiter. If you can get things to sound good, to your ears, you are all set. Really.

A long time ago (1986) I attended a Syn-Aud-Con (SAC) workshop outside DC. For those not familiar SAC was a training program/club with some of the best minds in audio driving new ideas like the pressure zone microphone, time aligned loudspeakers, and TEF, a measurement system that took Time, Energy (not amplitude), and Frequency into account. TEF led to the LEDE concept, and SAC got behind it in a big way.

SAC is still around today, probably stronger than ever. They provide the best training for audio engineers in seminars and on-line.

Anyway, I was a green, wet behind the ears, whatever 27 year old newbie. I was also somewhat foolish or clueless or both.

Two of the attendees (benefit of being in Northern VA) were Peter D'Antonio and Farrel Becker. Peter pretty much brought the idea of diffusion to the mainstream. He is the mind behind RPG Acoustic. Farrell was the guy writing new software for TEF computers, always refining, and expanding the capabilities.

Both were proponents of LEDE studio design. The idea made no sense to me, and I said as much. Don Davis, the founder of SAC asked me to stay behind at the end of the day. Don, Peter, Farrel, and a couple others patiently explained why LEDE was a good idea.

All that setup for what?

There is no standard for private listening spaces, so a standard design for a recording studio control room is out of the question. There are just too many variables - loudspeakers, room dimensions and construction, etc.

The goal of LEDE is to take the room out of the equation. Can't do much about the loudspeakers, but you can make the rest go away.

The other thing I learned is that there are few truly bad ways to build a control room, or any critical listening space. I didn't say none!!

The goal has to be to make your ears happy.

Over the years I've worked in studios that followed different design strategies - or none at all. I can recall one that was a complete train wreck, and a couple that took some adjustment, but for the most part they all sounded good. Sure, some were easier to listen to, but so what?

The objective is to create a space where (a) you enjoy your work, and (b) the finished product sounds good in other settings. In that order!

How you get there is not that important, except you should do so in the most economical fashion.

My suggestions?

Don't spend a nickel on any acoustical treatments... yet. Figure out what needs to be fixed first.
Start with an empty room - place the loudspeakers somewhere that makes sense and listen.
Move the loudspeakers and listen again.
Loudspeaker (and ear) placement plays a big role.
When you are happy with placement start listening (or measuring) for problems.
Once you have identified the problems you can start to mitigate them however you need to.
As a gross over-generalization most studios built into existing rooms suffer from a couple of problems:

Low frequency build up, or room mode issues - There is little you can do to truly solve these, they are the result of room geometry. Bass traps can help, but they won't make the modes go away.
Annoying reflections - take a look around you, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, not to mention your equipment, can all create "bad" reflections. As a starting point it is a good idea to treat the closest surfaces (ceiling, floor, front wall) first.
Noise - there are too many sources of noise to list. Address noise sources such as the HVAC system, footfalls from above, nearby machinery, trains, planes, and automobiles, etc. Address them one at a time.
Sorry this ended up so long!


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