Reverb Time Measurment?

[musikman316]

I am trying to find information on how to measure reverberation time in a gym in my church that doubles as worship space for about 300 people on Sunday. I have a feeling that the reverb time is about 4-4.5 seconds, but have no way to prove it. I need to get this time down around 1.5 seconds and don't have a way to measure progress.

Also, I would like to be able to take a snapshot of the room with an RTA to find out what problem freq. the room may have, it is rather large (2500 sq ft.) so the low end response is actually pretty good, but the room is really muddy in the mid-range and high-end, I just can't seem to find a piece of hardware or software that is cost effective to help me do this.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Josh

[Phiz]

The standard measurement for reverb time is refered to as RT60, which comes from Reverb Time -60dB. Basically you blast a pulse of audio (usually pink noise) and then measure how long it takes to decay down to -60dB from its peak volume. There are commerical poducts that will do this measurement with the push of one button, but it can also easily be done with gear most of us have lying around.

[musikman316]

So, if I take my Radio Shack SPL meter and make a quick noise, say a balloon popping or a starter pistol and measure the seconds it takes to decay 60dB I can measure the Reverb Time... dang, and I was going to spend some money on this. Thanks!

Now, any idea on an RTA, software based, and maybe for a Mac, we have two G5 iMacs for video in this room that I could use.

Thanks again,
Josh

[goldstar]

Ask 'em over here about RTA software:

http://forum.studiotips.com