so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

general questions, comments and ideas about recording, audio, music, etc.
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thethingwiththestuff
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so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by thethingwiththestuff » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:21 pm

it was very interesting. i took this thing from work today to see if maybe i'd be able to hear any modes or nodes in my listening position. i definitely could not hear much change in level between different tones, but i did notice some reonances using short sine bursts.

also fun was the "LEDR" test, which had things pan up, across, and then outside the stereo field. i would love to borrow my friends SPL meter and try to measure some inaccuracies in my apartment set up here.

should i be able to hear big differences in response pretty well, or what? should a 32 second sine wave sweep through all frequencies noticably dip or swell in volume as i hit problem freqs?

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Scodiddly
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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by Scodiddly » Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:07 am

You should try the slowest sine sweep with an SPL meter (or just a mic and you watch the meter on your mixer). I doubt you'd really get some huge jump in volume at a room mode frequency, but the meter will show some peaks.

Actually if you really want to have some fun, use as many mics as you have meters on your board (or screen), located in different parts of the room.

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psychicoctopus
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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by psychicoctopus » Tue Feb 08, 2005 1:24 am

Look for standing wave patterns by playing continuous bass waves. 30,40,50,60 Hz sine waves etc... walk around the room and hear where the peaks and valleys are. maybe you can find a spot where they all seem to agree?

I'm too scared to do this in my apartment - it would be depressing. However, I tried it at a real studio I go to alot, and found that 30 Hz sticks to the walls, 40 Hz has a lump in the middle of the room, then thins out before sticking to the walls, 50 Hz does something else, and so on... dramatic standing waves all over the room. There is one spot close to the middle of the room where the bass freq's seem to compromise, i.e. nothing totally disappears there.
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thethingwiththestuff
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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by thethingwiththestuff » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:45 am

thanks for the tips. like i said, its an apartment, a basement bedroom, and i track and mix in the same room. so far, i only really listened from my mix position. today i'll try walking around the room and listening in different places. i've done that a lot listening to mixes, but not with these tones. i will try recording them with some mics in different areas, but i dont really trust any of mics to capture it accurately enough. actually, i guess my sm81's wouldnt be bad, but they are cardioid. i dont have any omnis, which are ideal for this, correct?

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Scodiddly
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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by Scodiddly » Tue Feb 08, 2005 7:49 am

thethingwiththestuff wrote: i dont have any omnis, which are ideal for this, correct?
If you've ever soldered well enough to fix a cable, and you can scrape up $30, you could build several of the "TapeOp omni" mics. I use a mic I built with the same Panasonic capsule and some phantom power circuitry as my usual RTA mic.

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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by thethingwiththestuff » Tue Feb 08, 2005 8:01 am

fair enough.

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Ethan Winer
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Re: so i just sat and listened to a reference tone disc.

Post by Ethan Winer » Wed Feb 09, 2005 9:55 am

Stuff,

> should i be able to hear big differences in response pretty well, or what? <

Yes, but if you sit while a tone sweeps the variation may not be as obvious as you'd think. As psychicoctopus said, a better way to learn what's going on is to play single tones one at a time and walk around the room. Even better is to actually measure the room with a real analyzer like the ETF program:

www.acoustisoft.com

--Ethan

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