drpro Posted November 17, 2019 Report Share Posted November 17, 2019 Has anyone used the Sonarworks software? Curious if it helps or hinders mixing. Sounds good on paper, just not sure. And yes they offer a free trial. Interested in real world users that have had it installed for longer than the trial. Tnx David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay Rose Posted November 17, 2019 Report Share Posted November 17, 2019 I haven't used it. Based on their website, however, I'd have a couple of concerns: 1) If you attempt to "flatten" a speaker/room combination that isn't very flat to begin with, it'll have to add some fairly heavy eq. This can introduce two problems: 1a) Sharp eq in realtime - like to tame a room mode - introduces phase distortion. 2b) Extreme boost eq - which can be necessary in the mids, as well as the extremes, of mediocre speakers - can drive distortion. So you end up with something flat, but not the track viewers will hear in a theater. 2) Depending on the room size and your practices, you might want to apply a standard or modified curve to make your monitors sound more like a theater. I don't know if Sonarworks lets you modify the eq curve it measures. 3) It appears to be a stereo solution. What do you do with the other speakers? As I said, this is just from the website. It might address all these issues and just not publicize the fact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpro Posted November 17, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2019 Thanks Jay for your thoughts. Much appreciated. This is why I wanted to ask, almost sounds to good. Tnx David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDstudios Posted November 18, 2019 Report Share Posted November 18, 2019 Sonarworks implementation has taken a number of steps to alleviate the shortcomings that Jay has mentioned. You can scale the resulting EQ correction curve from 0 to 100%, and you can also apply your own curves again over the top to achieve your desired result. It also have multiple modes, from low latency through to phase linear. If you are mixing rather than tracking, you won't notice the extra latency of phase linear in any modern DAW. I found my mixes improved a tonne with Sonarworks, but it isn't a magic bullet. It doesn't replace acoustic treatment... it supplements it. It is one of many, many tools in your arsenal to manage listening and monitoring environments. I think the people most disappointed with it are those that treat it as a magic bullet, who think it replaces all of the other tools, or who think it replaces actually spending the time to learn your room and monitoring setup. It sucks that it lacks multichannel support. I have moved on from sonarworks and now very happily use Genelec SAM monitors with their GLM calibration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drpro Posted November 18, 2019 Author Report Share Posted November 18, 2019 More good advice from LD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haifai Posted November 22, 2019 Report Share Posted November 22, 2019 I use it ( for Headphones and Boxes) and like it, i use it in a semiprofessional small editing room and it works quite well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVPostSound Posted November 23, 2019 Report Share Posted November 23, 2019 On 11/17/2019 at 10:45 AM, drpro said: Has anyone used the Sonarworks software? Curious if it helps or hinders mixing. Sounds good on paper, just not sure. And yes they offer a free trial. Interested in real world users that have had it installed for longer than the trial. Tnx David I use Sonarworks strictly for headphones when I need to kill the speakers in the middle of the night!! Its close enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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