Sonarworks

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
User avatar
xonetacular
Gnasher
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:45 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by xonetacular »

Did you find your 701s needed to be broken in significantly? Mine should arrived today and I've read mixed reports and some people claiming they need 300+ hours to sound their best.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Lost to the Void »

That whole burning in thing is total audiophool bullshit.
Someone did a test, taking a read of the spectrum o 701's before abd after the 200 hour burn in and the performance was the same. Might have been headphones.com
All that happens is your ears get used to the sound. Same as when you buy new monitors it can take a couple of months for your ears to learn the new sound.

So no, within a week of use and cross referencing with my monitors in both rooms, I was fully comfortable with them.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
xonetacular
Gnasher
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:45 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by xonetacular »

excellent

User avatar
xonetacular
Gnasher
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:45 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by xonetacular »

wow liking these akgs

im trying them with and without the sonarworks eq. im sure I could get used to them either way but sonarworks def seems to help them in the low low end.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Lost to the Void »

So a report for any K701 users.
for what it is worth anyway.

I downloaded this plugin yesterday just to see what changes it makes.
Tried it today too.

I only did the averaged for the K701 but I find it didn`t accurately translate to my mastering room (treated/tuned studio, full range system) and made the low end "woolly" and sort of traditional consumer hi-fi sounding. So sort of good for lush listening, but in my experience not accurate.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
xonetacular
Gnasher
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:45 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by xonetacular »

interesting. have you tried different blends of the eq? wonder if 50-75% would work better.


Also are you using a headphone amp for the akgs? I'm finding the headphone out on my focusrite 18i20 is only powerful enough at high settings on already mastered stuff. doesn't have quite enough juice if I were to try to mix or jam with it. my apogee duet is powerful enough but I don't usually keep that hooked up to my main computer. so now I've gotta buy a headphone amp too which is annoying....

Kostyam
Get a fucking avatar
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 4:00 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Kostyam »

I use it with 880 pro and find it very useful. At first it seemed that the treble is not enough, but that after a little too pronounced treble 880. By the way I can sell cheap license. Write to me personally

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Lost to the Void »

xonetacular wrote:interesting. have you tried different blends of the eq? wonder if 50-75% would work better.


Also are you using a headphone amp for the akgs? I'm finding the headphone out on my focusrite 18i20 is only powerful enough at high settings on already mastered stuff. doesn't have quite enough juice if I were to try to mix or jam with it. my apogee duet is powerful enough but I don't usually keep that hooked up to my main computer. so now I've gotta buy a headphone amp too which is annoying....
I`m not going to bother blending EQ`s, seems counter intuitive to me. The K701 as they are are pretty much bang on, in the lows particularly. What they add with their plugin is weird and mushy, totally loses focus and clarity in the lows.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
xonetacular
Gnasher
Posts: 226
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 10:45 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by xonetacular »

there's $100 off the reference 3 speaker cal plugin from june 28-30th with code JUNSP100

Was on the fence about buying it but for $130 they got me

Oktagon
Chernobyl
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun May 07, 2017 2:37 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Oktagon »

Since I'm headphone bound 99% of the time I've been looking into options this weekend to improve how my default setup translates. I'm using AKG-702s.

I tried the Sonarworks trial, using the default profile for the 702s. It's giving the bass a huge hike (11dB at 30Hz) and making some significant tweaks from 3kHz up, which certainly dramatically alters the sound. To be honest I was able to get 95% of the way there as an EQ8 preset so not convinced it's worth buying just for that. Also don't know if it's really fixing problems with the 702s, it makes them sound a lot muddier than my hifi speakers though I don't trust those either.

I do worry about the lack of bass 'awareness' I have with the 702s. It seems to me that if a specific part of the spectrum is less 'present' in your day to day monitoring then your productions will have less interest in those areas because your brain won't focus on it as much. Then one day you hear it on a proper system and it's suddenly the most significant part of the track.

I do have a Subpac, which I think does a great job of drawing your attention to sub-bass. It's immediately obvious if things are messy down there when you wear it. It's just not something I would use every day.

I also looked into speaker emulation plugins, primarily Redline and Isone. I saw a few on here are using Redline but I found Isone does a better job at reproducing my living room listening environment. Redline seems to make things too squashed in the centre and some elements become unnaturally prominent which doesn't happen with my speakers or Isone. Isone does seem to colour the sound more than Redline though.

Anyone have any other thoughts before I pull the trigger on Isone?

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by dubdub »

Sonarworks won't make the AKGS more accurate I think. The "problem" with the AKGS is that they are a) open headphones and b) very accurate in the lows. As such you don't "feel" the bass rumble in the same way as on other headphones. I totally know what you mean though, I'm going to sell either my old Sennheiser 650s or the AKGs. So far i've found that the AKGs display transients better and produce less rumbling but I can't get the bass too boom like it would on a speaker, even if I turn them up which is frustrating. The Sennheisers are a bit muddier down low but I know if the bass is right based on how they rumble :lol:

It's probably fixable if you use a low shelf boost during production and then take it off during mixing though.

Oktagon
Chernobyl
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun May 07, 2017 2:37 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Oktagon »

Makes sense.

I went ahead and bought Isone and am using it as part of my default monitoring setup now with the ‘flat’ speaker preset and the nearfield room preset which works well. I’ve also included my Sonarworks matched EQ8 preset which I can mix in to get more exaggerated bass if I want it.

Hopefully between that and occasional use of the subpac I’ll get decent translation.

buffered
Freestyler
Posts: 612
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 10:56 am
Re: Sonarworks

Post by buffered »

Oktagon wrote:Makes sense.

I went ahead and bought Isone and am using it as part of my default monitoring setup now with the ‘flat’ speaker preset and the nearfield room preset which works well. I’ve also included my Sonarworks matched EQ8 preset which I can mix in to get more exaggerated bass if I want it.

Hopefully between that and occasional use of the subpac I’ll get decent translation.
i dunno, is all this editing of your monitoring good practice? 702's are quite good. why not learn them thoroughly and a/b with other sound sources to get a solid idea of how they handle bass?

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by dubdub »

The point he was making about the bass wasn't that the AKGs don't translate well because they aren't accurate but that they impact his writing process psychologically because they don't make you feel the bass in the same way because they aren't hyped and upfront in the lows like other headphones.

Oktagon
Chernobyl
Posts: 100
Joined: Sun May 07, 2017 2:37 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Oktagon »

Yeah exactly. The problem with low frequencies is you're simultaneously hearing and feeling them physically with a larger system, especially in a club where the physical aspect can be quite dominant. On headphones or smaller monitors you lose that physical aspect so you're only getting half the story. The problem is you might end up up making different music if 50Hz is as prominent as 10kHz while you're producing. I've been using the 702s for a fair while so I know how they sound but it won't help me with that.

Similarly with stereo placement and room ambience. Even if you know the headphones well you're still going to be influenced by certain things sounding nicer on them vs monitors in room.

The effects rack I've made just lets me turn these emulation layers on or off with a hotkey, so I can quickly get a rough feel of how things might sound elsewhere.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Lost to the Void »

buffered wrote:
i dunno, is all this editing of your monitoring good practice? 702's are quite good. why not learn them thoroughly and a/b with other sound sources to get a solid idea of how they handle bass?
I would say no, it`s not good practice. Learn your monitoring. True flat monitoring is not very exciting, it takes a while to get used to it.
When I get people in the mastering room and they see my towers, sometimes I think they expect a club soundsystem like, bass heavy "impressive lows" sound. But the lows are pure, zero harmonic distortion going down to sub-audible levels. It takes a while for them to realise that what they thought was "good bass" was in fact distorted, and truly clean full range bass is something very different.
Once you get used to that though, your lows get tight tight tight in production.
That`s why I like 701`s, they have the same clean clean pure sound as a mastering setup. The cans don`t start distorting harmonically (and rumbling like a lot of headphones) in the lows when you do something really bassy.
You get a true picture of the actual fundamentals and not the higher harmonics tricking you.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

arkos
Re: Sonarworks

Post by arkos »

If I use my dt990 stuff translates better to speakers with Sonarworks then without, now I've finally moved and don't need to use headphones anymore.

Still use the speaker calibration even though this timber house sounds pretty good without any room treatment.

Here is a pic comparing my old room (left) with the new one as the pic shows doing anything in there without Sonarworks is a nightmare.
Image

gtsm
fake
Posts: 44
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2015 10:09 am
Re: Sonarworks

Post by gtsm »

I use HS8s and I believe I could really benefit from some calibrating. Downloaded Sonarworks trial but as far as I understand, it's no use without their mic, right? Or is it something I don't get in the process?

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by dubdub »

gtsm wrote:I use HS8s and I believe I could really benefit from some calibrating. Downloaded Sonarworks trial but as far as I understand, it's no use without their mic, right? Or is it something I don't get in the process?
You need the mic, the whole point is that measures the specifics of your room acoustics.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Sonarworks

Post by Lost to the Void »

Problem with sonarworks is that it does nothing for time domain. It`s a band aid over a knife wound unless used in conjunction with room treatment.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.


Post Reply