Play back a professionally mastered mix through your phones, toggle the calibration and I guarantee you will be pleasantly amazed. Below are the profile and correction curves for my Sennheiser HD 280 headphones as seen in the plug-in version inserted in a Pro Tools master track. Once installed the application is accessible from a control panel on the top menu bar (for Mac that is).įrom there you can choose your particular headphone profile from an exhaustive list and easily A/B the effects of the software. The set up for Systemwide headphone calibration is absurdly easy. It can also be used as a plugin and is available in AU, AAX Native, RTAS and VST formats.

This software has several components designed to remove the effects of your listening environment or particular headphones by applying a “Systemwide” adjustment that equalizes the output and aims for a flat response across the spectrum. When things still aren’t right, what do you do next? I suggest giving Reference 4 by Sonarworks a try. The truth is you can only achieve so much with absorption, diffusion and speaker/listening position adjustments. Then there is the problem of parallel walls and the standing waves that result.

But rooms designed for living (as opposed to mixing) are never symmetrical and typically have windows, doors or closets that interfere. Symmetry in control room design is essential to insure balanced reflections on the left and right and achieve a true stereo image. So we spend time and money installing bass traps, acoustic panels and diffusers to ameliorate the interior structural flaws.

One of the main problems with home project studios is that they are rarely ideal architectural designs in terms of acoustics. This is a subject every audio engineer with a home studio grapples with. In it, I described the need for a combination of absorption, diffusion, optimum speaker placement and listening position, DIY alternatives and other concerns. Last July I posted an article called How to Improve Acoustics in Your Home Studio.

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