Monitor Calibration Software: Three Trends You Should Keep An Eye On
Monitor calibration is essential if we take into account that monitors are perhaps the most important element in our studio. If we do not listen well to what we are doing, it will be hard to transfer the result to a different room. It doesn’t matter if it is a club, a car, or any device or place where we listen to music. Lately, we can find several monitor calibration systems, which come to correct the errors occurring in our room or headphones. These systems are presented as software, which will apply an equalization and phase curve that will solve your problems as much as possible. We can also find them already incorporated in certain high-end monitor systems.
It is important to keep in mind that software monitor calibration is still far from perfect (still, indeed…). Anyhow, the result is usually very good, and, as technology advances, errors will be minimized. Now, a basic recommendation: these monitors will obviously be located in a room and this room will have its own modes. These depend on the dimensions of the room itself, and, therefore, consider first the dimensions and features of the room before thinking about which calibration tool you will use. This is due to monitoring fatigue, but that’s another matter.
Let’s look at three of this year’s top trends.
Abbey Road Studio 3
The first thing to say here is that this tool is valid for headphones only. However, this is not necessarily a problem. Considering that you can produce, mix, and listen to music inside the — probably — largest studio control room in the world, no matter where you are, you will be able to work in a flexible and free way like never before. Moreover, by using this plug-in with headphones, you can better judge the depth of the mix, panning, reverb, low-end response, as well as other aspects of the sound (including, of course, eventual problems during the mixing process.) On the other hand, you will be able to better predict how your headphone sessions will translate to speaker systems of all kinds.
This plug-in relies on precision measurements of three hundred and sixty degrees of control room impulse response combined with pioneering Nx technology to work with immersive spatial audio.
Abbey Road Studio recreates, in a seamless 3D experience over any set of headphones, the same stellar audio qualities that make Studio 3 the ideal acoustic environment for music mixing and production.
Sonarworks SoundID Reference
Unlike the previous plugin, this one is valid for the use of headphones and monitors, and it is also a remarkable tool. This new version is based on the same concept as the traditional one but is now able to work with a much wider spectrum of configurations. Likewise, this plugin is compatible with Dolby Atmos and Kali Audio, as you can learn here:
As always, after making a few recordings with a calibration microphone, the software generates a series of equalization curves that can thus be adjusted manually in order to correct some of the acoustic problems that can be generated in the room — according to its own characteristics.
In this new multichannel version, there is also an independent phase alignment for each channel, the possibility of working with zero latency, as well as a support for sampling frequencies up to 192 kHz. Those who also want to calibrate their headphones are not forgotten either, since, thanks to the large database included, it is possible to correct the deficiencies of almost five hundred headphone models.
NX Ocean Way Hashville
Like Abbey Road Studio 3, this plug-in is for headphone use only, and, like Abbey Road Studio 3, it allows tremendous flexibility: you can take the stellar Ocean Way Nashville control rooms with you anywhere in the wide world and with virtually any type of studio headphones.
Furthermore, the fact that it is only valid for use with headphones is not a problem per se. Typically, mixes monitored on headphones via this plug-in translate accurately to multiple audio systems and platforms, without the problems that often plague the mixes created on headphones. After all, this tool provides faithful representations of finely tuned control room acoustics.
NX Ocean Way uses channel crosstalk, interaural delays, early reflections, and head movement tracking to replicate the immersive experience of listening to real-world audio. All of this is combined with precision measurements of the acoustic response in this plugin’s original control rooms to provide a faithful three-dimensional representation outside the head.
Perhaps the most positive thing about NX Ocean Way Hashville is that it will answer several questions about the depth of your mixes, as having a faithful room simulation in your headphones will save you a lot of time, money, and energy — taking into account near and far-fields.
Remember that at Enhanced Media Sound Studio we can take your audiovisual production to an excellent level. We have experts in the sound industry that can make the best decisions to get the best out of your projects. Do not hesitate to contact us!
