New IK Multimedia ARC 2.5 Advanced Room Correction with MEMS Microphone System

IK in collaboration with Audyssey® are please to announced the new update for ARC - Advanced Room Correction System. ARC is the first acoustic correction system that combines a measurement microphone, measurement software AND a correction plug-in for most popular DAWs to improve the acoustics and sonic reliability of your studio.

How does ARC improve your listening environment?

ARC works by measuring your room using the included measurement microphone and measurement software and then generates an algorithm to provide a correction of your room’s acoustic problems that you can apply to your mix using the included plug-in. You can record and mix with confidence knowing that what you hear from your speakers is a faithful representation of how your music will translate to the outside world.

What's new

• Completely redesigned interface for improved usability
  
• 4X greater resolution improves critical low-end response
  
• Smoother, more natural sound in the mid-range and high frequencies
  
• New combined L/R correction option maintains focus in perfectly symmetrical control rooms
  
• New customizable target curves now can match engineer's personal timbre tastes
  
• New  “Virtual Monitoring” templates mimic the sound of consumer listening devices like car systems, speaker boxes, etc. allowing the engineer to test how mixes translate on different systems
  
• New Monitor Control panel interface streamlines workflow
  
• Fewer measurements now provide higher quality results and shortens set-up time
  
• Measurements can be saved and used for multiple correction set-ups
  

The technology behind ARC

With thousands of installations since 2007, the first version of ARC has been put to use in every possible real-world situation. This experience, along with user feedback from all over the world, has been carefully considered during the Audyssey® update of the MultEQ® technology that powered the first version of ARC to now provide a new, even more accurate version, MultEQ® XT32, included in this new version of ARC.

What you hear out of your studio monitors has a huge impact on how your final mix will turn out. It affects your recording and mixing decisions, which ultimately sculpt the sound of your tracks. And with many of us recording and mixing in non-ideal spaces, what we hear isn’t normally the truth of the matter. Enter the ARC 2 Room Correction system from IK Multimedia. Is it the savior of your mixes? Let’s find out.

Could The ARC Help Me?

Your speakers don’t tell you the whole truth. I’ve written about speaker placement being a critical move to accuracy. I also recommend some basic acoustic treatment to tighten up your room. Both of these in tandem will tremendously help you balance out and tighten up the reflections in your room to get a more accurate sound in your room, helping you make better mixing decisions.

But I was hearing a lot about room correction systems and had never tried one in my studio before. I liked the idea of the ARC (Advanced Room Correction) system because it was a plugin, not some hardware unit, so it could travel with my Pro Tools sessions. If you’ve never looked into one of these products, it’s fascinating.

What Does It Do?

In a nutshell, the ARC 2 system ($299 US) is a software plugin for your DAW (AU, VST, RTAS and AAX) that you insert on your master fader so it can adjust what you hear just before hitting your speakers. The box comes with a microphone that you setup in your mixing position (and many other positions in your room), and the setup software blasts sounds out of your speakers and listens to what those tones sound like in YOUR room from YOUR speakers.

This tells the software what the problem areas of your room are. Now the ARC software can create a high quality, in phase EQ curve to compensate for your room, delivering to you what sounds like a flat response. The result? You make better mix decisions because you are longer hearing the incorrect frequencies of your room that aren’t actually in your mix.

What Did ARC 2 Do For My Room?

Let me give you a concrete example of what ARC 2 has done for my room. My mix room is acoustically treated (absorbers and bass traps) and my speakers are optimally placed. The result? A quiet, dry, and focused sound. I was pretty happy with my mixes in that room. After setting up the ARC 2 software based on my room and my my speakers, I inserted ARC 2 on the master fader of a track I was working on (raw tracks that is), engaged the correction, and was shocked at what I heard.

Instantly the low end of mix tightened up, the midrange popped out, and the overall punch came back in my tracks. It was the funniest thing. The overly woofy sound I didn’t like on the drums in the low mids was practically gone (meaning it was never there in the first place, only in my room). Before the ARC 2 I would have started EQing that out till it sounded better. Now it sounded fine, no need to tweak.

The same was true with guitars. Without ARC 2 engaged my lead guitar seemed a bit flat I would have tried to poke it out with some upper mids. With ARC 2 engaged the guitars became clear and plenty present. No EQ needed! At first my head started to spin because I felt like I was being incepted by Leo DiCaprio, trying to understand what it all meant. But after a few minutes it became clear, the ARC 2 cleaned up a couple of trouble spots in my room so I could actually hear what my tracks sounded like and I then made different EQ moves based on what I was hearing. Without ARC 2, I might have been making my tracks worse than they were initially!