Hey, Geoff! I just left a comment and don't want to spam you, but I'd like to add that unless there's something I'm missing about your particular case, Logic is perfectly capable of allowing you to have monitor mixes that do not affect the master L/R outputs. I use Logic myself and have three unique stereo outputs running at all times-master L/R, headphones, and speakers-and would be happy to show you how to get it set up in your Logic template.
Why? Because we don't get the reminder to shut off Sonarworks in Logic? 😂 Drives me nuts too but I could NEVER get rid of Logic, I love it. At least once a day I forget to shut off the plugin tho hahaha!
@@gitpho This is reliant on your audio interface’s outputs though, isn’t it? I don’t think you could do this if you were just using a basic 2-in/2-out interface.
@@gitpho If there's a way to do this and get a separate monitor stream of what's coming out of _the master bus_ I'd be very thankful if you'd share it. The only way I'm aware of is setting up sends from all the individual channels, which means your master bus processing won't be heard on the separate monitor outs. The workaround would be to copy and paste your master bus processing to the monitor outs ... which means you remember to do that for every little change you make to the master bus processing. That's a complete showstopper right there. So what I'd like - and which is easily set up in Studio One for example - is to have a monitor bus that taps the audio coming out of the master bus, post fader, and lets you add additional processing to your monitor mix which will not affect your master bus. Thanks // Henrik
Although we all have different EQ perspectives in our studios the correction curves are too extreme to broadcast! They're made for your room or headphones only. There are ways to route Sonarworks so it never gets printed to your audio but you can still monitor it!
This isn't a SoundID Reference problem-it's a routing problem. Unless your interface only has master L/R outputs, you can use outputs 3/4 for monitoring and put SoundID Reference only on that set. If you have at least 6 outputs, you can dedicate another set to your speakers. You'd also want to create a new master bus before the split so that you don't have to duplicate your mastering plugins on each output. If you'd like me to quickly walk you through this, just reply to this comment and we can set up a Zoom call or something!
Exactly. It's as easy as puting the plugin separately into a cue mix send. Or sending the audio out of the daw using something like Sonobus after the master bus fx and right before Sonarworks. This was an honest mistake, but an "amateur" one.
i was scratching my head on this, are people this stupid that they dont know they shouldnt export stuff -with- the room calibration plug or whatever on their masters? if so i think my profession is an outdying race.. i hope i am mistaking.
Geoff, there shouldn’t be any issue. Just use the Sound ID on the systemwide audio output if you use a Mac (not as a plug-in in the DAW). The whole concept of Sonarwork is for monitoring, not for recording/broadcasting.
Sonarworks Reference 3/4 / Sound ID is not made for "printing," exporting or rendering. It should be used strictly as a MONITORING plugin and can correct for some acoustic issues specific to the room being measured by the calibration microphone. Again: it is not for use while exporting / rendering / recording and should be inserted in your monitoring chain ONLY.
I'm 75 and I started out recording in the mid '60s. We worried about two things; how would the mix sound in stereo on a bedroom stereo or a console HI-FI system in someone's living room OR in mono from the single 6x9 speaker on the dashboard of their car. Of course, ultimately, it didn't matter because, just as they do today, the end user was going to completely mash up the sound with the two controls they had, bass and treble,to their own liking, destroying whatever we spent all those hours doing. That included the radio stations that compressed everything to within a dB of having no dynamics whatsoever in order to sound louder than all the other stations (louder is better, right?). And BTW, the record pressing plants did the same thing, reducing the dynamics so the stylus didn't jump out of the grooves on louder passages on teenagers' portable record players where they would stack up six albums on the spindle to not have to get up to change the LPs. Now kids load up their cell phones with crappy sounding MP3s and listen to them on crappy sounding ear buds. Trying to mix and master something that is going to sound even remotely good once it leaves your studio is a foolish endeavor. The best we can do is make what we think is the best sounding mix we've ever heard and then let it go and never worry about it again.
Shameless plug here. 😁 This is what I like about Cubase. The control room option within the DAW lets you put whatever you want on the monitoring channel and not worry about forgetting to turn if off when you export audio as plugins inside control room are not affecting the audio on the output channel.
Same happens with reaper. I can set up whatever I want outside the masterbus. I didnt know about this, I was always annoyed of bouncing and forgetting to bypass sound ID, asked on Reddit and someone told me that I could that. Total game changer. In pro tools, however, the software lets you know you re bouncing without turning it off at least
I love Studio One for a "Listen bus" which is a fantastic feature for someone who uses room corrections plugins. That should be a standard in every DAW. As for SoundID for me its an essential tool. My mixes translate super accurately on various devices since I use SoundID. I think this is a must have for someone who want to jump on higher level with music production skill, mixing, mastering and doesn't want to spent thousands on professional acoustic treatment. Don't let your room's bad acoustic fool You.
I also switch off sonarworks constantly to make sure it still translates well... kind of like checking stereo to mono compatibility... I get way better translation than I ever have before using sonarworks... I used analysis on a mix without using sonarworks and after using sonarworks to see if i preferred the balance of one over the other. It was so much better with sonarworks. So it works for me anyway and it is very useful, but I dont trust it too much as most people wont have room treatment or sonarworks on their listening systems... It still translates better with sonarworks for me and yes Studio one listen bus is where i put it 👍
I also think that most of these technical "issues" are just part of the subjectivity of sound that as long as i can hear where to make "good" decisions during the mix and the mix translates i am happy, i dont mind much about it after that
The easy way is to use SoundID as systemwide on your computer output. No need to turn it on and off, and you don't need to have it as a plugin on your DAW at all.
Cubase has a Control-Room output that is separate from the masterbus. This control room output allows for plugins that only affect what you hear in the control room and don't affect the master bus. You can also set the volume level of this output separate from the master output. The control room is where I put Reference ID and maybe a room ambience plugin. With this I don't have to worry about what I'm hearing affecting what I am printing.
I replied it to another comment as well but so others can see: 1. Most daws allow you to have the plugin just on your monitor outputs. So its not affecting the rest and you don't have to turn it on and off. 2. You can route a particular bus to your capturing/streaming program depending on which software you use. This means you'll stream audio from your mixbus or stereo out without having sonarworks affect it. So its not a Sonarworks issue. Its an issue with how you are routing and capturing your audio. If you use OBS/Streamlabs, you can very simply use reastream or Sonobus to send audio to your capturing program from any channel or bus you want.
I’m very familiar with this problem. More times than I care to admit to, I’ve bounced a mix down with the correction curve for my DT-770s still on it because I forgot to turn Sound ID off first. So, having just finished the long-running major project I’ve been working on, I figured now is the time to fix the problem by updating my Logic template so that Sound ID is *only* in the path to my monitor output, while my “bounce” button is on a parallel, non-corrected output. Took a bit of lateral thinking, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be possible if my interface didn’t have four outputs (two stereo). The Cubase “control room” concept (and the equivalents in other DAWs like Studio One and Reaper) is something I hope Apple will introduce to Logic sometime soon.
Ya, I forget at least once a day to shut it off hahaha! I just make sure to take a quick listen to the file before I send it to the client. It's usually pretty obvious I left it on. Lately Logic has been asking me if I want to route my output to the SoundID app. I've been thinking about trying it. In theory, then I wouldn't need the plugin. I was thinking about asking tech support about it.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer For some reason I haven’t figured out, that doesn’t seem to work (at least not on my system), so the plug-in is the only solution.
@@PANTECHNICONRecordings Well you could do it manually in the audio settings in Logic. Just change the output to the soundid app and you should be good to go. Some other people in the thread here said they did it and it's working just fine for them!
At first, your realization can feel uneasy and anxious. My suggestion would be to set up separate sends from your DAW -- depending on the number of outputs your interface has, you could have separate sends for your cans, for video capture, and even yet another for the master. Keep up the good work!
Maybe I missed something, but why not use SoundID systemwide? This way you don't need to add SoundID plugin to your master bus in the DAW and you can use something like Rogue Amoeba Loopback to route sound from the DAW to screen capture software, without SoundID affecting recorded sound, but you will be listening through SoundID. And you don't need to use multiple busses or switch DAWs or stuff like that, using Systemwide really is the easiest solution to this. I've been using this type of setup for years. I use Looback to route sound from the DAW and directly from inputs of my interface to screen capture software (ScreenFlow in my case) and I listen through SoundID Systemwide. Recorded video with audio from the DAW and from inputs of my interface is not affected by SoundID in anyway, but I still get the benefit of listening through SoundID.
They have an app and a plugin. I would imagine it's so you could have different settings if you wanted on the plugin and the app. You could set the output in your DAW to the app if you wanted but they advise against it. Not really sure why but they recommend using the plugin in the DAW.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer haven’t had any issues yet. :) The only thing that comes to mind is additional buffer that is created when using systemwide, but for screen capture it shouldn’t be a problem.
@@gkmixing Ohhh, didn't know you had the product lol! Thanks for the info tho I have also been thinking about using the app as the output but was worried it would cause issues. So you are doing this while using Logic? Does it add any latency or any kinds of issues? I mix for a living so this is important to me. I appreciate any of your experience you share.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer Sure, no problem. I mostly work in Nuendo, but I do sometimes work in Logic. When using SoundID standalone app it does add a bit of latency, but you can actually change the buffer size for the standalone app. There is a regular buffer and additional safety buffer, I set both to 512 samples and haven't had any issues with standalone app (also, standalone app actually shows you how much latency you have in milliseconds). If I'm recording and want to use SoundID, I generally run it as a plugin inside the DAW (to have minimum latency), but when I'm in mixing mode I haven't notice any difference between using standalone app and a plugin version. Also, if I do work in iZotope RX it seems the only way to use SoundID with RX is to use SoundID standalone app, since RX doesn't really have a mix bus where I can put plugin version of SoundID. :) And as I mentioned above, using standalone app is the best solution for sceencapture, because I can record raw audio from the DAW, without SoundID altering the sound. A couple of years ago I was doing live streaming, listening through SoundID app, while unaltered audio from the DAW was going into a live stream. It was very stable and I had zero issues. The only thing I noticed is that sometimes when I put to sleep my laptop and open it again, SoundID app sometimes loses connection to my interface, but it seems to be an issues with my audio interface driver, not the SoundID app (I have Apogee Element and Apple Silicon driver is still not as stable as it was on Intel). So, the only time I wouldn't use standalone app is for recording, but for mixing it worked the same as the plugin version. And you can run all system audio through SoundID app, while you DAW can be connected to audio interface driectly with SoundID plugin running inside the DAW (this way you can turn off SoundID inside the DAW, while system audio will still be running through it, for example Apple Music or RUclips). No crashes or bugs, or any other problems. It was pretty stable for me. :)
It's exactly the same for photography, you have to calibrate your video monitor in order to see your file colors accurately, but you don't send the profile of your screen to people, it's only for you, your profile will have an adobe 98 profile, or sRGB, or... So you use sound ID in order to ear the "real sound", and it helps... but, anyway no perfect monitors exist, same for the room... and two different monitors with their own sound ID profile, will have a different sound, but Sound ID will help to standardized it. That's the sound point with the new Adam's monitors (A4v, A7v... ), the sound ID profile is in the monitors, that way, you can't make a mistake, your computer remains "natural".
I use reastream to send Cubase 12 to OBS. Reastream only sends the bus it's on. Create a mix bus and send that to OBS and put sonarworks on the master.
Sounds like a nice use case for a RME recording interface with support for the new Room EQ feature. Copy SoundID correction values into an outputs Room EQ and then - Monitor the submix with RoomEQ enabled - Broadcast the submix without RoomEQ using loopback And for the normal monitoring .. enable RoomEQ for monitoring if needed. Regarding downmix in the DAW .. no issues, no Sonarworks plugin needed.
Calibration is most valuable in moving the average experience. If someone's setup has too much bass, and your mix does too, they would get double the error. But if yours is calibrated, everyone in the audience mostly just get the errors they're already used to.
Hey Geoff, this definitely highlights an interesting issue with mixing and music production tutorials in general, so you raise some good points - but I don't think it's a Sonarworks issue in itself. In general terms, anyone listening in is not going to have the same monitoring setup as you, and therefore can't have the same experience by default. It's a tricky one to come to terms with overall, because mixing moves that will make sense to you on your setup are not going to make the same sense to everyone else, whether you have Sonarworks active or not - it's more a limitation of their setup if anything. You almost have to assume their setup is as 'flat' as possible, and work from there in good faith, hoping that they can hear what you're going for. If you're boosting the bass and they have an overly bassy monitoring setup, it's going to sound like the wrong move to them, regardless. Unfortunately as you say, your SoundID calibration will only make this situation worse if it's 'printed' to the stream or video. So as others have said, I think it's very much about routing - you don't want it to colour the output to anyone else listening, but you do want it to assist your mixing as it's designed to do, so you want to be able to monitor with it on. This was a big benefit for me when switching to Cubase, as it has a monitoring 'control room', but there may well be other options for splitting your output between your stream and monitoring setups.
I've been at this for 8 years, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know shit. It gives me a whole new respect for the pros. (The real pros. Not the self-proclaimed-wannabe-RUclips-comment-section-"pros")
we never give to the world what we're actually listening inside the room we're mixing, or if you prefer what's coming out of our speaker or coming to our ear through headphones... Sonarworks has actually made a very valid point on this... the things we mix/master... are actually getting tonz of abuse by consumers/listeners.. we don't have control after something goes out of our room, will they use speakers (what speakerS? bluetooth? mono? stereo? what?), will they be full range or what?) will they use headphones? mixing engineers taste and skills, yes, they are critical to make a sound sounding nice, but other than this there is also a technical part that needs to secure that the mix will survive that abuse... sonarworks has helped me really a lot...
I’ve solved this problem… I just bought a pair of Adam A8h monitors. They utilize the sonarworks calibration and stores the room correction eq curve on the built in dsp of the monitors. So there’s no need to run sonarworks as a plugin inside my daw anymore. SW is installed on monitors and not the daw. Thanks Adam audio😊
@@stephanelarocque77 I couldn’t agree more. You’ve made my point. That’s why I spent $3000 for the “good speakers” instead of $5000 for the “excellent speakers”. It all depends on your perspective of what’s good. Those A8h are awesome but I could’ve spent more.
Well, they would tell you how close (or not close lol) your file is to the reference file so yes, in a way it could. However, I wouldn't rely on it. Those tools are meant to be more of a suggestion than something to use as such an absolute thing. Many times according to Tonal Balance Control my mix was WAY off but in reality, it sounded great! Those tools can be very deceptive. You need to know the right times to use them. Sometimes it's very hard to find an appropriate reference as well. Just my experience with the tools.
Is it normal to feel that you didn't and/or cut enough in certain areas after you listen to your mix without SoundID? Let's say that you're only using SoundID as an insert plugin (not in your whole system) and you're using a HD 650 and because you're using SoundID the HD 650 frequency response is now flat. After you export your mix and listen to it without the frequency correction done by SoundID, is it normal to feel that you didn't cut and/or boost enough in any giving frequency range? Or is that sensation attributed to the fact that you're being fooled by the HD 650 natural frequency response since SoundID is not in use after exporting your mix?
Can you send a mirror of the Master Buss to a separate output that does not have SoundID in order to stream/record? That way only your in room audio is colored, while the recording is captured pre-SoundID?
Thank you! Reaper does allow you to monitor through your system without affecting the actual output. If ProTools doesn't have this feature, can you create 2 separate outputs, one of which is a monitoring output, and the other your main output? And, yes, as one who has a certain form of colorblindness, I am aware than you and I don't see red or green in exactly the same way. Another great video. I love your style. Thanks again!
Hi Richard I wonder if you can help me out here bit off topic. I have just put together a home studio as a retirement treat and new to Reaper. I have set SoundID Reference systemwide on the new mac mini M2 platform. I am also using the plug in SoundID Reference inserted across the master output of the DAW ? is this the best way to use it? I have my Motu ultralitemrk5 interface selected in Reaper's audio device setting but I notice SoundID Reference is an option I could select which I find confusing? Also If using SoundID Reference systemwide for audio monitoring do I need to use the plug in version in the DAW? I am experiencing huge latency when recording and I am sure its down to the way I am using SoundID Reference unless I have a duff interface which I am currently discussing with Motu...just thought to cast a line out and maybe hook some clarity to save my sanity.
I'm pretty sure Sonarworks SoundID Reference is not meant to be enabled while exporting. They actually indicate in their instructions to make sure you disable it before exporting as it should only be used to correct the individuals monitoring environment, not the final print.
and as soon as I dropped this comment I got to the part in the video where you mentioned this haha. I see, so it's a different story when it's a livestream
You should create a bus for monitoring and put any correction there. REAPER has a monitoring section FX chain that doesn't affect the master output. It's very convenient because that way it doesn't matter if you forget the monitoring correction plugins open while rendering or streaming from your master sum. Cheers!
I think you figured out by now that you were using it wrong. It is an eq for your room not your mix. I have a digital EQ in between my sound card output and my Cranesong Avocet. However, when I need to tune the room, I have to go through and measure, figure out what freq and q's to apply in the hardware. And it is only for my main monitors. So recently looking and saw this. Personally I don't use master channels in pro tools. I prefer a Pre fader and Post fader Aux and always print live(most of the time) from the post fader aux back into Pro tools. Master bus is always post fader and it changes the way the dynamics react and I prefer it to hit pre fader, and with the post fader aux, I can do very light final things. With this plugin, I can use it as a master fader and it will never effect the output. Apparently it can also act like an audio interface and you can select it in your system outputs so anything you listen to will have the room curves on. Though I've heard it only works for 44.1? Not sure on that. If it only works at 44.1, they really need to work on that as I do work at 88.2/96k. I have a streamdeck and Keyboard maestro so I'll probably setup profile switches for my original NS-10s as well that way I don't need to have the plugin open to switch them. I rarely use headphones but nice to have the option. Anyway, I think there are plenty of routing options in most DAWs that can give you a monitor path that isn't a print output path. Nice video though.
Maybe I miss heard/read but I’m confused by the reasoning that if someone on the other end also had sound ID then it would be fine for you to share the mix with the correction on. That doesn’t make any sense. You would still be sharing a hyped version. Sound ID doesn’t correct the music, it corrects the playback system. They would need the same correction curve tas you but reversed to counteract something like that. Right? Am I missing something?
@@davidasher22 There is a difference in tuning the room ie correcting frequencies that might be lower or higher to create a more even listening environment in how the frequencies are heard in the room from the listening position. This is pretty much what commercial studios do anyway. If you are working on material, YOUR room needs to be able to represent the frequency playback as flat as possible. If your room has a 80 cycle dip down 4-5 dB then you are going to add that into your mix to comp for it being missed. But once it leaves your room, it is going to be hyped on other systems. Room correction isn't hyping the mix it is doing the opposite. It is fixing the room issues as no room is perfect. If someone has Sound ID on their end, it would be room correcting for their room only. So they would hear a much closer version of what you heard without it. Even without it, and it was a White analog EQ, it would probably represent better than without. If you were to use this on your print bus, then it would be messing with the EQ curve of the file. You don't want that. Current;y I have a Behringer 2496 using the PEQ for my room problems, which are minimal but it only corrects for my JBLs not my NS-10s. With this software, it can be in outside of the DAW inline to my 2 channel output to the speakers and now I can build one for my NS-10s and switch presets with my streamdeck.
@@frankpaws oh man… I’m sorry frank. I didn’t realize I was posting this as a reply to your comment. My bad. It was meant to be a general comment. I actually understand how correction software works. I was specifically referring to the response that Sonarworks wrote back to Geoff which I also thought I heard him reiterate later in the video. If you’re interested it goes like this. “If you are providing a live screen / audio sharing or even recorded one, in any case there will be a random EQ between you and the person on the other side because you can't control the listening environment of the other person. If you want to make sure you both hear exactly the same thing you would both need to use SoundID Reference calibration because the flat target is the same for speaker calibration and for headphones. If the other person doesn't have our plugin, and you don't want the person to hear the applied calibration, you would need to bypass it during the playback. I hope that makes sense?” S Do you see the error? They say “if the other person doesn’t have the plugin and you don’t want them to hear the applied calibration.. “. Doesn’t that sound like they are insinuating that if the person has the plugin then that will correct the applied calibration coming from the other person? I mean, that’s what it sounds like to me. It may be a mistake or some type of misspeak but them having the plugin will not fix Geoff’s applied room correction. That what I was getting at in my first comment. Theoretically it would require a reverse eq of exactly what Geoff had placed on his mix bus. Idk. I just thought that was a bit peculiar coming from the company themselves. It almost felt like a cheap marketing stunt.
@@davidasher22 I see what you are saying, as it is directly related to streaming. I think that is what you mean. Either way, there are ways around that in just inserting the plugin into a monitor bus within the session. As I know, you can put it in the main OS output, great for everything that passes thought that output, but you can also use it within your DAW and you can just setup a monitor chain with it only you listen to and one that feed it and your live cohorts. there should be no reason to reverse the mix bus EQ. It only applies to your speakers in your room. It should only effect your monitoring not the mix itself.
@@frankpaws yeah.. I use the global application myself. I found having it on the mixbus results in me either forgetting to turn it off during mixdown or just not using it at all. I don’t really stream and definitely not in a capacity we’re it would matter if I had it on. But it’s good to keep that thought in the back of my head just incase. I bet there’s a way to utilize something like BlackHole channel outputs to fix it so it’s not being routed out to others. I’m sure I’ll go down that rabbit hole if it’s ever a concern. Thanks for the chat.
The problem with Sonarworks is that they use a house target curve instead of using the Equal Loudness Contours as target curves. The SPL at listening position affects our perception of Frequency Response. So the target curve should change depending on the SPL. This is obviously not accounted for by Sonarworks calibration. 🙂
Hi there ... Interesting video. My take on a solution is to set up a copy of my mix out in my DAW, apply SoundID or similar plugins, and route that only to the Headphones output of my Soundcard. I am aware that not all soundcards will support this. My UA apollo does. Regards Nils
A really interesting vid. I stress over mixing and trying to get it to sound correct (How i want) and i'm thinking of getting Sonarworks SoundID. Maybe i just need to let go of the worry and only concentrate on if i like how it ends up sounding.
There is a very simple fix, when I live stream i have the opposite EQ curve of my calibration on my OBS Windows Audio track, that way it just cancels it out very easily
in pro tool studio one and cubase you can make separate bus outputs that can bypass the master fader i think. I do it with cubase and studio one. either than that I have to say your content is one of the Best out there on this platform. very detailed and entertaining.
Cubase also has a control room for stuff like this. I'm the only one hearing Sound ID, The clients listening via zoom / listento or anything else are getting the original clean feed from cubase, without Sound ID!
Some kind of Listen Bus, separate Studio Output Bus does away with the need to switch Room Correction off. I use Studio One which has a Listen Bus option built. For BitwigI one can make a template which contains a Listen Bus you cab make for oneself by repurposing a regular Audio Channel. As you say, if you cannot arrange a separate monitoring path then you'll just have to switch it off at the final/master stage. I guess this video Does highlight the need to be aware of such things.
I'm pretty sure that I've heard that song on Spotify. And I think I added it to my collection. Nice work. If I'm mistaken about that. I would like to. What is the name of the track and artist?
My headphones have a really similar bass rolloff to the HD600s and the version with soundID sounded pretty normal to me... so I guess the whole point about lack of control over the listener's EQ holds.
Studio one have a listen bus where you can put sound id and your bounce don't record this, or Adam A series can load sound ID curve inside the DSP of the speaker and you don't need the plugin insert, but even in pro tools you can create a listen bus routing some busses and send to record pre sound id.
I think I know the solution here. Couldn’t you just run your broadcast out on a separate aux and have Sonarworks running on the signal chain AFTER that send? seems like an easy solution. Can’t you also use the Sonarworks systemwide feature instead of using it as a DAW plug in? This is probably the easier solution. Assuming that your broadcast feed is coming from your DAW and not your system output of coarse. There seems like so many ways to fix this problem if you just apply some basic aux/matrix output solutions so that your studio mons get a different feed than your broadcast.
Your setup doesn't have a routing option to Livestream a mix without your reference software? You don't have the simple solution for this option? It's shouldn't really to be too difficult to sort something out. It's everyone's responsibility to listen on something that they're comfortable with for a loose spectrum we call industry standards. We've all become accustomed two different genres of music having different EQ curves for example. Not everyone is hearing it the same. But everyone should have had ample time to get used to their listening setup... And to play with their EQ.
Of course you can and should turn the plugin off when you export. The point of the video is to highlight that when using the tool during live streams the audience hears something bad even though I’m trying to make it good.
Well. A really "normal" fault many do. In reference you have to mix to a "flat sound". You get the ability to check if some frequencies are too much ore too low. Here you made your mix wrong. You added bass to the "character sound" you "liked". But this is not the way a "flat" monitoring works. It's not the fault of the software
I´m never used Id reference before, and now that instaled it, i fell it´s flat, but it´s hard to make decisions, it´s weird... i´ll try to use for a while, to see if i cant get uset to it
No Problem with Sonarworks but this is a routing problem. Because I also use Loogic which has no listening bus and the MASSIVE latency Sonarworks is introducing when used in systemwide configuration I got rid of it, installed a trustworthy Behringer DEQ2496 between my interface and my speakers, used the inbuilt room correction/ auto EQ and couldn't be happier. No software bloat, no latency and a decent result. So for me it was time to ditch SW, not LPX :)
Us humans are crap at consistency... which is why we invented meters and scopes! What we are good at though is learning not to need this extra layer of correction (particularly in headphones). This works against us too, as our brains quickly adapt to compensate - like a built in Sonarworks which resets if we take long breaks 😎. Anyway, my point is that nobody would have even asked the question if they hadn't seen your Sonarworks plugin active!
My advice would be to stop using SoundID before you stop using a DAW you like. But I say that as someone who doesn't like room correction software. I'd rather just know my listening environment with all its drawbacks and foibles. In fact, most of the time I mix entirely in headphones and never have any issue with translation. But I have thousands of listening hours on my two pairs of headphones, and they have radically different frequency curves. So if something works in both of them it just works. I do use monitors, but mostly just as another way to check the mix. I don't find SoundID's headphone correction software useful either.
Sonarworks is a tool that try to delete problems related to your room and the frequency response of your speakers. I you have no serious treatment in your room, it' s the best you can try to solve some major problems.
Just because you have a tool doesn't mean you know how to use it. All of your points are valid, given your limited knowledge of the software. Try to read the user manual or learn how to use it before making a review with wrong data/information? The software is designed for MONITORING output... Not exporting. You can use the software system-wide and never worry that your DAW's output will be affected by software.
cmon man, wtf is this video title. I was thinking watching a sort of review of Sonarworks, and learn new things ... but it seems SoundID works as intended. It is not the problem. Your routing table is.
Thats why im not worring about the "perfect mix" anymore most of the people will listen to your musik on bad speakers and wont even notice how much work you put into the right high or lowend because the speakers cant even provide it.
I really don’t know what I’m watching. No one is hearing it as you do. I really don’t get it. Everybody has a different setup and if you talk about Streaming there is also compression wth?
Very good stuff.....I have this Sound ID reference, and don't really even use it.....the times I have early on, I thought that the "sound" of the different types was not realistic. I liked your example with it OFF....it WAS more balanced as you said, also "warmer", as I thought the ON version, did sound louder, because it was, your LUFS Charting proved that, but I thought it ----to me----sounded like it had more treble.....tinnier.....I still have the Sonarworks "MIC" and havent even bothered to calibrate my two sets of Speakers, a pair of 5 inch JBL's, and also the 8 inch 3-way KALI's, which I LOVE. I did originally calibrate both pair of Beyerdynamic headphones, 770 and 880. Also saw an Andrew Scheps YT Video and he doesn't use SR. He said they use 1-band filters. I guess all in all, it's what you HEAR and LIKE.
This makes no sense at all because SoundID is correcting your room which should not have anything to do with the listener. You are correcting your room to make better mixing decisions. Whether it on or not has nothing to do with what anyone else is hearing because they can only judge the result based on what they hear. Sonarworks corrections are being made so that your are able to hear the correct frequencies. Without Sonarworks you're are making eq decision which would make no sense to someone that has a treated space and even if you are in a treated room the user is still not able to hear the correct eq curves in his or her untreated room. RUclips videos are somewhat pointless when is comes to listening test.
we are all listening to youtube ion different spaces and rooms and speakers or earbuds so the soundid version sounded better in my lounge. everyones ears are different too so everything colots the sound for your listeners so your just trying to get it sounding better on average in peoples cars or on their amazing listening space or some cheap as $5 earbuds so to me the whole point of people compalaning is a mut point. we are to busy listenign to the wrong thingsd. the content of what your saying is he most important thing
Sound ID is actually giving you an extremely inaccurate depiction. It's a total scam. When I used it, I would get everything sounding great, turn off the plugin, bounce the track and play it back. It sounded completely different (like shit actually) on everything. It wasn't accurate at all. The bass would drown everything out (because Sound ID curved it out), it had a ton of distortion (because sound ID made an 8db cut), and it had phase issues (because fucking sound ID changed the phase). So I stopped using it and my mixes translated again lol "Well maybe you used it wrong! Or all your systems are bad. Or your headphones and earbuds are bad!" Nope, nope, and nope. Scam.
OMG! Unnecessarily long video to explain that you made a rookie mistake in your audio routing. As previously commented, SoundID reference is for MONITORING only. It's not supposed to end up inserted in your master outputs!
Sounds like it's time to ditch Logic!!
Hey, Geoff! I just left a comment and don't want to spam you, but I'd like to add that unless there's something I'm missing about your particular case, Logic is perfectly capable of allowing you to have monitor mixes that do not affect the master L/R outputs. I use Logic myself and have three unique stereo outputs running at all times-master L/R, headphones, and speakers-and would be happy to show you how to get it set up in your Logic template.
Why? Because we don't get the reminder to shut off Sonarworks in Logic? 😂 Drives me nuts too but I could NEVER get rid of Logic, I love it. At least once a day I forget to shut off the plugin tho hahaha!
@@gitpho This is reliant on your audio interface’s outputs though, isn’t it? I don’t think you could do this if you were just using a basic 2-in/2-out interface.
@@gitpho If there's a way to do this and get a separate monitor stream of what's coming out of _the master bus_ I'd be very thankful if you'd share it. The only way I'm aware of is setting up sends from all the individual channels, which means your master bus processing won't be heard on the separate monitor outs. The workaround would be to copy and paste your master bus processing to the monitor outs ... which means you remember to do that for every little change you make to the master bus processing. That's a complete showstopper right there. So what I'd like - and which is easily set up in Studio One for example - is to have a monitor bus that taps the audio coming out of the master bus, post fader, and lets you add additional processing to your monitor mix which will not affect your master bus. Thanks // Henrik
Although we all have different EQ perspectives in our studios the correction curves are too extreme to broadcast! They're made for your room or headphones only. There are ways to route Sonarworks so it never gets printed to your audio but you can still monitor it!
This isn't a SoundID Reference problem-it's a routing problem. Unless your interface only has master L/R outputs, you can use outputs 3/4 for monitoring and put SoundID Reference only on that set. If you have at least 6 outputs, you can dedicate another set to your speakers. You'd also want to create a new master bus before the split so that you don't have to duplicate your mastering plugins on each output. If you'd like me to quickly walk you through this, just reply to this comment and we can set up a Zoom call or something!
NEVER use correction software on the master bus, that's why most DAWs and some interfaces have control room.
Exactly. It's as easy as puting the plugin separately into a cue mix send.
Or sending the audio out of the daw using something like Sonobus after the master bus fx and right before Sonarworks.
This was an honest mistake, but an "amateur" one.
@@sonidojamonI’m confused, I use fl studio and throw sound id on my master is there a different place I should be putting sound id?
@@yoqqen It is ok to put it last in your master bus, as long as you remember to disable it before you bounce anything 🙃
i was scratching my head on this, are people this stupid that they dont know they shouldnt export stuff -with- the room calibration plug or whatever on their masters? if so i think my profession is an outdying race.. i hope i am mistaking.
Geoff, there shouldn’t be any issue. Just use the Sound ID on the systemwide audio output if you use a Mac (not as a plug-in in the DAW). The whole concept of Sonarwork is for monitoring, not for recording/broadcasting.
Sonarworks Reference 3/4 / Sound ID is not made for "printing," exporting or rendering. It should be used strictly as a MONITORING plugin and can correct for some acoustic issues specific to the room being measured by the calibration microphone. Again: it is not for use while exporting / rendering / recording and should be inserted in your monitoring chain ONLY.
I'm 75 and I started out recording in the mid '60s. We worried about two things; how would the mix sound in stereo on a bedroom stereo or a console HI-FI system in someone's living room OR in mono from the single 6x9 speaker on the dashboard of their car. Of course, ultimately, it didn't matter because, just as they do today, the end user was going to completely mash up the sound with the two controls they had, bass and treble,to their own liking, destroying whatever we spent all those hours doing. That included the radio stations that compressed everything to within a dB of having no dynamics whatsoever in order to sound louder than all the other stations (louder is better, right?). And BTW, the record pressing plants did the same thing, reducing the dynamics so the stylus didn't jump out of the grooves on louder passages on teenagers' portable record players where they would stack up six albums on the spindle to not have to get up to change the LPs.
Now kids load up their cell phones with crappy sounding MP3s and listen to them on crappy sounding ear buds. Trying to mix and master something that is going to sound even remotely good once it leaves your studio is a foolish endeavor. The best we can do is make what we think is the best sounding mix we've ever heard and then let it go and never worry about it again.
Great wisdom right there
Shameless plug here. 😁
This is what I like about Cubase. The control room option within the DAW lets you put whatever you want on the monitoring channel and not worry about forgetting to turn if off when you export audio as plugins inside control room are not affecting the audio on the output channel.
Same happens with reaper. I can set up whatever I want outside the masterbus. I didnt know about this, I was always annoyed of bouncing and forgetting to bypass sound ID, asked on Reddit and someone told me that I could that. Total game changer. In pro tools, however, the software lets you know you re bouncing without turning it off at least
I love Studio One for a "Listen bus" which is a fantastic feature for someone who uses room corrections plugins. That should be a standard in every DAW. As for SoundID for me its an essential tool. My mixes translate super accurately on various devices since I use SoundID. I think this is a must have for someone who want to jump on higher level with music production skill, mixing, mastering and doesn't want to spent thousands on professional acoustic treatment. Don't let your room's bad acoustic fool You.
I was actually going to say exactly the same
I also switch off sonarworks constantly to make sure it still translates well... kind of like checking stereo to mono compatibility... I get way better translation than I ever have before using sonarworks... I used analysis on a mix without using sonarworks and after using sonarworks to see if i preferred the balance of one over the other. It was so much better with sonarworks. So it works for me anyway and it is very useful, but I dont trust it too much as most people wont have room treatment or sonarworks on their listening systems... It still translates better with sonarworks for me and yes Studio one listen bus is where i put it 👍
I also think that most of these technical "issues" are just part of the subjectivity of sound that as long as i can hear where to make "good" decisions during the mix and the mix translates i am happy, i dont mind much about it after that
Yep, Studio One has a good solution, as does Reaper. Samplitude and Cubase have awesome, elegant solutions.
The easy way is to use SoundID as systemwide on your computer output. No need to turn it on and off, and you don't need to have it as a plugin on your DAW at all.
Hi, I tried doing that but my latency increased and I get more delay from midi how can I fix that
for tracking as a plugin on zero latency mode, in mixing as a systemwide@@utilitydisk
Kind of... It's a little clunky
Cubase has a Control-Room output that is separate from the masterbus. This control room output allows for plugins that only affect what you hear in the control room and don't affect the master bus. You can also set the volume level of this output separate from the master output. The control room is where I put Reference ID and maybe a room ambience plugin. With this I don't have to worry about what I'm hearing affecting what I am printing.
I replied it to another comment as well but so others can see:
1. Most daws allow you to have the plugin just on your monitor outputs. So its not affecting the rest and you don't have to turn it on and off.
2. You can route a particular bus to your capturing/streaming program depending on which software you use. This means you'll stream audio from your mixbus or stereo out without having sonarworks affect it.
So its not a Sonarworks issue. Its an issue with how you are routing and capturing your audio.
If you use OBS/Streamlabs, you can very simply use reastream or Sonobus to send audio to your capturing program from any channel or bus you want.
I’m very familiar with this problem. More times than I care to admit to, I’ve bounced a mix down with the correction curve for my DT-770s still on it because I forgot to turn Sound ID off first. So, having just finished the long-running major project I’ve been working on, I figured now is the time to fix the problem by updating my Logic template so that Sound ID is *only* in the path to my monitor output, while my “bounce” button is on a parallel, non-corrected output. Took a bit of lateral thinking, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be possible if my interface didn’t have four outputs (two stereo). The Cubase “control room” concept (and the equivalents in other DAWs like Studio One and Reaper) is something I hope Apple will introduce to Logic sometime soon.
Ya, I forget at least once a day to shut it off hahaha! I just make sure to take a quick listen to the file before I send it to the client. It's usually pretty obvious I left it on. Lately Logic has been asking me if I want to route my output to the SoundID app. I've been thinking about trying it. In theory, then I wouldn't need the plugin. I was thinking about asking tech support about it.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer For some reason I haven’t figured out, that doesn’t seem to work (at least not on my system), so the plug-in is the only solution.
@@PANTECHNICONRecordings Well you could do it manually in the audio settings in Logic. Just change the output to the soundid app and you should be good to go. Some other people in the thread here said they did it and it's working just fine for them!
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer You’d think so, but for some reason that doesn’t work for me.
@@PANTECHNICONRecordings Are you on the most recent version?
At first, your realization can feel uneasy and anxious. My suggestion would be to set up separate sends from your DAW -- depending on the number of outputs your interface has, you could have separate sends for your cans, for video capture, and even yet another for the master. Keep up the good work!
Maybe I missed something, but why not use SoundID systemwide? This way you don't need to add SoundID plugin to your master bus in the DAW and you can use something like Rogue Amoeba Loopback to route sound from the DAW to screen capture software, without SoundID affecting recorded sound, but you will be listening through SoundID. And you don't need to use multiple busses or switch DAWs or stuff like that, using Systemwide really is the easiest solution to this.
I've been using this type of setup for years. I use Looback to route sound from the DAW and directly from inputs of my interface to screen capture software (ScreenFlow in my case) and I listen through SoundID Systemwide. Recorded video with audio from the DAW and from inputs of my interface is not affected by SoundID in anyway, but I still get the benefit of listening through SoundID.
I agree, I also use the systemwide app. I can bounce directly from Logic without touching SoundID, it stays always on. Great feature.
They have an app and a plugin. I would imagine it's so you could have different settings if you wanted on the plugin and the app. You could set the output in your DAW to the app if you wanted but they advise against it. Not really sure why but they recommend using the plugin in the DAW.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer haven’t had any issues yet. :) The only thing that comes to mind is additional buffer that is created when using systemwide, but for screen capture it shouldn’t be a problem.
@@gkmixing Ohhh, didn't know you had the product lol! Thanks for the info tho I have also been thinking about using the app as the output but was worried it would cause issues. So you are doing this while using Logic? Does it add any latency or any kinds of issues? I mix for a living so this is important to me. I appreciate any of your experience you share.
@@matt_nyc_audioengineer Sure, no problem. I mostly work in Nuendo, but I do sometimes work in Logic. When using SoundID standalone app it does add a bit of latency, but you can actually change the buffer size for the standalone app. There is a regular buffer and additional safety buffer, I set both to 512 samples and haven't had any issues with standalone app (also, standalone app actually shows you how much latency you have in milliseconds).
If I'm recording and want to use SoundID, I generally run it as a plugin inside the DAW (to have minimum latency), but when I'm in mixing mode I haven't notice any difference between using standalone app and a plugin version. Also, if I do work in iZotope RX it seems the only way to use SoundID with RX is to use SoundID standalone app, since RX doesn't really have a mix bus where I can put plugin version of SoundID. :)
And as I mentioned above, using standalone app is the best solution for sceencapture, because I can record raw audio from the DAW, without SoundID altering the sound. A couple of years ago I was doing live streaming, listening through SoundID app, while unaltered audio from the DAW was going into a live stream. It was very stable and I had zero issues.
The only thing I noticed is that sometimes when I put to sleep my laptop and open it again, SoundID app sometimes loses connection to my interface, but it seems to be an issues with my audio interface driver, not the SoundID app (I have Apogee Element and Apple Silicon driver is still not as stable as it was on Intel). So, the only time I wouldn't use standalone app is for recording, but for mixing it worked the same as the plugin version.
And you can run all system audio through SoundID app, while you DAW can be connected to audio interface driectly with SoundID plugin running inside the DAW (this way you can turn off SoundID inside the DAW, while system audio will still be running through it, for example Apple Music or RUclips). No crashes or bugs, or any other problems. It was pretty stable for me. :)
It's exactly the same for photography, you have to calibrate your video monitor in order to see your file colors accurately, but you don't send the profile of your screen to people, it's only for you, your profile will have an adobe 98 profile, or sRGB, or...
So you use sound ID in order to ear the "real sound", and it helps... but, anyway no perfect monitors exist, same for the room... and two different monitors with their own sound ID profile, will have a different sound, but Sound ID will help to standardized it.
That's the sound point with the new Adam's monitors (A4v, A7v... ), the sound ID profile is in the monitors, that way, you can't make a mistake, your computer remains "natural".
I use reastream to send Cubase 12 to OBS. Reastream only sends the bus it's on. Create a mix bus and send that to OBS and put sonarworks on the master.
Sounds like a nice use case for a RME recording interface with support for the new Room EQ feature.
Copy SoundID correction values into an outputs Room EQ and then
- Monitor the submix with RoomEQ enabled
- Broadcast the submix without RoomEQ using loopback
And for the normal monitoring .. enable RoomEQ for monitoring if needed.
Regarding downmix in the DAW .. no issues, no Sonarworks plugin needed.
Thats because i love cubase, simply put it in the control room and its only going out to the monitors:) no need to deactivate it before rendering.
Calibration is most valuable in moving the average experience. If someone's setup has too much bass, and your mix does too, they would get double the error. But if yours is calibrated, everyone in the audience mostly just get the errors they're already used to.
Hey Geoff, this definitely highlights an interesting issue with mixing and music production tutorials in general, so you raise some good points - but I don't think it's a Sonarworks issue in itself. In general terms, anyone listening in is not going to have the same monitoring setup as you, and therefore can't have the same experience by default. It's a tricky one to come to terms with overall, because mixing moves that will make sense to you on your setup are not going to make the same sense to everyone else, whether you have Sonarworks active or not - it's more a limitation of their setup if anything. You almost have to assume their setup is as 'flat' as possible, and work from there in good faith, hoping that they can hear what you're going for. If you're boosting the bass and they have an overly bassy monitoring setup, it's going to sound like the wrong move to them, regardless.
Unfortunately as you say, your SoundID calibration will only make this situation worse if it's 'printed' to the stream or video. So as others have said, I think it's very much about routing - you don't want it to colour the output to anyone else listening, but you do want it to assist your mixing as it's designed to do, so you want to be able to monitor with it on. This was a big benefit for me when switching to Cubase, as it has a monitoring 'control room', but there may well be other options for splitting your output between your stream and monitoring setups.
I've been at this for 8 years, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know shit.
It gives me a whole new respect for the pros.
(The real pros. Not the self-proclaimed-wannabe-RUclips-comment-section-"pros")
we never give to the world what we're actually listening inside the room we're mixing, or if you prefer what's coming out of our speaker or coming to our ear through headphones...
Sonarworks has actually made a very valid point on this... the things we mix/master... are actually getting tonz of abuse by consumers/listeners.. we don't have control after something goes out of our room, will they use speakers (what speakerS? bluetooth? mono? stereo? what?), will they be full range or what?) will they use headphones?
mixing engineers taste and skills, yes, they are critical to make a sound sounding nice, but other than this there is also a technical part that needs to secure that the mix will survive that abuse... sonarworks has helped me really a lot...
Does sound ID have a feature where you can reverse any changes made? To 're correct' it to the original eq
I’ve solved this problem… I just bought a pair of Adam A8h monitors. They utilize the sonarworks calibration and stores the room correction eq curve on the built in dsp of the monitors. So there’s no need to run sonarworks as a plugin inside my daw anymore. SW is installed on monitors and not the daw. Thanks Adam audio😊
But they cost a fortune ;)
@@stephanelarocque77
Yes.. but being cheap will have you repeating the process later. Quality over quantity all day.
@@RodneyD You're absolutely right! But you can have good speakers without paying that much :). But, if it's your full time job, it's another story :)
@@stephanelarocque77
I couldn’t agree more. You’ve made my point. That’s why I spent $3000 for the “good speakers” instead of $5000 for the “excellent speakers”.
It all depends on your perspective of what’s good. Those A8h are awesome but I could’ve spent more.
Geoff how well do reference tools (izotope Total Balance, Sonible True Balance) militate the rooms inadequacy? is it sufficient in my project studio?
Well, they would tell you how close (or not close lol) your file is to the reference file so yes, in a way it could. However, I wouldn't rely on it. Those tools are meant to be more of a suggestion than something to use as such an absolute thing. Many times according to Tonal Balance Control my mix was WAY off but in reality, it sounded great! Those tools can be very deceptive. You need to know the right times to use them. Sometimes it's very hard to find an appropriate reference as well. Just my experience with the tools.
Is it normal to feel that you didn't and/or cut enough in certain areas after you listen to your mix without SoundID? Let's say that you're only using SoundID as an insert plugin (not in your whole system) and you're using a HD 650 and because you're using SoundID the HD 650 frequency response is now flat. After you export your mix and listen to it without the frequency correction done by SoundID, is it normal to feel that you didn't cut and/or boost enough in any giving frequency range? Or is that sensation attributed to the fact that you're being fooled by the HD 650 natural frequency response since SoundID is not in use after exporting your mix?
Can you send a mirror of the Master Buss to a separate output that does not have SoundID in order to stream/record? That way only your in room audio is colored, while the recording is captured pre-SoundID?
If he uses any of the usual software like OBs/streamlabs he totally can. He's just routing his audio incorrectly.
Thank you!
Reaper does allow you to monitor through your system without affecting the actual output.
If ProTools doesn't have this feature, can you create 2 separate outputs, one of which is a monitoring output, and the other your main output?
And, yes, as one who has a certain form of colorblindness, I am aware than you and I don't see red or green in exactly the same way.
Another great video. I love your style. Thanks again!
Hi Richard I wonder if you can help me out here bit off topic. I have just put together a home studio as a retirement treat and new to Reaper. I have set SoundID Reference systemwide on the new mac mini M2 platform. I am also using the plug in SoundID Reference inserted across the master output of the DAW ? is this the best way to use it? I have my Motu ultralitemrk5 interface selected in Reaper's audio device setting but I notice SoundID Reference is an option I could select which I find confusing? Also If using SoundID Reference systemwide for audio monitoring do I need to use the plug in version in the DAW? I am experiencing huge latency when recording and I am sure its down to the way I am using SoundID Reference unless I have a duff interface which I am currently discussing with Motu...just thought to cast a line out and maybe hook some clarity to save my sanity.
Would IK precision MTM with correction to just the monitors fix this issue?
I'm pretty sure Sonarworks SoundID Reference is not meant to be enabled while exporting. They actually indicate in their instructions to make sure you disable it before exporting as it should only be used to correct the individuals monitoring environment, not the final print.
and as soon as I dropped this comment I got to the part in the video where you mentioned this haha. I see, so it's a different story when it's a livestream
@iszlu thanks for being one of the only people who watched this far before commenting :)
As a studio one user - I only have Sonarworks on my listen bus, never on the masterbus. I realise other DAWs don't have this feature...
wait so the problem your references only affects video streaming audio capture?
You should create a bus for monitoring and put any correction there. REAPER has a monitoring section FX chain that doesn't affect the master output. It's very convenient because that way it doesn't matter if you forget the monitoring correction plugins open while rendering or streaming from your master sum. Cheers!
I think you figured out by now that you were using it wrong. It is an eq for your room not your mix. I have a digital EQ in between my sound card output and my Cranesong Avocet.
However, when I need to tune the room, I have to go through and measure, figure out what freq and q's to apply in the hardware. And it is only for my main monitors.
So recently looking and saw this. Personally I don't use master channels in pro tools. I prefer a Pre fader and Post fader Aux and always print live(most of the time) from the post fader aux back into Pro tools.
Master bus is always post fader and it changes the way the dynamics react and I prefer it to hit pre fader, and with the post fader aux, I can do very light final things.
With this plugin, I can use it as a master fader and it will never effect the output. Apparently it can also act like an audio interface and you can select it in your system outputs so anything you listen to will have the room curves on. Though I've heard it only works for 44.1? Not sure on that. If it only works at 44.1, they really need to work on that as I do work at 88.2/96k.
I have a streamdeck and Keyboard maestro so I'll probably setup profile switches for my original NS-10s as well that way I don't need to have the plugin open to switch them. I rarely use headphones but nice to have the option.
Anyway, I think there are plenty of routing options in most DAWs that can give you a monitor path that isn't a print output path.
Nice video though.
Maybe I miss heard/read but I’m confused by the reasoning that if someone on the other end also had sound ID then it would be fine for you to share the mix with the correction on. That doesn’t make any sense. You would still be sharing a hyped version. Sound ID doesn’t correct the music, it corrects the playback system. They would need the same correction curve tas you but reversed to counteract something like that. Right? Am I missing something?
@@davidasher22 There is a difference in tuning the room ie correcting frequencies that might be lower or higher to create a more even listening environment in how the frequencies are heard in the room from the listening position.
This is pretty much what commercial studios do anyway.
If you are working on material, YOUR room needs to be able to represent the frequency playback as flat as possible.
If your room has a 80 cycle dip down 4-5 dB then you are going to add that into your mix to comp for it being missed.
But once it leaves your room, it is going to be hyped on other systems.
Room correction isn't hyping the mix it is doing the opposite. It is fixing the room issues as no room is perfect.
If someone has Sound ID on their end, it would be room correcting for their room only. So they would hear a much closer version of what you heard without it.
Even without it, and it was a White analog EQ, it would probably represent better than without.
If you were to use this on your print bus, then it would be messing with the EQ curve of the file. You don't want that.
Current;y I have a Behringer 2496 using the PEQ for my room problems, which are minimal but it only corrects for my JBLs not my NS-10s.
With this software, it can be in outside of the DAW inline to my 2 channel output to the speakers and now I can build one for my NS-10s and switch presets with my streamdeck.
@@frankpaws oh man… I’m sorry frank. I didn’t realize I was posting this as a reply to your comment. My bad. It was meant to be a general comment. I actually understand how correction software works. I was specifically referring to the response that Sonarworks wrote back to Geoff which I also thought I heard him reiterate later in the video. If you’re interested it goes like this. “If you are providing a live screen / audio sharing or even recorded one, in any case there will be a random EQ between you and the person on the other side because you can't control the listening environment of the other person. If you want to make sure you both hear exactly the same thing you would both need to use SoundID Reference calibration because the flat target is the same for speaker calibration and for headphones. If the other person doesn't have our plugin, and you don't want the person to hear the applied calibration, you would need to bypass it during the playback. I hope that makes sense?” S Do you see the error? They say “if the other person doesn’t have the plugin and you don’t want them to hear the applied calibration.. “. Doesn’t that sound like they are insinuating that if the person has the plugin then that will correct the applied calibration coming from the other person? I mean, that’s what it sounds like to me. It may be a mistake or some type of misspeak but them having the plugin will not fix Geoff’s applied room correction. That what I was getting at in my first comment. Theoretically it would require a reverse eq of exactly what Geoff had placed on his mix bus. Idk. I just thought that was a bit peculiar coming from the company themselves. It almost felt like a cheap marketing stunt.
@@davidasher22 I see what you are saying, as it is directly related to streaming. I think that is what you mean.
Either way, there are ways around that in just inserting the plugin into a monitor bus within the session.
As I know, you can put it in the main OS output, great for everything that passes thought that output, but you can also use it within your DAW and you can just setup a monitor chain with it only you listen to and one that feed it and your live cohorts.
there should be no reason to reverse the mix bus EQ.
It only applies to your speakers in your room.
It should only effect your monitoring not the mix itself.
@@frankpaws yeah.. I use the global application myself. I found having it on the mixbus results in me either forgetting to turn it off during mixdown or just not using it at all. I don’t really stream and definitely not in a capacity we’re it would matter if I had it on. But it’s good to keep that thought in the back of my head just incase. I bet there’s a way to utilize something like BlackHole channel outputs to fix it so it’s not being routed out to others. I’m sure I’ll go down that rabbit hole if it’s ever a concern. Thanks for the chat.
The problem with Sonarworks is that they use a house target curve instead of using the Equal Loudness Contours as target curves.
The SPL at listening position affects our perception of Frequency Response. So the target curve should change depending on the SPL. This is obviously not accounted for by Sonarworks calibration.
🙂
Hi there ... Interesting video. My take on a solution is to set up a copy of my mix out in my DAW, apply SoundID or similar plugins, and route that only to the Headphones output of my Soundcard. I am aware that not all soundcards will support this. My UA apollo does. Regards Nils
A really interesting vid. I stress over mixing and trying to get it to sound correct (How i want) and i'm thinking of getting Sonarworks SoundID. Maybe i just need to let go of the worry and only concentrate on if i like how it ends up sounding.
It's no problem, everyone who watches your streams has to buy Sennheiser HD 650 headphones. :)
Lol
There is a very simple fix, when I live stream i have the opposite EQ curve of my calibration on my OBS Windows Audio track, that way it just cancels it out very easily
in pro tool studio one and cubase you can make separate bus outputs that can bypass the master fader i think. I do it with cubase and studio one. either than that I have to say your content is one of the Best out there on this platform. very detailed and entertaining.
Cubase also has a control room for stuff like this. I'm the only one hearing Sound ID, The clients listening via zoom / listento or anything else are getting the original clean feed from cubase, without Sound ID!
Some kind of Listen Bus, separate Studio Output Bus does away with the need to switch Room Correction off.
I use Studio One which has a Listen Bus option built.
For BitwigI one can make a template which contains a Listen Bus you cab make for oneself by repurposing a regular Audio Channel.
As you say, if you cannot arrange a separate monitoring path then you'll just have to switch it off at the final/master stage.
I guess this video Does highlight the need to be aware of such things.
I was wondering who is the artist playing in the track where you were comparing the differences?
I'm pretty sure that I've heard that song on Spotify. And I think I added it to my collection. Nice work. If I'm mistaken about that. I would like to. What is the name of the track and artist?
My headphones have a really similar bass rolloff to the HD600s and the version with soundID sounded pretty normal to me... so I guess the whole point about lack of control over the listener's EQ holds.
Studio one have a listen bus where you can put sound id and your bounce don't record this, or Adam A series can load sound ID curve inside the DSP of the speaker and you don't need the plugin insert, but even in pro tools you can create a listen bus routing some busses and send to record pre sound id.
I think I know the solution here. Couldn’t you just run your broadcast out on a separate aux and have Sonarworks running on the signal chain AFTER that send? seems like an easy solution.
Can’t you also use the Sonarworks systemwide feature instead of using it as a DAW plug in? This is probably the easier solution. Assuming that your broadcast feed is coming from your DAW and not your system output of coarse.
There seems like so many ways to fix this problem if you just apply some basic aux/matrix output solutions so that your studio mons get a different feed than your broadcast.
Your setup doesn't have a routing option to Livestream a mix without your reference software? You don't have the simple solution for this option? It's shouldn't really to be too difficult to sort something out.
It's everyone's responsibility to listen on something that they're comfortable with for a loose spectrum we call industry standards. We've all become accustomed two different genres of music having different EQ curves for example.
Not everyone is hearing it the same. But everyone should have had ample time to get used to their listening setup... And to play with their EQ.
But why don’t you just turn the plug-in off when you export the audio, isn’t it supposed to be like that
Of course you can and should turn the plugin off when you export. The point of the video is to highlight that when using the tool during live streams the audience hears something bad even though I’m trying to make it good.
Why not systemwide in the first place... logic roomcorrected, all the rest not?
Well. A really "normal" fault many do. In reference you have to mix to a "flat sound". You get the ability to check if some frequencies are too much ore too low. Here you made your mix wrong. You added bass to the "character sound" you "liked". But this is not the way a "flat" monitoring works. It's not the fault of the software
I´m never used Id reference before, and now that instaled it, i fell it´s flat, but it´s hard to make decisions, it´s weird... i´ll try to use for a while, to see if i cant get uset to it
Studio One got this covered with the listen bus
In Studio One you simply insert it on the so called Listen Bus - and it will not color your rendered tracks in any way.
By chance I listened your videos with my 6xx... sound good to me ahah
The way I fix this problem is that I us Soundsource to create a listen bus outside of my DAW.
No Problem with Sonarworks but this is a routing problem. Because I also use Loogic which has no listening bus and the MASSIVE latency Sonarworks is introducing when used in systemwide configuration I got rid of it, installed a trustworthy Behringer DEQ2496 between my interface and my speakers, used the inbuilt room correction/ auto EQ and couldn't be happier. No software bloat, no latency and a decent result. So for me it was time to ditch SW, not LPX :)
so the problem with it is that you used it wrong?
Us humans are crap at consistency... which is why we invented meters and scopes! What we are good at though is learning not to need this extra layer of correction (particularly in headphones). This works against us too, as our brains quickly adapt to compensate - like a built in Sonarworks which resets if we take long breaks 😎. Anyway, my point is that nobody would have even asked the question if they hadn't seen your Sonarworks plugin active!
Can you go back and mix without it now? 😊
My advice would be to stop using SoundID before you stop using a DAW you like. But I say that as someone who doesn't like room correction software. I'd rather just know my listening environment with all its drawbacks and foibles.
In fact, most of the time I mix entirely in headphones and never have any issue with translation. But I have thousands of listening hours on my two pairs of headphones, and they have radically different frequency curves. So if something works in both of them it just works. I do use monitors, but mostly just as another way to check the mix. I don't find SoundID's headphone correction software useful either.
Sonarworks is a tool that try to delete problems related to your room and the frequency response of your speakers.
I you have no serious treatment in your room, it' s the best you can try to solve some major problems.
Just because you have a tool doesn't mean you know how to use it. All of your points are valid, given your limited knowledge of the software. Try to read the user manual or learn how to use it before making a review with wrong data/information? The software is designed for MONITORING output... Not exporting. You can use the software system-wide and never worry that your DAW's output will be affected by software.
Wait a second, are you Mike DelGaudio's brother?
Bro are you living in manchester ? let me know ,I can help you with treatment
No, ha. It’s my last name
cmon man, wtf is this video title.
I was thinking watching a sort of review of Sonarworks, and learn new things ...
but it seems SoundID works as intended. It is not the problem. Your routing table is.
Thats why im not worring about the "perfect mix" anymore most of the people will listen to your musik on bad speakers and wont even notice how much work you put into the right high or lowend because the speakers cant even provide it.
Word
I really don’t know what I’m watching. No one is hearing it as you do. I really don’t get it. Everybody has a different setup and if you talk about Streaming there is also compression wth?
I'm sorry, the problem with
......what?
Its not a problem if you know how to use the tool.
Very good stuff.....I have this Sound ID reference, and don't really even use it.....the times I have early on, I thought that the "sound" of the different types was not realistic. I liked your example with it OFF....it WAS more balanced as you said, also "warmer", as I thought the ON version, did sound louder, because it was, your LUFS Charting proved that, but I thought it ----to me----sounded like it had more treble.....tinnier.....I still have the Sonarworks "MIC" and havent even bothered to calibrate my two sets of Speakers, a pair of 5 inch JBL's, and also the 8 inch 3-way KALI's, which I LOVE. I did originally calibrate both pair of Beyerdynamic headphones, 770 and 880. Also saw an Andrew Scheps YT Video and he doesn't use SR. He said they use 1-band filters. I guess all in all, it's what you HEAR and LIKE.
I like better with SoundID lol. Sound flatter and pleasant
Color grading is the term used in motion picture work (video/film), Color Correcting is used for photography.
Problem is something else I think.😅
And many other gave me posetive Reviews too. Something else is wrong I think
This makes no sense at all because SoundID is correcting your room which should not have anything to do with the listener. You are correcting your room to make better mixing decisions. Whether it on or not has nothing to do with what anyone else is hearing because they can only judge the result based on what they hear. Sonarworks corrections are being made so that your are able to hear the correct frequencies. Without Sonarworks you're are making eq decision which would make no sense to someone that has a treated space and even if you are in a treated room the user is still not able to hear the correct eq curves in his or her untreated room. RUclips videos are somewhat pointless when is comes to listening test.
Linten bus works!
we are all listening to youtube ion different spaces and rooms and speakers or earbuds so the soundid version sounded better in my lounge. everyones ears are different too so everything colots the sound for your listeners so your just trying to get it sounding better on average in peoples cars or on their amazing listening space or some cheap as $5 earbuds so to me the whole point of people compalaning is a mut point. we are to busy listenign to the wrong thingsd. the content of what your saying is he most important thing
Sound ID is actually giving you an extremely inaccurate depiction. It's a total scam.
When I used it, I would get everything sounding great, turn off the plugin, bounce the track and play it back. It sounded completely different (like shit actually) on everything. It wasn't accurate at all.
The bass would drown everything out (because Sound ID curved it out), it had a ton of distortion (because sound ID made an 8db cut), and it had phase issues (because fucking sound ID changed the phase).
So I stopped using it and my mixes translated again lol
"Well maybe you used it wrong! Or all your systems are bad. Or your headphones and earbuds are bad!"
Nope, nope, and nope. Scam.
Just use a better DAW.. Reaper and Cubase let you have monitoring FX separate from your stereo outputs..
Now we’re talking…
Just switch it off when you doing videos
OMG! Unnecessarily long video to explain that you made a rookie mistake in your audio routing. As previously commented, SoundID reference is for MONITORING only. It's not supposed to end up inserted in your master outputs!
Sonarworks is not the problem 😂😂😂
ARC Studio sounds much better and runs in hardware
Ummmmmmm Systemwide???.
ListenHub fixed all this for me - game changer.
Time to switch to Reaper.