Speaker Calibration - Advice For New Users To Address 5 Common Misconceptions
In this article we address five misconceptions and myths about speaker calibration.
Speaker calibration software has been around for several years. Developers such as Sonarworks and IK Multimedia provide two popular host-based solutions: Reference and ARC 2.5. Speaker calibration can provide users with a flatter frequency response from their studio monitors which helps to improve monitoring accuracy, reducing guesswork in a mix.
We have covered this topic in detail in many of our reviews, tutorials and advice articles. These articles and videos have received many comments. Many of these have been questions from people who have yet to try speaker calibration, others from those new to speaker calibration. In researching this article we reread pages of these comments on YouTube and found many common threads in questions and statements which we felt could be perceived as misconceptions and myths.
Below we address five general queries and points of confusion on the topic of speaker calibration to help new users get the most from systems that can provide flatter sounding frequency responses.
Do I Bounce My Mixes With Speaker Calibration On?
The short answer is no if you use speaker calibration as a plug-in inserted in your DAW on a master track. The correction you hear from your calibration profile is unique to your monitors, within your room, from your mix position. The overall tonality of your mix will suffer significantly when played back in the real world if you bounce a mix with calibration on.
Speaker calibration boosts and cuts specific areas in the frequency spectrum of both the left and right channels of your monitors. These curves are based on unique measurements captured from a measurement mic. The resulting profile then adapts to a new calibration based on a target curve, which in most systems is left flat.
To re-emphasize, speaker calibration needs to be bypassed entirely when bouncing a mix. We recommend deactivating speaker calibration plug-ins altogether.
Sonarworks include a neat popup feature in their Reference plug-in which warns you if calibration is still engaged during a bounce to disk. Even experienced users forget from time to time. To enable this in Sonarworks Reference, select the bell symbol icon at the top right of the UI.
Some speaker calibration solutions can also be used outside of a DAW such as Sonarworks Systemwide which enables users to have the benefits of speaker calibration in other creative software such as video editors and desktop applications such as Spotify. If you monitor your DAW output through a systemwide style speaker calibration solution you will not need to bypass the correction when bouncing your mixes.
Do I Need A Measurement Microphone?
We have covered this topic before. We set out to discover if it was possible to get a trustworthy speaker calibration profile from a microphone that wasn't a recommended measurement microphone. We wanted to know if using a measurement microphone was necessary for getting a decent enough profile for the purpose of at least demoing speaker calibration software.
In our article below we compared the results of a recommended Sonarworks measurement microphone and two fairly typical multipurpose studio microphones:
Sonarworks also blogged on this topic in response to our article we published back in 2018 that we recommend you also check out:
There is a good reason why speaker calibration developers recommend we use their brand of measurement microphones when setting up their software. Measurement microphones in host based speaker calibration systems from Sonarworks and IK Multimedia are calibrated and include detailed calibration profiles specific to the microphone you use for your measurement process.
Measurement microphones are relatively inexpensive from both developers and well worth owning. You can get your hands on these mics slightly cheaper if you choose to buy a bundle which include software and mic instead of buying the two separately.
To summarise, try not to feel pressured into buying a measurement microphone if you only want to demo a speaker calibration software. If within your trial period you decide speaker calibration is for you then purchase a speaker calibration bundle which includes a microphone as you will get better value for money. We believe recommended measurement microphones are necessary as they will enable you to get the very best from the calibration but only invest if you know for sure that speaker calibration is going to enter your daily workflow.
Speaker Calibration Makes My Mixes Sound Worse
Your first listening impressions could make you feel as though your mix sounds worse with speaker calibration engaged. What you hear when you first listen through calibration is not worse; it is different. This could be a slight change or massive shift in tone depending on how your room and monitors interact with each other.
Let's explore two main sonic differences you need to be aware of when first firing up a newly calibrated monitoring environment:
Lower Output Level: Most speaker calibration software attenuates output gain by default to avoid clipping. As stated earlier, calibrations include several boosts and cuts within the frequency spectrum. The sum of many boosts in a calibration profile can easily add up to several extra decibels of level at the output which can push the meter into the red. Differences in level, as we know from working with dynamics processing, can easily trick our ears into believing louder is better. Don’t assume that a quiet mix caused by speaker calibration makes your mix worse. To compensate the level difference you can always increase the level on your audio interface’s main monitor level control or the output gain within the calibration software if your mixes have sufficient headroom.
Low-End Sounds Drastically Different: You will find most speaker calibration processing is within the mid to low frequency range as this area typically presents the biggest problems in translation. When you first listen to a mix through calibration you may find the low end sounds lighter compared to without. This could be because your room may have had a build-up of bass frequencies, however, the opposite could happen. Bass could sound fuller and more pronounced with calibration compared to before due to your room having a cancellations caused by standing waves. One thing is for sure, bass will sound more natural with speaker calibration than without. It’s just a case of getting to know how the correction sounds and learning to trust it when you mix though it.
Sonarwork Reference includes a helpful mix feature similar to dry/wet controls you find in most other plug-ins. This can help new users transition slowly from the performance of their original unprocessed monitoring environment to calibrated. If you are new to using Sonarworks and find it difficult to get working with the sound of your new calibration then we recommend starting off with a 25% mix of calibration increasing it by 25% over the course of one to two weeks.
Speaker Calibration Can't Get Around The Laws Of Physics
This comment is usually posted by speaker calibration skeptics, which is fair enough as it is a valid assumption yet we’ve never seen any speaker calibration developer claim their solutions can defy the laws of physics. What speaker calibration developers do provide are software components that work rather well if incorporated into a wider acoustic treatment solution. Speaker calibration rarely provides any advantages in rooms absent of acoustic treatment or a monitoring setup that was setup with little care. A good rule of thumb to follow here is a considered studio with acoustic treatment should aways be the starting point, followed by speaker calibration software.
Does Speaker Calibration Work With Subwoofers?
Speaker calibration does indeed work with subwoofers though we don’t measure subwoofers with the measurement microphone. Solutions by IK Multimedia and Sonarworks measure the distance between the left and right monitors and the distance from your desired listening positions with several other points around that space. Both measurement processes don’t capture 2.1 specific systems but do work with monitors with dedicated subwoofers.
Your Thoughts On Speaker Calibration
We welcome your questions on speaker calibration in the comments sections below. We intend to update this article regularly to include more general queries about this topic that we can, with the support of our speaker calibration developer partners, answer to help you gain a better understanding of the technology and its application.
Check out our article below which talks about how we tackled an issue within a monitoring setup introducing a subwoofer into a calibrated set of monitors.