This can be left running all the time, or you can turn it off when you’re not making music to save on CPU usage.
Let’s go through the process of calibrating your studio monitors step by step: Step 1 – Install Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio and open Reference 4 MeasureĪfter downloading the Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio installer, run it, and choose Studio edition. The goal with calibration is to compensate for those variations and make the sound coming out of your monitors as close to flat as possible, giving you true monitoring of your tracks while you mix and master and ultimately translating into better balance in your published tracks. That’s why when you play a track that you created somewhere else it sounds so differently – it’s not just the difference in the speakers, it’s the variation in room acoustics. When you mix and master your tracks, those peaks and valleys in the perceived sound will inevitably color your tracks.
You can add acoustic treatment, bass traps, soundproofing, and everything else under the sun, but your listening environment will always have some frequencies that ring or echo too loudly and others that cancel out or are ‘trapped’ by the empty space in your room. There is no such thing as an acoustically perfect space. If you’ve ever mastered a track that you’re really proud of only to play it back elsewhere and hear a harsh, muddy, or tinny mess, you’re probably a victim of poor calibration. Left uncalibrated, your room will trick you into setting EQ curves in your mixes to compensate, which throws off the balance of your master. When those sound waves hit those surfaces, some of them reflect back to your ears and inevitably color the sound that you hear. When you play your tracks through your studio monitors, the sound waves don’t just come out to your ears and stop – they keep going past your head and hit the walls, floors, and objects in the room.
If you don’t already own Reference 4, check out my complete review of Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio here.) Why Do I Need Calibration?
(For this tutorial, you’ll need Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio and either the Sonarworks XREF 20 mic or another room measurement mic like the Dayton EMM-6 or the EarthWorks M23.
That’s where calibration software like Sonarworks Reference 4 Studio comes in. In addition to quality monitors, you’ll also need acoustic treatment and calibration to get a perfectly balanced and flat frequency response in any studio environment. Monitors, however, are just one piece in the puzzle when putting together a good master. Monitors inevitably have a flatter frequency response than headphones and give a far better perspective as to what your published tracks will sound like in the real world. If you’re like most home producers, you bought studio monitors to get a quality sound out of your DAW to help with mixing and mastering your tracks.
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