Tuning Monitors-Pink Noise

B

Bones

New member
Ahoy all,

I've been setting up my studio at home for nearly 2 years now and have just come accross a referance to useing "pink noise" to tune my monitors.

Sounds like a great idea, I have a spectrum analyser, good sound card and OK monitors but how do I create "pink noise" to do the test with? (or where can I find it?).

I found a definition. Pink noise "has a flat energy spectrum curve thoughout the audio range". This allows you to adjust your EQ to flatten the response of your monitors or fix problem frequencies in the control room.

All very informative, but entirely useless without some referance to how this noise is actually produced. White noise has an energy build up of 3Db (spl) per octave. This makes white noise useless as a referance point, 'cause all you'll get is massive high end.

Anyone know how to create Pink Noise or have a link to a .WAV file?


Regards

Bones
 
Cool Edit Pro will allow you to make Pink Noise, I would think other programs would too. Have you tried checking your DAW help files and "index"ing "NOISE"? If your program supports this, you should be able to create your own noise. :D

In case you can't, try using the file I'm "attaching." I haven't tried this before, but it should work, it's an MP3 of a 5 second pink noise. I made the channels independent (their own noise each side) and set it at an "intensity" of 12 (default), whatever that does. I couldn't send a WAV file... the maximum size for an attachment is 102 kb, so you get it in MP3 format. This may change how the frequency distribution sounds, so you may just want to use it as a "get familiar with pink noise" type of thing... Oh, yeah, sorry about 5 seconds, but there's a file restraint, so try just replicating it in your DAW.

The file is called... Pink Noise.MP3 (which is really weird, 'cuz we put up "Pink Floise" in the MP3 clinic recently... weird)
 

Attachments

  • pink noise.mp3
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Just a word of experience here -I tried the pink noise thing and the sweep frequency alternative years ago when it first came out in the early 70's. Don't trust it - it screws up your speakers in my opinion, never used it since. shift the mic 1 foot and it all changes.
I'll get shit for this post - so goforit:)

cheers
John
 
I agree with John... 100%

The best quote on this very subject from a recent mag...

Heavily equalizing a poor acoustical space simply gives you a heavily equalized, poor acoustical space...
Click to expand...

Similar to noise reduction (which works best on signals that don't have A LOT of noise), room tuning works best on rooms that don't have serious response anomalies.

Bruce
 
Well, I've never done this, but if you DID, I guess you'd put the mic where you sit when you mix. Doesn't sound like such a bad idea, as long as you keep your EQ in accordance with your sound (that is, change your room and you need to immediately change your EQ).

I've always been a "loudness" guy, hell, I just run my signal through an old JVC bookshelf system I've gotten used to over the years. Sounds fine to me on other systems, must have gotten lucky...
 
Nice quote Bruce. I was at an outdoor gig one day and the PA sounded awful. I wandered over to the PA desk and the guy had the weirdest EQ across these Brand New JBLs.

I told him that JBL made shithouse speakers which of course upset the shit out him, but I quickly added that they must be shithouse if they needed that much EQ to work in an open air environment. :D

cheers
John
 
"EQing" your reference monitors is a very scary proposition because of the phase shift that comes along with it. Better to treat the room and/or learn your playback system intimately
 
Ok, so EQing monitors isn't a good idea.

Mr Sayers: I've always been a fan of JBL. Those SR's are the best speakers I've ever heard. I'd take em over any set of McCauley's or EAW's.
What's your beef with JBL?
 
OK now I'm really confused,

I first read about this "tuning monitors and rooms" in a university text book, Modern Recording Techniques.

When I had trouble producing Pink Noise, I looked a little harder and found a simillar referance in the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement Handbook. I have since found that wavelab will generate Pink noise. Thanx for the .Wav anyways Kelly :)

OK, so NOW everyone here agrees that it's bad to EQ ya Monitors?

Could a Bass and Treble control on Powered Monitors be called EQing? If so, the why are the actual manufacturers doing it, if not so you can tune them!

Still confused though :)

Regards

Bones
 
It's not that you SHOULDN'T tune a room with EQ, it's that you shouldn't use EQ to tune a bad room. If you have a bad room, fix it with acoustic treatment until you have a good (or at least decent!) room. Then you'll probably find you won't need to tune it any further...

In a properly designed studio, the room acoustics have been a foremost consideration in the planning stages and further tuning using EQ later amounts to a minor tweak, to make a precise room that much more accurate...

Of course, John is the expert on this area around here... I should probably keep my yap shut........

Bruce
 
Doink - you missed the extreme tongue in cheek attitude in my remark. I was having a go at PA engineers who over EQ excellent JBL speakers (I have no problem with JBLs, I have owned them OK?)

In an outdoor environment there are no reflections, no room modes etc etc, in other words the ideal environment for the speakers to sound as they were designed, so there should be no need to EQ them at all. Get the joke now? ;)

Of course the manufacturers give EQ options on the speakers but it is usually just to balance the components such as Tweeter to Midrange, Midrange to woofer and it is a balance control between the different powers amps driving each unit, it really is not EQ. The eq I'm refering to is the -6db @ 800Hz with a peak curve shaping on a Graphic EQ. I've seen some pretty horrendous graphic EQ for some monitor speakers. A couple of db dip over the midrange band or a rolloff in the low end is OK but it is the exteme graphic EQ that I'm refering to.

When you work at a strange studio it's worth while checking what they have done as there is always the bypass switch on the EQ :)
Track Rat's advice is spot on. OK?

cheers
John
 
There is a guy in Los Angeles named Coco who tunes rooms for a living. Understand that when I say rooms I mean Oceanway, Capitol Records, Sony, the Village ect... He has been doing this for something like 20+years. He has a pair of mics on a tripod that are set up in the sweet spot, a pink noise generator and a spectrum analizer. He spends about two hours and gets the room to sound absolutely amazing. I think he charges between 800 and a 1000 dollars.

Would the spare room in my house sound better if he came in and adjusted my no-existant white eq? YES! Would it sound sound like the Village. Not unless Vincint Van Hoff (Waterland Design) came over knoced out walls and redesigned and rebuilt my room for me.

I think the best advice is to just learn your space, lisen to
commercial CD's and compair them to what you are achiving. Make notes of the adjustments you are making and their outcomes. (what do my mixes sound like if I hang a blanket on the wall behind me? What happens when I move the monitors 1 foot farther apart/closer together?) Doing this will help enormously. It may take time but the benifits will pay off in spades.

Good Luck
 
I read in my recording handbook that nearfields should need little or no eqing

BUT if you had to eq, anything over +-5db means that the room is in serious need of work

If you don't have white noise, place a reference mic one foot away from somebody else and record them speaking and also record handclaps.

You can listen at normal levels and eq the monitors till you get the exact same sound.

peace
 
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