Thread: Newbie here: Does this look right?

Sorry, I can't help but I am very interested... I used an MS-8 and it automatically did time alignment and tune for me. I plan on going to a Rockford Fosgate 3.Sixty.3 later on, and will have to learn these settings myself, so am watching with interest.

Originally Posted by rray

Sorry, I can't help but I am very interested... I used an MS-8 and it automatically did time alignment and tune for me. I plan on going to a Rockford Fosgate 3.Sixty.3 later on, and will have to learn these settings myself, so am watching with interest.

Well you need RTA hardware/software to tune it in as well.
I wonder if an audio shop will let me pay to use theirs. I don't want to pay them 5 hours of their work when I can do it.

Let me know if you have any questions. I'm a noob but I think I understand a good amount.

The screen you posted look like some of the screens that the RF 3.sixty.3 tuning software has. This afternoon I read the manual again, and discovered it does not come with RTA hardware or software. I was under the assumption that they included a mic with hardware and software integrated in the unit.

Being new to decent sounding audio, my first processor, the MS-8, comes with a calibration CD, and has their RTA hardware and firmware built in, so you just wear stereo microphones, and follow onscreen prompt to tune. Too easy really.

So now I get to research RTA hardware/software too. More fun stuff to research. I just joined DIYMA to find out more info too. Thanks.

Oh, by the way, from what the RF manual says about tuning the delay, they use an easy method of measuring the furthest speaker's distance away from the listening position, and setting that speaker's delay to 0, then each speaker closer to the listening position gets a slight delay based off how much distance closer it is to listening position.

So I found a page with a time/distance calculator, amongst other useful calculators here:
Doctor Pro Audio Calculator Page

1 millisecond delay for every 13.5 inches

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

Does this setup look right?
I just started learning about this stuff so any help would be appreciated.

i started answering all of these independently, but instead of reiterating the point, i'll make it here.

i think you'r trying to make way to big of a deal out of this by not fully understanding what each of these things do. all of the things you mention are incredibly useful sound shaping tools, but like anything, overuse is detrimental to the original idea of the tool.

first things first, you need to figure out who is the most important person in the car to focus everything on-- things like time alignment or level adjustment can only be adjusted to perfectly hit one person at the selected levels. it is impossible to adjust these things to sound the same to 3 different people sitting in different locations in the same car. usually the drivers seat is selected for this, because it's usually you're car..

Here are my steps from what I have learned:
1. Set the SPL for each speaker to match.[/quote]

this is impossible to do with the below 3-settings idea. the SPL will be different for wherever you measure it from-- it is impossible for speaker 'A' and speaker 'B' to seem to be at the same level for passenger 1, 2, & 3.

*****I want to tune it to 3 settings. Just me in the car. Passenger and someone in the rear. It looks like noone does this? I want to be able to swap it based on who is in the car. Why does noone do this? [/quote]

because it's difficult to do.. as far as i know, there is no easy way to get those settings to automatically load, so you have to manually open AM, and manually select the setup you want to use--every time you want to change it. for me, that involves a process that takes about 5min every time-- dig out the keyboard in the back of the car, run around to the front seats, minimize rr, get to the files, load the new setup, then the first few steps in reverse.

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

2. Set the (delay) for each speaker so it matches up exactly? TA (time alignment)?

like i said earlier, this is only possible for a single location, but doesn't need to be 'exact'.. i still haven't set up TA in my car, and it sounds d*** good...

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

3. Adjust freq based on speakers.
*****Still haven't found much on this. I think 3k+ for tweeters but other then that haven't found a article. I guess I could use the speaker specs but its 23-22k so I think that's to large of a range. Any help on this?

i'd need some more info on your setup, but can give you some baseline settings depending on what you've got.. but there is no hard setting for any of this-- it's 90% personal preference, 10% speaker requirements.

i got into active processing because my first set of component speakers passive x-overs had too low of a x-over point for the tweeters for my listening style. that is not to say that it was a poorly manufactured set, or that any part of it was defective,the engineers that designed the component set didn't design it for how i use my sound system..

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

4. Set flat pink noise with RTA setup

i suggest you start here first before going overkill with RTA adjustments:
http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/...sy-cmusic.html

RTA can be great, but it's just a tool. the dangerous side of it is that a perfect RTA setup can look great and perfectly flat on the pc screen, but sound horrible because of the flatness..

you can also try something like this:
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=390-792


but it really all comes back to speaker selection-- speakers shape the music more then any other part of the system. that first component set i had taught me that as well-- no matter what i did, i just couldn't tame the tweeters down-- they just always sounded harsh to me. it was another factor that drove me to a full-active setup, and i spent way too much time trying to tweak those stupid tweeters with a 32 band dedicated eq to try to get them to sound good. they never did sound good to me.

i eventually replaced that component set with some very carefully researched individually-purchased drivers, and since then, the only adjustment i've made was a slight level adjustment on the tweeters-- either because that gain is too high on my amps(i can adjust it on the pc, so no reason to go crawling into the trunk if it's off a hair), or they're slightly more sensitive then my mids, i'm really not sure.. but i'm not running a eq of any sorts, only 3 instances of x-overs for high, mid and sub..

some day i still intend to make some eq tweaks-- there are a few area's that i feel need to get tweaked(there always are ), but it's one of the more potent, natural systems i've heard.. maybe i need to get out to some car audio meets more to hear others setups, but it's plenty good for me at this moment..

but my point of my long-winded explanation is that tweaks are not always needed just to sound good..

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

5. Apply a house curve based on preference

this should be done while tuning-- forget about getting it setup 'perfect' for everything else, and then adjusting it to preference-- you're preference is all that matters.

Originally Posted by Yellow-Snow

(What does Low Shelf and High Shelf do?)

not sure what you're referring to, i don't have a delayin my setup, so haven't taken the time to fully understand all of it's settings..


oh, and i'd recommend pming a moderator to have this moved to the high end car audio section-- hopefully durwood chimes in on some of this, though the forums been pretty slow, so not so sure how many replies you'll get regardless of where the threads located..

In the diagram posted at the top by Yellow-Snow Audio Mulch has multiple audio outputs are these outputs on the same audio card or can they be set to different audio cards?
I'd like to create separate outputs for high , mid and low but by using multiple ODAC's (one for each range). Is this possible in AudioMulch?

yes it can. i've only used Console and Audio Mulch, but between the 2, AM is the only one that will do it(console is drastically cheaper, though comparing the 2 side-by-side, i take AM hands down-- it's a ton more flexible in many aspects)-- console, you can only select the 'overall' device--ie. plug in a usb 5.1 channel sound card, and you can either select the usb soundcard, or you can select the the onboard audio-- you can't mix-n-match.

hopefully you can see this-- this is the output setting screenshot of console(where you can see what available device, and how many channels it is):


in AM, you can individually pick which set of outputs goes where:


so you can have outputs 1/2 go to channels 3/4 on the usb card, outputs 3/4 go to the 1/2 on the onboard audio, and so on.


oh, and fyi, AM is also capable of handling multiple inputs in the same manner, though it's like splicing the cables together-- if you send audio to both inputs, they just combine-- as far as i know, there is no way within AM to mute one input while another one is playing-- i believe that would need to be handled outside the pc, or via some other software.

Sweet. Thanks for the info. Looks as I don't need any external hardware other than ODAC's then (a bunch of them).

Originally Posted by soundman98

i started answering all of these independently, but instead of reiterating the point, i'll make it here.
because it's difficult to do.. as far as i know, there is no easy way to get those settings to automatically load, so you have to manually open AM, and manually select the setup you want to use--every time you want to change it. for me, that involves a process that takes about 5min every time-- dig out the keyboard in the back of the car, run around to the front seats, minimize rr, get to the files, load the new setup, then the first few steps in reverse..

Why not just create 2 different shortcuts that loads the profile?
Then make a bat script that you can run in RR/CF that closes AM and re opens it in the correct config?

"C:\Program Files\AudioMulch 0.9b8\mulch.exe" /a /p "c:\Program Files\AudioMulch\Solo.amh"
"C:\Program Files\AudioMulch 0.9b8\mulch.exe" /a /p "c:\Program Files\AudioMulch\Passenger.amh"

i'm horrible at programming, so i guess there's a possibility it could work-- i can't recall a setup that's used it in the past, so really not sure.