'Perceive' Contruction Diary

[Vil]

Shin ,

we are still working , so one of us know whats the best .thats the funest part of diy ... to create something (good) .

[curva]

Looks like I'm too stupid to figure this out, anyway, what are you guys using this "convolution reverb" plugins for? Furthermore, why would you measure your home's "impulse"? Is it possible to use the plugin for lowering the reverb, if so, how??? thanks

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by curva
Looks like I'm too stupid to figure this out, anyway, what are you guys using this "convolution reverb" plugins for? Furthermore, why would you measure your home's "impulse"? Is it possible to use the plugin for lowering the reverb, if so, how??? thanks

Yes a convolution plugin is capable of being used to reduce room effects by around 30-50% according to the maths.

For it to work you need to take an accurate impulse response of your listening room. To do this you first need a sound that will provoke your rooms reverb, most use gun shots or electrical sparks or cracks. Then you need a good, no make that, great mic and pre-amp to record the sound.

Once this is done you can use a program such DRC etc. These create a calculated inverse of the originally impulse response recording. You load this into your convolution plugin and then pass your music through it. When sound emerges from your speakers, its been changed to cancel out some of your rooms influences.

[donas]

Hi ShinOBIWAN,

Congratulations on your impressive project. It must require a huge input of effort and time. Would you take a little time out to check your private email (zeroex_15...) please. I sent on payment four weeks ago for crossover boards that you advertised on the "trading post" section of the forum. Nothing has arrived in the post in return and I haven't received any responses to the emails that I've sent you since. I would much prefer to get some direct feedback from yourself first (misunderstandings do happen after all) before I initiate a bank trace on the payment.

Thanks
Denis.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by donas
Hi ShinOBIWAN,

Congratulations on your impressive project. It must require a huge input of effort and time. Would you take a little time out to check your private email (zeroex_15...) please. I sent on payment four weeks ago for crossover boards that you advertised on the "trading post" section of the forum. Nothing has arrived in the post in return and I haven't received any responses to the emails that I've sent you since. I would much prefer to get some direct feedback from yourself first (misunderstandings do happen after all) before I initiate a bank trace on the payment.

Thanks
Denis.

Very sorry about this Denis,

Please check your mail.

[ogp]

Was there a consensus on a "budget" sound card? One that will work with multiple cards in one system? The RME sounds nice, but I don't want to buy 2 or 3!

[wigginjs]

Heh, I highly recommend trying out all this with a cheaper soundcard before you invest the big bucks. I just gave it a whirl with the Prodigy 7.1LT in a Athlon XP running at 2150MHz with 1GB ram. Although it did work, the sound was pretty choppy and it ate up every last bit of the CPU (that was running 1 CurveEQ, 3 LinearEQs, and 3 AudioDelays). This at least for me does not appear to be a real solution and I have a DCX2496 on order. KXProject would have been great if i was able to resolve some of the line-input noise problems I was having, perhaps with a different card....

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by ogp
Was there a consensus on a "budget" sound card? One that will work with multiple cards in one system? The RME sounds nice, but I don't want to buy 2 or 3!

How many channels do you need?

A single RME HDSP9632 comes with 2 analogue outs, with expansion boards its possible to have a maximum of 16 on a single card. For this you'd need the AO192S and AO8 expansions.
There also the HDSP9652 whoch will do 32 analogue outs on a single card with either external DAC's or 4 x AO8 expansion boards.

Aside from this there are other soundcards such as delta, creamware, Lynx which offer multiple cards but I'm totally unsure of any internal routing or multi client drivers.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Originally posted by m0tion
Heh, I highly recommend try out all this with a cheaper soundcard before you invest the big bucks. I just gave it a whirl with the Prodigy 7.1LT in a Athlon XP running at 2150MHz with 1GB ram. Although it did work, the sound was pretty choppy and it ate up every last bit of the CPU (that was running 1 CurveEQ, 3 LinearEQs, and 3 AudioDelays). This at least for me does not appear to be a real solution and I have a DCX2496 on order. KXProject would have been great if i was able to resolve some of the line-input noise problems I was having, perhaps with a different card....

You definitely need a dedicated PC to make this reality, I use a 2.6Ghz P4 overclocked to 3.3Ghz that I had lying around after moving my main system over to an Athlon 64 4000+.

With this I use dedicated curveEQ on each channel along with 3 lineEQ's and 3 x Delays. Data transfer between the main PC and the XO PC is via 8 channel ADAT with Word clock Sync to an external clock, all cables are extremely short <30cm.

No problems and whatsoever with audio and latency is incredibly good - no need for extra compensation in the TT2.

BTW: Shame you didn't live in the UK - I just sold my virtually new DCX. A quick bit of advice, I'd strongly recommend using a 6 channel digital volume control with it other wise you'll be losing bits and dynamic headroom if you run the input signal at less than 0dB. It also tends to hiss on high sensitivity speakers because of this problem. Its an OK machine though if you get around its Pro audio idiosyncrases.

[wigginjs]

I've read about the 6-channel volume control thing and it seems a little more complicated than I'd like to get into. To be honest I was looking for a SIMPLE 3-way digital active xover solution, but I'm beginning to think that may be impossible =). I'm going to be using XLR -> RCA adapters with it, so I plan to do the -6dB mod to them (not sure if you've heard of this, you connect the pins differently and it gives -6dB gain on the outputs). Hopefully this will be enough to get around any nasty noises, but we'll see, I've been disappointed before. Any other recommendations to a reasonably priced solution would be very welcome.