ARC System 2.5 with MEMS microphone coming soon

[simon.a.billington]

There is a little audio app that runs in mac’s menu I figured might be good for this kind of application too. Unfortunately I forget it’s name, but I believe it’s on the App Store and it occasional gets ads in GearSlutz

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by simon.a.billington

There is a little audio app that runs in mac’s menu I figured might be good for this kind of application too. Unfortunately I forget it’s name, but I believe it’s on the App Store and it occasional gets ads in GearSlutz

MenuBus.

No longer being developed and you can’t buy a license.

Ironically, he now works for Rogue Amoeba, the company that makes Audio Hijack Pro.


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[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Peter Baird

Just tried the Audio Hijack demo, and yes, you can choose iTunes or any other Core Audio app and apply ARC to it. You cannot, however, choose the Pro Tools playback engine in Audio Hijack if Pro Tools is running, so you still need to run ARC from within Pro Tools when working. Looks like Rogue Amoeba's Loopback may fix that, but I can live without it. Gotta admit my library does sound a ton better on a somewhat calibrated system.



Not really a fan of any sw with "hijack" in the title, but I guess I'll pop for the full version ($60) since it fills my need.



Peter

This is incorrect.

I run Sonarworks in Audio Hijack Pro and ALL my audio in my computer runs through it, including Pro Tools.

Set PT to use your interface as normal, then in AHP, add the sound card and select whichever output is feeding your monitors. Put that after ARC audio unit.


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[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by Sardi

MenuBus.

No longer being developed and you can’t buy a license.

Ironically, he now works for Rogue Amoeba, the company that makes Audio Hijack Pro.


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Yeah, that’s it. Thanks for letting me know man. I’m a bit disappointed to be honest. All I want is something cheap with a very small footprint I can run system wide for ARC and similar style purposes.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by simon.a.billington

Yeah, that’s it. Thanks for letting me know man. I’m a bit disappointed to be honest. All I want is something cheap with a very small footprint I can run system wide for ARC and similar style purposes.

Try AHP and run it like I mentioned above. It works very well except for the odd glitch like you’d get in PT if you had the ignore errors checked.

I assume it’s a latency thing. I’m gonna email the developers and see if they can resolve it. It’s not enough of a hindrance to make me not use it. It doesn’t happen a lot and it won’t appear in a bounce. I do need to check if it happens on a real-time bounce through my hardware. For the time being, I just switch it off when doing that.

In terms of cost, it’s very inexpensive and allows you to do a lot of other stuff too.


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[Peter Baird]

Originally Posted by Sardi

This is incorrect.

I run Sonarworks in Audio Hijack Pro and ALL my audio in my computer runs through it, including Pro Tools.

Set PT to use your interface as normal, then in AHP, add the sound card and select whichever output is feeding your monitors. Put that after ARC audio unit.


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I'm not sure I follow you. When I start AHP, I need to set an input block, the ARC block, and an output block. If Pro Tools isn't running, HD Native is available in the output block. If it is running, HD Native isn't available. Can't choose channels if I can't choose the interface.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Peter Baird

I'm not sure I follow you. When I start AHP, I need to set an input block, the ARC block, and an output block. If Pro Tools isn't running, HD Native is available in the output block. If it is running, HD Native isn't available. Can't choose channels if I can't choose the interface.

Didn’t realise you were running HD native. That may affect it.

I’ll take a screenshot of my AHP setup when back in the studio which clearly shows the setup chain.


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[Sardi]

OK, so this is how I have mine configured to have everything running through Sonarworks.

Stereo audio is sent to my SPDIF output of my Steinberg MR816X interface, which is Output 11 + 12. That is connected to my Dangerous D-Box which is my monitor controller. I also have my Optical in/out connected to my Mytek AD + DA boxes, but because I print my masters back into Pro Tools, the monitoring still always comes back through the Dangerous D-Box, so I am always monitoring the signal through Sonarworks.



One thing I didn't mention in my previous post, is that my sound output in System Preferences is set to the Steinberg MR816X.



And as you can see, my Steinberg MR816X is selected in Pro Tools' Playback Engine.



This allows me to hear EVERYTHING through Sonarworks. Systemwide didn't cut it for me. It worked OK for system audio, but it wouldn't work with Pro Tools. I still had to use the Sonarworks plugin within the DAW, which I don't want to do as if you forget to bypass it, you bounce your mix with the correction curve on the audio. No bueno.

I also had issues with Izotope RX standalone not working with Systemwide. That could have been operator error, but I spent a bit of time changing things around and it never worked.

So, after looking a bit deeper into Audio Hijack which I use to capture audio from other apps such as Skype etc. I realised I could configure it to do exactly what I wanted. I totally forgot that you don't actually have to record the signal. You can use set it to hijack, which just passes the audio through the chain you have created. Very cool.

Hope that helps. Again, not sure if it will work with HD Native, as I assume this will need to be based around a Core Audio compliant setup. Any USB/FW/TB interface will work fine, but not I'm familiar enough with HD Native to say if/how it would work.

[Peter Baird]

It's interesting how every system config has unique issues, isn't it?

I tried changing the System Preferences to seeing HDN as the selected output and then re-started AHP and mimicked your setup. Everything was fine until I started Pro Tools, when once again PT locked AHP out of using the HDN as the output. I think it's normal behavior for PT to lock out other programs from using HDN when it's chosen as the Playback Engine.

So, back to square one. And I also remembered why I had chosen Optical for the Output in System Preferences long ago. I have the Mac optical hooked into one of the optical inputs on the OMNI so I can listen to the Mac through the OMNI. The only issue with using that config is that when you first power up, if you run PT you get weird distortion in the monitor section, which goes away if you start a system playback like iTunes (you get rewarded with a loud thump and then everything is groovy). If I choose System Audio in AHP I get the distortion but don't have any way to remove it. I suspect it's a sampling rate related issue with the OMNI, but after complaining to Avid for many years about it I've resigned myself to living with it.

Original observations still stand, however. ARC2 is quite a gizmo.

Peter

[Sardi]

There is another solution, but it’s a bit of an investment and you won’t be using ARC anymore.

If you’re interested, have a look at Dirac Live. It’s essentially a standalone box that can be configured for surround as well.

Basically, the correction is housed in the box and that sits between your DAC outputs and monitor inputs. Think of it as putting a computer with ARC on it after your HD Omni and before your monitors.

I was considering it at one point and may well end up going that way in the future. ATM, I’m happy with Sonarworks and relatively happy with the Audio Hijack configuration.

There’s also the Trinov system, but that’s VERY expensive. I’m sure it’s great, but I’d personally rather sink that kind of money into something else.


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