Newbie alert: need a bit of assistance w/ my first EQ

[sremick]

So I'm very new to REW and this is my first project to use it on. I'm working on setting up a 7.1 outdoor setup. I have an Emotiva UMC-200 hooked up to a 12-channel amp, and an miniDSP UMiK-1.

I am using REV 5.20 Beta 59 on Win10. I also installed ASIO4ALL v 2.14.

In my defense, there were several other earlier help posts I started which I then canceled as I ultimately figured it out myself.

I feel pretty good about getting up to the point of taking measurements. I did multiple readings from each speaker and averaged them together. Now it's time to EQ but the process here is a bit more opaque.

Despite the myriad of options on the EQ screen, is the process basically:
1) select the reading for the speaker to EQ and click the [EQ] button
2) Set the target type (for me I'm thinking "Full range" for all except the sub)
3) Under "Filter Tasks", set the "Match Range" (20Hz - 20KHz?)
4) Click "Match response to target" (I put in a basic "house curve" earlier)
5) Export the filter settings as a text file, then manually enter in the settings into the UMC-200

It sounds too easy, and I suspect there is more I should be doing on the EQ screen. I've attached my MDAT file. I sent the full range to everything including the sub for now in order to use that data to determine cross-over points. One thing I'm thinking is that I should up the levels on some of the speakers, so there's more room to EQ things down flat. REV didn't seem to be able to EQ much on some since they didn't travel much above 75dB but there was a lot of variation below that. With my UMC-200 selected as the EQ, it seems some settings are limited in the "Filter tasks" screen, such as Match Range max limit of 20KHz, "Individual max boost" is a max of 3dB, "Overall max boost" maxes out at 3dB, "Flatness target" maxes out at 6dB.

Anyhow, I'd really appreciate some individual guidance at this stage in my REW learning experience. I did do a lot of searching for tutorials, but all seem to be focused on how to take measurements, not how to use the EQ screen which is far more nuanced.

Thanks!

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

One thing I'm thinking is that I should up the levels on some of the speakers, so there's more room to EQ things down flat.

No, the last thing you want to do is chase every little ripple in response. The object is to achieve an improvement in sound quality, not get a pretty graph. All that’s needed for that is dealing with the worst deviations in response.

Here is a good case study in full-range EQ. Follow my posts and ignore the “nay-sayers.”

Spridle’s Experiment

Aside from that, any filters above about 300 Hz used for the main L/R should be matching, even if their response readings aren’t matching. Otherwise stereo imaging will be whacked. Below 300 Hz you can used independent filters if needed.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[sremick]

Ok, thanks for responding and the tip about mirroring >300Hz adjustments in the FL/FR speakers. I'll work on setting aside my assumptions and becoming a believer.

Are my assumed series of steps to do the EQ correct or am I missing steps? I was hoping to work on this some more today (since it's an outdoor setup, there's work involved setting up and tearing down but I've marked the speaker locations on the lawn and re-using the same specific speakers for each channel)

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I haven’t looked at your .mdat because haven’t updated to the current REW (I need to), but I’d expect that you don’t need much EQ because you’re outside and as such don’t have the usual room issues mucking things up.

Regards,
Wayne

 

[John Mulcahy]

Steps look OK, but you need to make sure the target level is about right before doing the match response.

 

[sremick]

Steps look OK, but you need to make sure the target level is about right before doing the match response.

I was thinking I needed to do something along these lines. So if you'll forgive a novice question, do you:

A) Ensure the target level is the same for all channels (75 dB?)
or:
B) (as demonstrated in some videos I've watched) "eyeball" the target match level to be a bit below average, so that REW can EQ down more than it EQs up. Then after applying the EQ, re-balance all the channels w/ pink noise to match again.

 

[John Mulcahy]

B), but I wouldn't overdo the "bit below".

 

[sremick]

B), but I wouldn't overdo the "bit below".

10-4. In my head, that seemed like the better choice. From the videos it did seem to be more of an art than a science, without any hard guidelines, but I think I sorta "get it".

Sunday I did it just based upon 75 dB for all, then went through the tedious process of manually entering all the day into the UMC-200 (how I wish there was a way to connect REW to it!). But I'll do it again this weekend with the adjusted targets, then re-balance the overall levels. Since I'm marking the speaker locations with survey markers and using the same speakers each time for each channel, it should be mostly consistent and a "do once" thing (once I do it once correctly, heh).