Scarlett 8i6 cal sweep - not great any input appreciated

[eyesandears]

It's been more than a year since I last used my REW and Scarlett 8i6 when all was working well. My old Win7 Dell laptop retired and I finally got time to move things over to a Win10 laptop. Needless to say I am basically starting over with a clean slate. I wanted to recalibrate the Scarlett with new version of the Scarlett MixControl software and upgraded REW.

I setup a loop back cable from the XLR Mic (L) input to line 3 output. After numerous permutations of the MixControl and REW preferences I got a recognizable sweep but it's not very flat. (I also tried the XLR Mic (L) input that gave me a similar curve). I don't remember how it looked before on my prior setup but I may have used a line level in/out cal instead for that which ideally would not be preferred.

I can go into the MixControl settings and post some pics if needed. I mostly turned the mixer and internal loop parameters off for the calibration. I will first post the sweep screenshot so you can see what I am seeing. I have a few questions about obtaining that calibration sweep that are not answered in the REW help guide.

How much if any smoothing is recommended during creation of the soundcard or mic calibration file?

When doing the cal how much headroom (dBm) is desirable?

Here's the sweep and REW properties window. The loop back passes through the mic preamp which I suspect may be affecting this but the sweep is not nearly as flat as I thought it should be. If that's the way it's expected to look then I will just save the cal file and move on. If not I need to figure out what is interfering with it. Any input will be greatly appreciated. Thank you!







Win 10
Focusrite Scarlett 8i6
REW v5.20
Scarlett MixControl v 1.10

 

[John Mulcahy]

Smoothing should not be required with the soundcard cal. The unsmoothed result looks like noise with perhaps some crosstalk mixed in, something is definitely wrong.

 

[eyesandears]

Thanks John, that's what I was suspecting. The problem has always been with configuring this MixControl program. Especially for someone like me who rarely uses it. After hours of trial and error I got it worked out tonight. I will post the results and my MixControl settings for future reference if anyone else runs into the problem. could find little to no references on line for help with this specific use of it. This time I also took screenshots of all my settings.

Configuration details:
The loop back cable was placed between the Mic input and the headphone monitor output. Both balanced and unbalanced cables peoduced very similar results. 48V phantom on.
I testes Line1 and Line 3 outputs on the rear and they showed similar performance to the front phono jack output. That required some minor changes in the MixControl settings for the ourputs.
Set it up as shown below. Then use this tip to check your settings. Get a set of headphones on the output you wish to use on the 8i6. Activate calibrate mode/tone in REW. Play with the routing and monitor presets on the MixControl until you hear output from REW. Leave all of the presets off if they have no effect when switched on.

Here's the calibration run:



Cal check:



REW and MixContol setup for 8i6 cal::




Now on to reconfigure for the Mic calibration.

 

[John Mulcahy]

Good stuff, thanks for posting the MixControl settings.