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Who learned you how to REW? 🎚🎛🎤

8701 Views 135 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  oabeieo
When I was a youngin, when ever some one said something illiterate we would say "Who learned you how to spoke?". I'm completely REW illiterate 😔 so I want to spark a conversation with some of you fine young/old folks/farts 😃 (jk, dont hang me) about REW. Maybe a why, when, where you decided you needed REW in your life. How you learned, who taught you, how you do it.

I'm sure there's different methods, maybe some one can shoot some of their skills this way. When I got my car back last year from the installer it was a blank slate. I undid the crossovers, re set gains, re-did the input EQ, then I Helix Auto just about Everyting. This was/is new to me. My tune was done in my jobs parking lot before a night shift when I had a lil time. Took a while... half hour here and there for months. Then the finicky UMIK-1 was always cutting out on a constant mid measurement 😡. I'm a busy man with hardly any play time to my self. I got it sounded how I like, but I feel I cheated.

I bought a UMIK-2 a whiles back and a couple weeks ago I started playing with REW. Took a few mesurment just to play with it while I was waiting for my wife to get her nails did 💅. I realized I didn't know WTF I was doing. I brought the Laptop in to the house yesterday to email the pics to my self. I'll post them.

I want to dive in (when time allows) and finish where the Helix Auto tune left off. Hand jerk here n there to see if I can squeeze a lil more out of the tune.

My system consist of rear and front sub. 3 way on my doors, 2 way centre.

I take my measurement in the driver seat waving the magic stick around my face. My TA is also set in between where mine and the wives head reside. So basically a 2 seat tune, kinda. I know there should be an average between both seats but I got to learn to REW first. Plus Fvck her seats response I already compromised my TA.😃

This is a measurement with everything playing. I forgot to turn the sub down when I took this measurement. When I did the auto tune I brought the rear subs down to the front sub level.

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That hump at 1xxhz wast there when I did my tune but since I didn't turn the sub down I get some rear deck rattles. I think that was what it was. I also tuned my sub flat initially but I didn't like it and after some playing. I seemed to like a peek at 40hz

I took this today in the parking lot before my shift started. With the rear sub at like 1/3rd volume.

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NO centre with and withoug the sub up in volume.

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I had read a bunch of REW tutorials but I didn't read them before taking the mesurments and I just kinda shot from the hip. Matter of fact I just barely learned how to make the measurement look squiggly instead of like the stair way to heaven.

These are the settings I have set up. I feel like I'm doing something wrong. 😕

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I just want to learn to REW before I dive in face first into hand jerking a tune.

If you gotta story of how you learned, please share. You got some pointers for me, please share. Any input or criticism is welcomed.

Sorry for the long post I'm at work n bored. It's about to be midnight, and I still got 6 hours to go. I'll end it here so I don't loose my progress.
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I use the 'Overlays' screen instead of the All SPL. You can pick and choose whichever (or all of em) measurement you want to look at.

Also, in the Overlays screen, you can use the "EQ Filters" tab from the EQ window. This is cool, because you can EQ say your Right Mid-Range to match your Left-Mid-Range.

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So you're using an averaged graph overlayed a live graph as you EQ the dsp for the live location?
I'm not sure I understand your question.... I use this method AFTER I have EQ each Speaker to Speaker target curve. This lets me EQ to match the Left to the Right, and by doing this I'm no longer matching to the speaker curve, I'm matching each speaker to eachother.
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The question is about whether the Overlaid Curve is a static curve or live, sorry
Its just a measurement taken from my Dayton UMM6 USB microphone, using the Helix MONO pink noise, and REW RTA.

In my example, There is a Left Mid-Range measurement, and a Right Mid-Range measurement. I'm making a EQ adjustment on the Right-Midrange speaker to match the Freq Response of the Left Mid-range Freq Response.

In the REW EQ window, you can only make EQ adjustments against the speaker target curve, but using the Overlay window, you can make EQ adjustments against the other speaker FR .....
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Hopefully this help show what I'm talking about....

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I own a UMIK-1 microphone, and no longer use it. I also had the same probs with it as you all have noted, got tired of it and put it on the shelf....I switched to the UMM6 about a year ago, and have 0 probs with it.

NOTE: I purchased and tried the Audio Frog Microphone Kit a few years ago, put it on the shelf too.... all I gotta say about it, is,,,, it...SUCKS.
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honestly from my experience in the energy industry if any craft was able to do the required reading to understand REW that'd be a big plus in their credibility to understand ASME codes.

Reading ASME code book, and trying to figure out all the complexities from within that written code, is like reading JRR Tolkien's book called the 'Silmarillion' ... its full on information, details, interweaving logical connections from beginning to end and with of the deepest 'conceptions'........ its very difficult to comprehend and understand all of it.....

.... and yeah, I wish the guy who wrote REW Software would have written the "Help" files in a way that was easier to understand ....
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Thanks.
I do have 2 available usb ports and a headphone jack on my laptop. Thanks for mentioning this. These are the specifics needed for newbies and non savvy computer users. Never seen this mentioned in any of the how to's I've watched and read. I will eventually give it a try. Maybe I'll get lucky. I don't believe it will be this easy though. There's usually always a conflict with computer software. Never thought I would have to become a software engineer to enjoy listening to superior sound.

When you connect your laptop to your HeadUnit via the headphone jack, sometimes you may get feedback if the laptop is plugged into power. Its best to have a full charge on the laptop battery, and make sure its not plugged into power at that point.
My old Windows 7 tuning PC finally crashed and died about 6 months ago. I purchased a bottom of the line HP Windows 11 laptop from Walmart for my new tuning laptop. Its nothing special, but the battery will last 5 hours.

and yeah, I use a 10A charger attached to the truck battery also when tuning.....
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I always take a measurement with the RTA1/48 setting, then can smooth to any level from there. I usually use Var Smoothing inside the EQ window and Overylays window. Click on the gear icon in these windows, and choose the smoothing level you want to apply to that measurement(s).

Below is a copy past from within the REW Help file. The variable will automatically apply the correct smoothing level for every frequency range .....

"Variable smoothing applies 1/48 octave below 100 Hz, 1/3 octave above 10 kHz and varies between 1/48 and 1/3 octave from 100 Hz to 10 kHz, reaching 1/6 octave at 1 kHz. Variable smoothing is recommended for responses that are to be equalized"

I wish the writter of REW would explain it better, but the above means::

For Freq's 100 hz and below it will auto smooth to 1/48
For Freq's 100 hz up to 1000hz it will gradually auto increase smoothing from 1/48 to 1/6
For Freq's 1000hz up to 10,000hz will auto apply 1/6 smoothing
For Freq's 10,000 up to 20,000 will auto apply 1/3 smoothing..
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I use these RTA settings. 100 Averages, which is 4 sweeps with the microphone from ear to ear.

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So I'm taking the measurement inside the RTA window using 1/48, then when I'm using the EQ window or Overlays window, I apply the VAR-Smoothing.
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This makes sense. Take the mesurments with the most.... octave mesurments? Then add smothing afterwards.
YES. The 1/48 measurement will have all the depth and detail of the Freq Response. Then Smoothing to make the response EQable.......
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I'm not very familiar with the AF tuning guide, I tried it a little bit years and years ago when it first came out.....I will say its a good place to 'get-started' with tuning ....

A very very General rule for Smoothing and which RTA 1/? to use is...

Tweets use 1/3
Mid-Range use 1/6
Mid-Base use 1/24
Subs use 1/48

The things is..... VAR-Smoothing does the above perfectly automatically.

I would recommend removing the check for "use bars on spectrum", also remove check for "use bars on RTA" Those bars suck, and makes it difficult to make the correct EQ adjustments....
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Just wanted to clarify something.... the AF guide is a method on how to tune each SIDE of your stereo to eachother, its not meant to be used for each speaker the be measured and EQ'ed. Meaning its a guide that shows how tune the entire Left side of system playing, once its tuned close to the House Curve, then you match the entire Right Side of stereo to match the Left Side. Again, its used to tune each side to a House Curve, its not used for tuning to Speaker Target Curves. When you are mixing the two different tuning methods, yeah... I can see how it can get very confusing.

((so, yeah I understand why the AF guide recommends using 1/3 as it makes it very easy for beginners))

All the advice I have given, are for the Speaker Target Curve method..... ya gotta pick a method, and focus on how to perform its tuning techniques.... either do one OR the other, but not both.
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I can make some screen shots for you.... but I have a question for you first..... Are you planning of using the AF tuning guide to tune your system or are you planning on using the Speaker Target Curve method... Have you even seen the Jazzi Tunning Companion Excel spreadsheet ?

That overlap settings really depends on the CPU speed of you Laptop.... if you have an older Win 7 PC with an I3 CPU, id leave it at %50 percent. If you have a newer PC, bump it up to %93.75
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Then I was going to do the individual by them selves, then together. Then the left side and right side. Then all together.
Yes, this method will give you the best results.
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I'll post up some examples how to apply Var-Smoothing tomorrow... dont work to hard !
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First thing I need to do is take back some of my statements I made in Post #70, in regards to the AF tuning method and Speaker Target Curve method. I was wrong when I said “When you are mixing the two different tuning methods,... I can see how it can get very confusing. ya gotta pick a method, and focus on how to perform its tuning techniques.... either do one OR the other, but not both.” So yeah, forget I said that. When in fact, you really can perform the some of the AF tuning guide steps after you completed the Speaker Target Curve stuff first.

Its Important to individually tune/EQ each speaker in your system to a Speaker Target Curve as the first steps. After every speaker is done, Then you can use the AF tuning method to complete the whole system tune. The AF tuning method completely ignores individual speaker responses, and just focus’s on entire system response (All Left .vs. All Right) Its useful because its quick and easy, but you will Never have a good solid stage or instrument placement, Phase coherence between speaker pairs almost non-existent and whole system will NOT sound crisp, detailed or well defined, it will be all over the place. But, on the good side of things, it is possible to achieve a good ‘Overall Tone’ for your system by only using the AF method.


In the following examples, I will not be covering how to choose XO points, there is plenty of help on this web-site on how to do that.
I will be giving examples of how to apply Var-Smoothing (Variable Smoothing), and using REW Auto-EQ.

First thing is to set up your RTA window with correct settings… .Set it and forget it. No need to ever use any other RTA setting inside the RTA window, the RTA 1/48 will contain the richest and deepest frequency information possible. In other windows, is when you will apply a smoothing for EQing, and viewing.

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Take some measurements, in my example I have Crossovers already applied to the Tweets and Mid-Range speakers, in my DSP, but no EQ is applied yet.

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Choose CrossOver points and adjust measurement to Target level.

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Below will show how to choose the Var-Smoothing. Always use Var-Smoothing for every speaker as it auto applies the correct smoothing based on the Frequency.

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Click on the Filter Tasks drop down….

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Thanks!... its kinda fun putting that stuff together. But, was any of that info something you didn't already know?
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I knew it had those features but I didn't know how to access any of it. Those measurements I posted in the beginning were my first real attempt to REW. That's when I realized I was completely lost in the software. That plus the lack of free time (that i can actually spend on my car) that I have. I've been reading and watching videos but none were as useful as your post. Thanx 😃

Thats cool that you are doing the upfront research, it defiantly will help you when you decide to move forward.... I understand how work and life can slow this project down... hang in there.

I've seen many of your posts from the last few months, I thought it was so cool of you help so many other peeps here, so I was happy to have a chance to be able to help you out.....
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I knew how to do these things and I’m still going to come back here and follow your walk-through next time, very helpful.

Happy I was able to help out ! ...
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