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Who learned you how to REW? 🎚🎛🎤

8658 Views 135 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  oabeieo
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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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It looks like you’re viewing your measurements under the SPL & PHASE tab, click the ALL SPL tab to view all your measurements at once.
I’m learning REW partly because I came here in August asking if I should buy new speakers and you said that I should buy a Helix DSP and study the forums, lol. So I bought the Helix and am studying the forums! My UMIK-1 disconnects whenever I bump the cord, too, so I’m just super careful with it while measuring.
All SPL tab 🤔, got it. Thanx! How's that Helix treating you?

My UMIK-1 would just randomly cut out them come back. I tried different cords and it did the same thing. I got fed up a got the UMIK-2. But I didn't get a chance to use it till recently. The Helix Auto tune does an excellent job, even with a finicky mic.
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It looks like you’re viewing your measurements under the SPL & PHASE tab, click the ALL SPL tab to view all your measurements at once.
I’m learning REW partly because I came here in August asking if I should buy new speakers and you said that I should buy a Helix DSP and study the forums, lol. So I bought the Helix and am studying the forums! My UMIK-1 disconnects whenever I bump the cord, too, so I’m just super careful with it while measuring.
I didn't get to play with it today before I started my shift tonight 😔. But this helped

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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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Honda, i hope you are not a supervisor at a nuclear power plant, doing all that reading at work😊
anyone want to put on an online rew For dummies course, I’m in. Its nice to know I’m not the only one whos eyes glaze over reading the rew instructions.
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I also learned from Jeff Mery and a few others on Youtube. I started reading Rew Documentation, then realized after an hour That I had no interest in reading all these pages. I started learning tuning from the Audiofrog guide, but now I do my own thing with the tips I picked up from the guide. I still have trouble with the target curve overlay in the EQ tab, so for the past year, I have never used it. Over the past two weeks I have been playing with In REW EQ tab for filter export to the MiniDsp 8x12. So instead of using a target curve generated using Jazz spreadsheet, I have been playing with the room curve setting to create a target curve and Crossover slope from the driver measurements. I have the same issue with my Umik1, which drives me crazy. A temporary fix is to go into the preference tab/soundcard then, switch the input device from the Umik then switch back. The Umik will work until the next time you get the dreaded no input device found or whatever it says. My current laptop I got for tuning I got from Walmart 2 years ago is a Lenovo Ideapad 1l for $135. Lenovo Ideapad 1i, 14.0" Laptop, Intel Pentium N5030, 4GB RAM, 128GB eMMC Storage, Cloud Grey, Windows 11 in S Mode, 82V6001DUS - Walmart.com
If you’re getting in input on the Umik 1 you need to find the windows drivers that are taking over the mic. I haven’t had an issue since I disabled them. There’s a thread by me on av nirvana - the forum for rew
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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.
So you're using an averaged graph overlayed a live graph as you EQ the dsp for the live location?
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.
Thank you 😃
Honda, i hope you are not a supervisor at a nuclear power plant, doing all that reading at work😊
anyone want to put on an online rew For dummies course, I’m in. Its nice to know I’m not the only one whos eyes glaze over reading the rew instructions.
If Homer can do it so can I. 🤣

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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
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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Hopefully this help show what I'm talking about....
Yes, these are the lil tricks I've been looking for. Thank you. Not necessarily that trick it self. But lil things like that can help a noob like me.
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I'll be back. Gonna go have a discussion with my brother about that damn laptop.........
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I can sympathize with newbies as I am one of them. It's very frustrating when you don't even know where to start. I've watched many videos and tons of reading over the past couple years and just keep getting more frustrated and intimidated. The biggest obstacle I have is how to connect my laptop to the mic and the dsp. I've never seen an explanation on the proper sequence or different ways to connect the devices. I believe everyone thinks it's common knowledge, like tying your shoe, and it's not mentioned. I'll give an example. What if your laptop only has one usb port. With this scenario you can't connect your dsp and your umik- 1 simultaneously. What to do? Lets say you have 2 usb ports and there both being used by the mic and the dsp. At this point how do you generate the needed tones from REW for it to do it's magic. I actually thought I didn't need to connect my laptop to my system to play tones or pink noise and that I could just use my test cd to generate what's needed, only to find out that this will only get you so far. I assume I probably need to connect my laptop to my 3.5mm aux jack VIA the laptops headphone output. These are the very basic things that keep me from getting anywhere with my setup. Totally lost on the hardware basics and then I start looking at all the intimidating REW videos and all the technical jargon, I just end up walking away.
Hope to be hooking up with a few on here in the near future so I can literally be schooled on how to get started. Then the fun will begin.
You can use a different source to send audio to the DSP. But if your laptop only has one USB port i would invest in a splitter so you can connect both devices. If you have two usb ports you can connect to your dsp to generate tones and connect your mic to capture them. The first video linked by @Dwarteacher covers this in some detail.

It's both encouraging and disheartening that i'm not the least skilled REW user here. Car systems take a lot of time to tune and it's hard to just jump into messing with something that took hours to acheive. For anyone that has an extra dsp laying about, I'd recommend starting using REW in a home system trying to mess around with target curves on powered subwoofers. Or just to take measurements of your mains. For whatever reason the stakes seem a lot lower which made it easier to get to experimenting.
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If you’re getting in input on the Umik 1 you need to find the windows drivers that are taking over the mic. I haven’t had an issue since I disabled them. There’s a thread by me on av nirvana - the forum for rew
Can you link to that? Sometimes my UMIK-1 measurements go bananas. Other times REW just doesn't recognize the cal file.
Honda, i hope you are not a supervisor at a nuclear power plant, doing all that reading at work😊
anyone want to put on an online rew For dummies course, I’m in. Its nice to know I’m not the only one whos eyes glaze over reading the rew instructions.
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.
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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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You can use a different source to send audio to the DSP. But if your laptop only has one USB port i would invest in a splitter so you can connect both devices. If you have two usb ports you can connect to your dsp to generate tones and connect your mic to capture them. The first video linked by @Dwarteacher covers this in some detail.

It's both encouraging and disheartening that i'm not the least skilled REW user here. Car systems take a lot of time to tune and it's hard to just jump into messing with something that took hours to acheive. For anyone that has an extra dsp laying about, I'd recommend starting using REW in a home system trying to mess around with target curves on powered subwoofers. Or just to take measurements of your mains. For whatever reason the stakes seem a lot lower which made it easier to get to experimenting.
That first link has many videos. Which specific video has the information?

You also mentioned connecting rew to the DSP. This suggest bypassing the head unit and line out converter which makes no sense to me. Could you elaborate on that? Maybe this is all part of my confusion. I thought all test tones and pink noise and whatnot had to go through the head unit up stream of the DSP. After all isn't it the source material were trying to manipulate?
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