# What do I need to get started?



## voxshall (Oct 20, 2014)

Hello I would like to use REW to help determine where to place my listening seat for smoothest bass response in my room. I watched the youtube for REW and have a few questions about equipment I need. 

1) Will the mic on my Mac computer work?
2) Will my AKG D70 mic work or do I need a special measuring mic.
3) Do I need a sound card? Will using my Apogee Duet work the same?

Many thanks


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

voxshall said:


> 1) Will the mic on my Mac computer work?


It will work but will give very poor measurement results as the responses of laptop mics are usually a long, long way from flat.


> 2) Will my AKG D70 mic work or do I need a special measuring mic.


The AKG wouldn't be suitable as it rolls off very early at the low end, isn't very flat and is a cardiod - room measurement mics should be omni


> 3) Do I need a sound card? Will using my Apogee Duet work the same?


Apogee Duet would be great, but the mac's onboard audio would probably also be fine (if you had a line level signal to feed it).


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## voxshall (Oct 20, 2014)

Thanks for the reply John 

Ok I will buy a ECM8000 mic and use my apogee duet. 

So to create a loop to calibrate my duet - I just plug the duet output into the duet input. Hopefully I can do this with guitar cables as the duet has 1/4 inch jack inputs.

To calibrate the ECM8000 I find some calibrated file on the internet plug it into the REW program??

I have been reading up on this stuff and its hard to get my head around, but I think I'm starting to get somewhere.


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## voxshall (Oct 20, 2014)

So I tried calibrating the duet. I plug the inputs into the outputs and the input has no signal and I don't know how to increase the inputs signal. The connections look like this.









Anyone have any ideas?


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

The sound card calibration is only necessary with cheap sound cards, so you’re good there. Beyond that the sound card’s monitor need to be turned off in order to work with REW. If the sound card doesn’t have this provision you won’t be able to use it. On top of that Mac operating systems have a history of issues with REW. There are threads on the topic that you can search for.

Regards, 
Wayne


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Make sure you use the latest V5 beta version available at the end of this thread, it fixes the problems that were in Apple's JRE.


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## voxshall (Oct 20, 2014)

I just found this on another thread - 

> The older Duet (1) should not work with REW ( since it's interface is via FireWire // meaning it's 2 inputs won't be recognized by REW ) .

<> EarlK

Read more: http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/rew-forum/50919-soundcard.html#ixzz3GoToOJC6

So I guess I can't use my Duet due to firewire.

Can someone give me the best exact way to get started with accurate measurements from 25 Hz to 300 Hz for as little dollars as possible. 

I don't have a mic or a soundcard other than duet. So do I get a usb mic and if so which one or a sc and mic. I live in New Zealand by the way. Many thanks  Love the look of REW its an amazing program.


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

That was in 2011, Firewire soundcards on the Mac are fine with the REW beta version I linked to above.


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## voxshall (Oct 20, 2014)

Thanks John, so I just need to work out if the Duet has a monitor off switch and I'm good to go. Do you think the ECM8000 mic is the best inexpensive mic to use with the Duet, if so I'll grab that and get into it. Yes I got the v5 beta version and it seems to work great so far. Thanks for all your help.


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

The ECM8000 used to be pretty popular, and there is a generic cal file for it on the downloads page, but as you will see from the image on that page the spread of responses is pretty broad and Cross Spectrum Labs, who sell calibrated mics, stopped selling the ECM8000 last year due to quality problems, so it's hard to recommend ECM8000 any more. Lately several USB mics have become available which come with calibration files and include sensitivity calibration data so REW can show correct SPL figures with them without calibrating against an external SPL meter. Of those I'd recommend the UMIK-1 from MiniDSP.


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## dave.riley3 (Oct 21, 2014)

This is really a great program and easy to get to use...
Under an advice thread we are wished 'good luck' with using a multi-band equalizer to 'correct' a room...
The place I am trying to EQ is about a 60x60x30' room...
I can see just what the room looks like acoustic wise thanks to REW, but shall I look for a better piece of equipment than a 31 band equalizer??
Maybe a 'parametric' but I am not familiar with those...
Any suggestions appreciated...
TNX from Dave Riley


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## Wayne A. Pflughaupt (Apr 13, 2006)

A parametric EQ is definitely a better tool for equalizing a sound system than a 1/3-octave EQ. Here is an article that details how they work.

Regards, 
Wayne


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