# REW Sound Card calibration issues



## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

Hello all, 

This is my first post here, and I"ve been trying to set up REW and am having issues with the scound card calibrations. I can't seem to get any assemblance of a flat response. I have both on board sound and a creative soundblaster live x-fi "music". I have the loopback hooked up and both windows and REW set to 44.1. Mic Boost is off as well. I've tried both channels and my graphs are looking like: 










ANy ideas how I can get it flat?


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

Hopefully now that I have 5 posts the picture will show up?


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

kcnitro07 said:


> Hello all,
> 
> This is my first post here, and I"ve been trying to set up REW and am having issues with the scound card calibrations. I can't seem to get any assemblance of a flat response. I have both on board sound and a creative soundblaster live x-fi "music". I have the loopback hooked up and both windows and REW set to 44.1. Mic Boost is off as well. I've tried both channels and my graphs are looking like:
> 
> ...


It looks like the noise floor of an unconnected input, possible problems would be the input selection in Windows, the loopback connection itself or which connectors it is plugged in to. It is worth making sure you are getting output from REW first by linking the output to headphones or your AV system.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

I plugged my avr into the output and got sound and plugged a mic into the input and windows recognized it and I could hear the input


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

kcnitro07 said:


> I plugged my avr into the output and got sound


That's good


> and plugged a mic into the input and windows recognized it and I could hear the input


That's not good. If you hear what the mic is picking up that means the mic signal is being fed to the output, which means there is a feedback loop. If you are on Win 7 you need to make sure the "Listen to this device" box is *not* checked on the properties for the input you are using (on the Listen tab). You also need to check the Advanced tab and make sure the input is set for 2-channel operation.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

JohnM said:


> That's good
> That's not good. If you hear what the mic is picking up that means the mic signal is being fed to the output, which means there is a feedback loop. If you are on Win 7 you need to make sure the "Listen to this device" box is *not* checked on the properties for the input you are using (on the Listen tab). You also need to check the Advanced tab and make sure the input is set for 2-channel operation.


It is not checked, I'm apologize, I mis-spoke. I don't "hear" it through the avr, I just see the levels move as I speak while the mic is plugged in. I do notice that with the loopback connected, the sound meter next to "microphone" in the windows 7 sound configuration is moving...I'm guessing it should not be picking up input with nothing being sent to the soundcard?


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

kcnitro07 said:


> I do notice that with the loopback connected, the sound meter next to "microphone" in the windows 7 sound configuration is moving...I'm guessing it should not be picking up input with nothing being sent to the soundcard?


Typically when you plug something into an onboard soundcard input on Win 7 Windows will detect the connection and select that input automatically. You need to make sure that the input you are using for the loopback has been selected as the active input on the "Recording" tab of the Windows Sound panel (green tick next to it). May be worth posting screenshots of the Recording tab and the Properties tabs for the soundcard input.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

Hopefully its large enough you can see.


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

Bit too small to read, but it looks like the Microphone input is selected on the soundcard instead of line in. You need to select (and use) the line in connection for the soundcard calibration and make sure the properties for line in are set correctly.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

my soundcard has one of those "flexijacks" it says mic/line in on the same radio button. If I change the "mode" to "audio creation mode" it switches it to line in, but then there is no sound in the calibration.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

OK so I switched it to "entertainment mode" says ready on the line in and unavailable on mic. I unmuted the line in and ran the calibration and I get this: 










This looks just like one of the examples in the help file, but I can't find anything about "monitoring" like the help says and the line-in does not show up on the playback mixer that I can find.


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

doh, I found the line in mute, Had to go into the speakers on the playback and mute line in on the levels tab. Still looks odd to me though:


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## JohnM (Apr 11, 2006)

That looks fine, time to move on to measuring


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## kcnitro07 (Feb 15, 2012)

I took a few measurements, but am awaiting my buddy who has an omnimic to come over so we can compare the graphs. Just want to see the differences. 

Any idea why I can have 5 graphs and 3 will be aligned and the other 2 are aligned but there is like a 5 dB difference in some areas and not others....buts its steady across, like the graph looks identical except two are louder in some areas....hmmm hard to explain, should have screenied the graphs, but I was tired.


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## alexandertol (Jan 18, 2013)

Hi,

I have the same problem with my laptop. Could you please give me the correct settings.

Thanks


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