If you mix in a bedroom, you've probably wondered whether software could do the job of acoustic panels. It can do part of it, and which part decides whether a plug-in is worth your money.
What a plug-in can fix
Your room's problems reach you as sound at your seat. A plug-in can change what your speakers play, so it can turn down a bass note your room makes too loud. In most small rooms, that boom is the biggest problem.
What it can't fix
- Echo. Sound bouncing off bare walls reaches you a moment late, and a plug-in can't pull it back out of the air. Rugs, curtains, and panels can.
- Notes your room cancels. Some bass notes almost vanish at your seat. Turning them up doesn't help, because the room cancels the boost too.
- A bad seat. In the middle of the room or right against the back wall, moving your chair does more than any plug-in.
Three kinds of tools
An EQ you set yourself
Every DAW comes with an EQ that can cut a booming note. Find the note with a slow sweep, then put a narrow cut there on your master track. It costs nothing. You do the hunting, though, and it only works in that DAW, in that project.
Full room correction
These suites measure your room with a measurement microphone, often from several spots around your seat, then correct the whole range of frequencies for that spot. They can do more than one cut, and they take more setup. Before you buy one, check how much it boosts: turning up a note your room cancels works your speakers harder and rarely brings the note back.
Unboom
Unboom does one thing. It finds the bass note your room exaggerates and turns just that note down, and it never boosts. Setup takes about two minutes: you scan the room with your computer's microphone, or find the boom by ear.
On a Mac, it corrects your music and video apps from the menu bar, and its Audio Unit plug-in does the same inside Logic Pro, GarageBand, MainStage, Ableton Live, FL Studio, REAPER, and LUNA. The plug-in follows the app's room and switch, so one switch turns both off. On Windows, Unboom corrects everything Windows plays on your speakers. There's no DAW plug-in there, and DAWs using ASIO play uncorrected.
Where the plug-in goes
Put room correction last on your master track or main output, after everything else. In REAPER, put it in Monitoring FX instead: REAPER keeps it for every project, and exports skip it.
How to tell it's working
Play a song you know well, one with a busy bass line, and flip the correction off and on a few times. With it on, the bass notes should come out more even, and kick drums should stop hanging in the air. If a note that used to jump out now sits with the rest, the correction found the right one.
Turn it off before you export
A correction on your master track ends up in your export, so bypass it before you bounce. Do the same when you switch to headphones, which never heard your room in the first place.
Fix what's free first
Before you buy anything, move your chair out of the middle of the room, pull your monitors out of the corners, and add something soft for echo, like a rug or curtains. Then find your boom with the free Boom Finder and decide whether a plug-in is worth it. Can you mix in an untreated room? covers the rest of the setup.
FAQ
Does room correction affect my exports?
Yes, when it sits on your master track. Bypass it before you export, or in REAPER put it in Monitoring FX, which exports skip.
Does Unboom's plug-in work in Pro Tools?
Not yet. Pro Tools plays without correction, so it's never delayed.
Do I still need to check my mixes elsewhere?
Yes. Correction makes your room more honest about its worst bass note, and checking on headphones, earbuds, and in the car still catches what the room hides.
Does the plug-in add latency?
No. Unboom's plug-in adds no delay.