I've been testing out my studio to see what acoustic treatments I need to
do. I don't have a Real Time Analyzer (RTA) so the next best thing is to
use a Radio Shack sound pressure meter and a bunch of test tones to figure
out the frequency response of the room. To make this easier for myself
(because by nature, I'm lazy), I wanted a track that would contain the test
tones needed and a simple announcement of the next frequency. I could list
the frequencies in a spreadsheet and record the values from the meter,
change something in the room or on the monitoring system and repeat the
process.
I sat down with SayIt from AnalogX and SoundForge and created a file with a
series of 10 second sine waves spaced from 10Hz to 20KHz with synthesized
announcements of each frequency. SayIt provided the announcements and
SoundForge allows you to synthesize a waveform with a specified frequency
and duration. Analog warmth was ∗not∗ desired here. I tended to bunch up
the frequencies in the low end around 100Hz since that seems to be where
there are lots of problems in studios. The test runs about 6 minutes and
change.
You can find these files at:
http://www.alt-mode.com/noise/TestTones.aifhttp://www.alt-mode.com/noise/TestTones.wavhttp://www.alt-mode.com/noise/TestTones.mp3Note: The sine waves in these files are 0db Full Scale. In other words
LOUD! Since these cover the full spectrum, please be careful. I'm not
responsible for any damage to hearing, equipment, speakers, small animals,
or bodily functions!
The .wav and .aif files are 35MB and the .mp3 file is 6.3MB. I haven't
done any analysis to see if the .mp3 file is too lossy but I wouldn't use
it for critical testing.
Enjoy and let me know if this was useful for you. I've found some really
interesting problems with my room! Now I just have to figure out how to
handle them...
Eric