Freeware Mediaplayer with VST Plugin Room Correction EQ IK Multimedia ARC

Basically every room that you listen in to music changes the frequency balance and dynamics of the perceived music. The average untreated room does this quite drastically and can lead to various problems such as frequency holes or strong boosts as well as reflections, that wash out the original release times of sounds and can also distort localization.

People that I confront with this issue are quite shocked when they hear it for the first time (listening in a fully treated room).  This is something important to know for audio producers but also audio listeners should be more aware of this issue. Your listening experience will improve significantly if you improve your room with acoustic treatments. If you want to really dig into this topic I can suggest this giant wall of text as start: http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

In order to improve the room sound there are basically two options (that can be combined). 1. Room treatment with special material, such as absorbers, to improve the acoustics of the room itself. 2. Equalizers that respond to the room problems and act accordingly, i.e. they raise the frequencies that the room attenuates and vica versa.

Option 1. is the one that enthusiasts and professionals have to look into first but I want to actually make a few notes about room Equalizers or more precisely: The IK Multimedia ARC System and a certain problem with it.

The IK Multimedia Room Correction System ARC is a VST Plugin, that audio producers can plug into their digital work stations, to even out the  problems of their room. (Hopefully in addition to acoustic room-treatment). However, in order to get used to the new sound, there is something quite important missing: The easy ability to listen to other (reference) productions in the same circumstances as when working on own productions. An audio workstation does not really suit as comfortable media-player and I know that a bunch of people are looking for a solution.

So, to finally come to the actual point that I wanted to write about: With Foobar 2000 and the George Yohng’s VST wrapper I finally found a stable solution. Now I can listen to music on a PC with the Room Correction Plugin. There is also a VST Plugin for Winamp but it was made in 2005 and never received an update and works unstable for me. Most importantly it does crash sometimes plus it throws the plugin out each time I load a new track.

So, just grab the freeware Foobar 2000 multimedia-player ( which is a general recommendation, as it is a slick and great player in itself)  http://www.foobar2000.org/ plus http://www.yohng.com/foobarvst.zip and there you go. If you do not know IK Multimedia ARC and want to find out more go to ikmultimedia.com. Please note that IK ARC is not freeware.

UPDATE:

An even better Plugin for Foobar 2000 is the VST Adapter 2.4 by Yegor Petrov. You can plug in many Vst plugins at the same time. Check it out here.

Cheers

Colorsync