I am currently (re) beginning my journey into room treatments and EQ. I am slowly getting more and more back into this hobby after 3-years of spending my spare time (and then some. . .) playing guitar, writing songs, etc. as a hobby.
My system is completely PC based, which you can see below in my sig.
I have been looking into room treatments and even room measurements. I will be able to take accurate measurements of my room early next week and will be getting some room treatments in about a month. I will also be re-integrating a sub into my system then, too.
Well, over the last few weeks, I've also been trying to find some programs that can work with iTunes or Foobar to do some EQ. I figured since I'm PC based, why do any EQ after it has gone through my DAC. . .or even before, adding another component, etc.
Last night, I stumbled upon some programs that can let you do just that. . . and they're pretty cool.
1. You need
Virtual Audio Cable ($30 for full access. Can try it out for free, but you'll have a woman's voice reminding you every 30 seconds or so that it's a demo.)
This is a program that grabs the audio signal from ANY program that is processing audio. It doesn't manipulate the signal at all. Just allows access to it.
2. You then need
VST Host (Freeware.)
It took quite awhile for me to figure out how to run these together, but once I did, it's pretty easy. For anyone interested who can't figure it out, I will posts some steps later.
Anyways, Virtual Audio Cable will take the audio signal and allow it to run through VST Host. What VST Host allows you to do is add any VST effect into the signal chain. A VST effect is typically used in music mixing / recording software to add effects, EQ, phase, compression, etc. There are TONS of FREE VST effects out there. So, last night, I simply added a parametric EQ I found. Knowing some of my room nodes, etc., I briefly experimented with this with good results. Not only can you add VST effects, but you can add multiples of the same effect.
Now, you can save your settings in VST Host, but when you load it, it just has the effect(s) in the chain with their default settings. You can save a setting of the effect, but you have to go into the effect and load it. There may be a way to have it open up with the settings pulled up, but I haven't figured it out yet. I also haven't spent much time on this, either.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to using Room EQ Wizard to get a response curve of my room from my listening position, then going from there.
Once I get my sub back up and running, I do plan on getting an outboard parametric EQ for that. With my set-up, there isn't a way to control the sub separately. I'm sure just EQing on the PC end in lower frequencies could help, but doing so will have some effect on the mains. With an outboard, I will have much more flexibility and can deal with any phasing issues separately, too.
I haven't figured out yet how to work this combo with ASIO or WASAPI. VST Host can work with ASIO, but in my very brief attempt, I couldn't get the combo of VST Host and Virtual Audio Cable to work with it. However, the cool thing about Virtual Audio Cable is that you can set up signal chains. Again, VAC doesn't manipulate the signal, it just allows access to it. I figure I can set up another "cable." The set-up would look like this: "Cable" --> VST Host & VST effects --> "Cable" --> ASIO4All. I'll try this later and report my success.
On top of all this, I plan on upgrading my speakers in March or April and going active with them. As such, instead of getting the popular Behringer DCX unit, I would go this route: PC based EQ (again, based on room frequency response, etc.) --> DAC/Pre --> "high-end" crossover --> Amps. This way, there wouldn't be an additional ADA conversion from the DCX (or with the other way to use the DCX, would still avoid it's DAC). Does this sound like it would work? In my mind, this should be a better way of going "active" then the DCX route. Or, am I missing something???
With all this, I think an ideal product would be a preamp / processor with: 1. A high-end USB DAC; 2. Up to 4 pair of pre-outs that can be separately assigned EQ and crossover settings from a PC. Now, there are PC soundcards that can kinda do this. Not sure if each output can be assigned separate crossover frequencies, though.
