ARC 4

Mix faster and more confidently than ever

ARC 4 combines an ultra-accurate measurement microphone, analysis software and correction plug-in to improve the accuracy of your monitoring in any room. Work faster and more freely, confident you’re hearing your music itself and that your music will sound great everywhere.

With a faster, easier calibration process, breathtaking new more natural algorithm, and the ability to manage profiles on ARC Studio hardware, everything about ARC 4 is designed to let you focus on your music and create audio that translates to any system effortlessly.

Key Features

Measurement mic, room analysis software and correction plug-in
Improves frequency balance and stereo imaging in any room
Work faster and create better mixes without expensive room treatment
Virtual monitoring emulates the sound of common listening devices

What’s new

All-new more natural correction algorithm for incredible results
Expanded virtual monitoring adds 20+ iconic studio monitors profiles
"Quick Mode" for room processing with just 7 measurement points
Updated graphics and user interface with dark and light mode options
Ability to manage and switch profiles on ARC Studio hardware

Trust what you hear

A room can have a big impact on how you hear your music. Walls, furniture, and other objects reflect and absorb sound, creating complex artifacts that change the frequency balance and stereo imaging, and can cause your carefully balanced mix to fall apart in other spaces.

With ARC, you can detect and account for these issues without expensive room treatment. ARC precisely measures the sound of your room in moments, then generates a correction profile you can load into the ARC plug-in for your DAW or the new ARC Studio hardware, which operates independently from your computer, to ensure what you’re hearing is how your music really sounds.

Learn more about ARC Studio

You’ll mix faster and with less effort, and your work will translate better than ever.

An all-new listening experience

ARC 4 uses a brand-new and more natural analysis and correction algorithm that delivers results you can’t find in other digital room correction systems. By measuring your room across a 3D space around the listening position, IK’s award-winning VRM™ (Volumetric Response Modeling) technology creates a 3D snapshot of your room, identifying problematic issues without over-processing the sound.

You have the choice of going through a 21-point ultra-accurate measurement process or a 7-point quicker one. Both will sound great. The longer measurement is more adequate for fixed installations and permanent setups, while the shorter measurement is ideal for on-the-go or ad-hoc setups, making it possible to measure the room in less than a minute.

The result is an incredibly natural-sounding correction like you’ve never heard. ARC 4 recreates the feeling of working in a properly-tuned room, without sounding “corrected.”

Measure quickly and precisely

Just connect a measurement mic to your interface and launch the step-by-step room analysis software. You’ll be guided through a series of measurements across your listening position, and with ARC’s flexible placement options you can create measurements of multiple monitors and listening positions, so you can virtually adjust the sweet spot for clients or different setups.

More microphone options

ARC 4 includes a precision-manufactured MEMS room analysis microphone for the most precise measurements possible. But you can also use generic measurement microphones, and even load a mic calibration file for superior accuracy.

Instantly apply correction

Once you’ve generated your profiles, open your DAW and insert ARC 4 across the master bus. ARC applies a precise correction filter using advanced processing to compensate for your room’s acoustics with a higher level of accuracy than ever before.

Now you’re hearing your music free of the impact of room acoustics. You can work confident you’re hearing exactly what was recorded, and your work will translate to other rooms and systems better than ever.

Deep control to fine-tune your correction

Customize your setup for ideal performance no matter your preference. ARC 4 offers deep control over each profile so it always sounds its best:

Target curves

ARC 4 comes with 9 factory tailored target curves suitable for most situations. The default curve offers optimally balanced results with Flat and other specific curves for different needs or setups.

Adjustable correction range

By default, ARC corrects the entire frequency spectrum, but you can define limits to both upper and lower correction ranges separately. This is useful if you want to preserve the unique voicing of your monitors or are just looking to correct a certain frequency range.

Variable resolution and smoothing

Adjust the resolution of the correction filter to use more or fewer frequency bands. Depending on your room’s unique sound, this lets you achieve more surgical correction, or a broader, smoother balance.

2 Phase Modes

Natural and Linear phase modes ensure precise stereo imaging. Natural mode improves the phase response, while linear phase maintains the original inter-channel phase response, which may be preferable in certain rooms and conditions.

Over 20 studio monitor emulations

ARC 4 emulates the frequency and phase response of the most famous studio monitors on the market, working in tandem with the ARC settings for the best possible sound in any listening environment. This is ideal for testing a mix on different reference systems quickly, without ever leaving the sweet spot and ARC’s calibration.

You can also use virtual monitoring to intentionally shape your sound to emulate devices like TVs and car audio systems, as well as many popular studio monitors, to quickly listen to your mix on other "virtual" systems to ensure a perfect sound translation.

ARC emulating Portable Bluetooth speakers

Portable BT Speaker

Smartphone

Powerful metering at a glance

ARC provides useful tools to speed up your workflow, with Peak, RMS, Loudness and dynamic range metering. And a real-time spectrum analyzer shows how your music was interacting with your room before correction, showing you how the room was affecting the sound.