Balance Mastering Shares Funktion-One Impulse Responses from The Hive Project

London-based mastering house Balance Mastering has released a free set of impulse responses from the Funktion-One sound system at The Hive Project nightclub. Funktion One is known as the industry standard in club systems for their clean, painstakingly-tuned output, installed in the most iconic electronic music venues around the world (Funktion-One founder Tony Andrews even gave a TEDx talk on the spiritual perils of bad sound).

For those that don’t know, convolution reverb simulates the characteristics of a real space by sampling the acoustic response of a room. By popping these impulse responses into a convolution plugin in a DAW, like Ableton Live’s Convolution Reverb, Logic Pro’s Space Designer, or Pro Tools’ Space, the output of a mix can be tested as if were being played through Funktion-One speakers. With this particular set of IR’s, you can get a better sense of how your records will sound when played on a standard nightclub system.

Of course, IR’s aren’t completely accurate, since it’s impossible to replicate the various physical inconsistencies of speakers and spaces, but the Balance team is very confident in the result. “We spent a large amount of time tweaking and shaping these impulse responses in the time and frequency domain whilst on site by ear, so they sound as close as possible to the real thing.” When tested on open-back headphones, you can remove your mix from your own room acoustics and get a fairly accurate sense of your mix on the Funktion-One system.

Download the impulse responses here, and check out Balance Mastering’s professional engineering services as well.