After that, I'd just adjust the hardware EQ slightly on the stereo if needed.Īs an audio engineer and producer with 18 years of experience in the field working in some of the 'finest studios in the world', I'm confident in saying that this approach is backwards.Įqualizers in both the analog and digital realm do subtractive filtering far better than additive filtering. If you want better sound, I recommend encoding the signal at a higher bit rate and using superior encoders.
To someone with a set of ears, this sounds terrible, but they are used to it. This is why some guys have the bass all the way up and the loudness engaged on their stereo. It's like instead of eating a nice meal followed by a nice dessert, you have a gallon of chocolate ice cream every time.įinally, our ears get used to different EQ settings. Unfortunately overusing this makes everything sound terrible, and produces "ear fatigue". What you can do, is compress the sound so more of it will be up there. All forms of digital audio have a maximum number that any sound can be, and you can't go above that. Second, on the subject of some bands recording their songs "at a higher volume", you really can't. If you do use a settine that makes everything louder, use the preamp slider to bring the overall volume back down. The downside is that this may put some stuff over the top and you'll get distortion. Using this EQ approach, you will begin to pick out slight variations between the songs that indicate the taste of the producer and the artist which you may not have realized before.Īs someone who used to own a recording studio, I'd like to make a couple of comments.įirst off, the poster who mentioned that this setting makes everythign louder is right. Now you can sit back and listen to the entire album just as the artist and mastering engineer intended it to be heard. Apply that 'album' preset to each song on the record, and you'll find that presto!, you've re-created the hyper-expensive mastering environment that your artist used to finalize their music before shipping it to you. Instead, try and pick your favorite song (which is almost certainly the one you've listened to the most, and are the most aurally familiar with) and make a preset for that one. There is no reason to try and adjust the iTunes EQ for each song on the same album. Your goal should be to make the whole album sound as good on your own speakers as you can. I'm a sound engineer by trade, and I just wanted to point out that you might have used more time than necessary by naming a preset for each of your songs.Īlbums are mastered with a very expensive set of speakers and given an EQ 'preset' before they are pressed to CD for shipping. "I did this with almost every song, but a lot of songs in my library are similar in style, so I just used one setting on those." This article is linked on our links pages, but I thought it worth a mention here, too.] It also offers some good general advice on the use of the equalizer.
#Setting equalizer for mac professional
If you're interested in the operation of the iTunes equalizer in general, has a great article, written by Rich Tozzoli, Senior Editor of Surround Professional Magazine, that explains each of the sliders in detail. I've been using the above settings for a week or so now, and I must say that my music now sounds better - it may be less "true" to the original, but it sounds better to my admittedly untrained ear. However, due to the varying quality of computer speakers, signal loss due to MP3/AAC encoding, and non-ideal speaker setups, you might find that your music does sound better to you using a non-flat equalizer setting. I further realize that the use of any equalizer setting other than "flat" means that you're no longer listening to the music as recorded on the master. [ robg adds: I realize that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' equalizer setting, hence the use of quotes in the title.
My home computer speakers are ablaze with sound now. These settings produce absolutely the best balance I've ever heard. Make sure you check the "On" box to activate the equalizer, too. The image to the left ( full-size image) shows about what it should look like when you're done. Open the equalizer, and from the pop-up menu, select "Make Preset." Call it "Perfect," because it is, and set the following levels, from left to right (skip the Preamp section):ĭb +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 db There are a number of pre-defined settings, but the MacFormat tip contained a different set of suggested levels. It was submitted by an anonymous user.Īre you somewhat disappointed with the output from iTunes? If so, you might try using the equalizer (Command-2, or the third button from right at the bottom of the main window) to modify the output levels at various frequencies.
This hint is really only for iTunes, and I found it in MacFormat's September 2004 Issue.
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