Equalization

[launched]

I don't equalize a song (ie listening to the radio, mp3's, etc) for playback purposes. It's almost like eating in a fine dining establishment and asking for salt and pepper. The chef would without doubt be pissed off. I want to hear it like the chef prepared it for me.

I'm sure some end listeners tweak the eq and ruin our fresh dishes for whatever reason. There is always some reason such as a big room, shitty speakers, bad headphones...

But would you? Please tell me it ain't so!!

[Saijinn Maas]

I do tweak. Albums are usually mixed for a wide common denominator. So what sounds good in your car will not necessarily sound good on ear bud from an iPod. At least not as good as it can. I think it is like the difference between mp3 and cd though. Some people hear it and some people don't. Or doesn't matter to them.

Metallica's Death Magnetic album I thought sounded like crap listening to it in my house on both the big stereo (until I tweaked the eq) and my iPod. But I got it in the car and the difference was immediately noticeable. *shrug* Go figure...

[launched]

That's a good point. Sounds like a lot of work to tweak eq for just one album. Of course, I haven't bought a lot of new albums for quite some time due to the loudness wars. Maybe adjustments are necessary for those.

[Greeny]

Coming from the days of an old dansette record player and mono tape recorders, everything sounds good to me these days!

[Geir]

Coming from the days of an old dansette record player and mono tape recorders, everything sounds good to me these days!

lol ... yeah I can relate to that

I tend to turn down the bass in the car, and boost it a tad if I listen on cheap earbuds, but beyond that I prefer it flat

[launched]

Coming from the days of an old dansette record player and mono tape recorders, everything sounds good to me these days!

That's pretty much what I had as a young kid. Not everyone had boom boxes over here!

[Rata-tat-tat]

Coming from the days of an old dansette record player and mono tape recorders, everything sounds good to me these days!

lol ... yeah I can relate to that

I tend to turn down the bass in the car, and boost it a tad if I listen on cheap earbuds, but beyond that I prefer it flat

I went from a set of JBL earbuds to some cheap $5.00 set and the sound was horrible... couldn't even get them to sound close even through EQ... Ya get what ya pay for.

[launched]

Yeah, flat is fat, baby!

[64Guitars]

I don't equalize a song (ie listening to the radio, mp3's, etc) for playback purposes. It's almost like eating in a fine dining establishment and asking for salt and pepper. The chef would without doubt be pissed off. I want to hear it like the chef prepared it for me.

I'm sure some end listeners tweak the eq and ruin our fresh dishes for whatever reason. There is always some reason such as a big room, shitty speakers, bad headphones...

But would you? Please tell me it ain't so!!

That's sort of backwards. The job of professional recording engineers is to capture a musical performance accurately. It's not their job to enhance (in their opinion) the performance with EQ, compression, etc. These tools can be used to compensate for losses or other problems during the recording process, but the objective should always be to make the recording sound as close as possible to the actual performance.

The recording will be listened to in a wide range of environments using a wide range of playback equipment, which can greatly affect the accuracy of the sound. The recording engineers can't do anything about that and shouldn't try. It's up to the listener to use the controls on their playback equipment to get the best sound possible with their equipment in their environment. So you should use playback EQ to compensate for your environment (a carpeted room with soft furnishings and curtains versus a kitchen with tiled floors, hard furnishings, and blinds, for example) and playback equipment (high end stereo versus car radio, mp3 player, computer, etc).

Today's recording engineers are under pressure from record company management and marketing people to boost the bass and compress the shit out of their recordings to make them louder because they think that's what the public wants and they'll sell more records that way. So, unfortunately, recordings are no longer being made to sound as accurate as possible. That gives you another reason to use playback EQ - to compensate for inaccuracies in the recording process made intentionally for marketing reasons. There's not much you can do about over-compression (unless you happen to have a dbx expander or similar equipment), but you might want to reduce the bass if it's been boosted during recording or mastering.

You have the right idea in your analogy. We shouldn't drown our food in salt and pepper if we want to enjoy it the way the chef intended. But remember that the "chef" is the musicians, not the recording engineers or the record company execs and marketing people. And remember that there will always be losses due to your playback equipment and your listening environment. When listening in my living room (which has a good balance of reflective and absorptive surfaces) on my fairly decent stereo system, I tend to set the EQ flat. I do the same when I listen with good quality headphones. But on my Sony bookshelf system, I tend to turn the treble up to compensate for the poor high end response of the mediocre speakers, and adjust the bass according to the recording. The listener's objective should be to use EQ to restore the sound to the way it was when the music was originally performed. That's not easy to do because you weren't at the original performance and don't know exactly how it should sound. But you have a fairly good idea how each instrument should sound, For example, you know what a good acoustic guitar sounds like. If the acoustic guitar in the recording you're listeng to sounds dull and muffled, then you should boost the treble to compensate. It's unlikely that the guitarist intended it to sound that way, so the dullness must have been introduced by your environment and/or playback equipment. Playback EQ allows you to compensate for that.

[Tony W]

Here's what Mark's gotta take care of before he comes to visit (I've got this trip spread over 3 threads and counting WOOT)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUVKR93Jxso