These days, all but the most rock-bottom cheap stereo equipment has a graphic equalizer to enable the listener to fiddle with the frequency response of the system. My stereo also comes with preset equalizer patterns labeled “Rock”, “Classical”, etc.
Doesn’t this present a problem for audio engineers who care about the integrity of the recordings they’re making? I’ve seen recording studios with huge banks of sliders that the engineers are always adjusting - these appear to be equalizers. There is obviously a lot of time and expense involved in getting the settings just right, to provide the desired sound. But then some guy buys the recording and plays it through his stereo with the equalizer set all crazy. The effort to get the frequency response right was all for naught. It’s as if a painter very carefully chose the colors for his latest masterpiece, but everyone who comes to look at it is wearing tinted glasses.
How do I as a listener hear the recording as it was meant to be heard? Do the recording engineers try to “guess” how people tend to set their equalizers and then compensate for it with their own settings? Or do they assume we all set our equalizers flat?
Actually the sliders or “pots” you might be talking about are the volume levels of each individual track. Each track’s EQ is adjusted individually for optimum sound reproduction in the studio setting.
The acoustics of the room, car etc. where you listen to the recording will vary. Your EQ allows you to adjust for the particular acoustic characteristics of each environment. So it’s essentially up to you to decide what sounds right to you.
Some systems have pre-sets for different styles of music.
We assume almost every setting will be different. The best mix sounds good on everything so I always try to give the pre-mix a test run on various systems like the car stereo, a cheap tape deck, a regular home system, a computer, and anything else I can get my hands on.
I try to get the mix to sound good on all the systems. If it sounds like utter crap on one of the testers I go back and rethink the mix.
I’ve gotten to know the sound of my recording setup so testing across various players isn’t needed anymore but I always do it when I’m in someone elses studio.
To expand on what jimpatro said: I think you’re mistaking the faders on the mixing desk for sliders on a graphic equaliser, and they’re not the same thing at all. Someone mixing of a multitrack tape (or whetever device they use these days) has complete control of the individual tracks, for instance you can mute track(s) entirely.
At a mixing desk as well as relative volume levels of each track you also have control of: eq of each channel, echo and reverb levels, where the track is panned, compression and gating, all manner of sound effects and so on. Non of these are available once the track has been mixed down to two tracks of stereo. Pulling down a slider on your graphic just puts a notch in the frequency band it can’t remove any thing from the mix.
As for the pre-sets, I would guess the the classical setting was flat, and the rock setting was scooped with boosted low bass and high top (or maybe just with everything maxed out :))
Passing shot. The graphics in stereo systems are toys, a typical profession graphic has 27 to 31 bands.
The purpose of an equalizer is to make any given recording sound the same as its ideal recorded levels, for a particular room/location and sound source combination. Sound drivers (the speakers you use to reproduce the recording) all have a unique frequency response signature, and the speaker placement, size of room and nature of objects within the room will act to absorb or reinforce particular frequencies. The EQ allows you to adjust the reproduced frequency response curve back to “flat” response. Once an EQ is set properly, you shouldn’t need to change it unless you change speakers, speaker position, room arrangement, etc. Unfortunately, this is not how the devices are typically used by consumers.
The best eq devices will have a microphone and a pink noise generator whereby one can set the mic up where they’ll be sitting when they listen to the music and play the pink noise. The spectrum analyzer will then display the relative eq bias of the room and allow for you to correct it with the receiver. This will allow you the best chance at hearing the music the way it was recorded, eliminating the various biases that the speakers, room &c. add to the music.
I think 99% of people these days just use their EQ to turn the bass up.
Agreed. Graphic EQs in consumer gear are utter junk. I’ve seen all-in-one units with three-band “EQ” which is nothing more than bass, midrange and treble.
What we really need is parametric bass EQ, but I guarantee Joe Consumer will still turn all the knobs fully clockwise.
I can’t tell you how many cars/home stereos I’ve seen with all knobs fully clockwise or all sliders fully peaked.
As a follow up questions, isn’t this the same as turning up the volume with the knob/sliders in the flat positions? For example, many car stereos, having limited space, simply put ‘bass’ and ‘treble’ adjuster knobs. Does this tend to peak the entire signal or does it tend to ‘circus tent’ up, like the Cisco Systems logo? Would a 5 position EQ have 5 tent poles or does maxing all raise the over all volume. I suppose it depends on how many adjustable ranges there are…a 30 band job will smooth the peaks to an overall flattish output wrt frequency. I think I’ve answered my own question but perhaps someone more knowledgable can write a bit on this.
Typical equalizers do have the “tent” effect like you mention. However, a parametric equalizer allows more control of this effect and allows you to turn those “tent” tips into more of a rounded hump, expanding and contracting them as well as lowering or upping them.
I concur absolutely. Only mass market audio comes with an equalizer and the more zero’s on the price tag, the lower the probability that you have bass or treble controls either.
You’re on the right track. Home stereo EQs might leave “tent poles” (new tech term!) or might not. The factor consumer EQs don’t let you control is the “Q” or how broad or tight change in frequency effects those around it. Obviously you can’t have a slider for every frequency, but you can compensate by allowing the few that you do have change those near it. To use your tent analogy, a narrow Q would look like tent poles with a lot of slack on the top. A broad Q will look extremely rounded. A four band EQ with a Q control can better approximate a smooth EQ curve, rather than sharp peaks. Hope that helps.