iTunes EQ Settings

gphillipk

Registered
Is there a site that shows industry-standard EQ settings for different types of music? I find that I specify the wrong EQ setting for too many songs if I use only what's available in iTunes.
 
The output and EQ settings depend on the equipment that you are using, and the environment that you are listening in. There is no right/wrong settings for a particular type of music.

There a rough guidelines (ie. bass boost to enhance bass, or settings to try and squeeze the best noise out of crappy little speakers), but they are only a starting point really.

To find the best settings you should listen to the music, and tweak the sliders as appropriate.
 
The EQ output is up to the individual preference! There is no right way or wrong way. If you asked you about how a certain song should sound, you will a hundred different answers. Everybody thinks they are a audio expert.

In iTunes you can set the EQ globally using the EQ button at the bottom of the iTunes main window. However you can specify a different EQ for each and every song if you like. You can do this by highlighting the individual song and do a Get Info (from iTunes File menu) and go to the Options tab. Also if you don't want to go through all the then go to iTunes->Edit->View Options and check the EQ, then a EQ column will come up for each song. The iTunes Help menu would have told you this.
 
There was this thread "A 'perfect' iTunes equalizer setting" over at macosxhints.com a while ago - and somebody said that the following setting is close to perfect:

db +3, +6, +9, +7, +6, +5, +7, +9, +11, +8 db

I agree with what everyone's said: eq settings really depend on the kind of music you're listening to, plus personal preference; but I do quite like the setting above.

Give it a try... and check for yourself...

patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
Not only does it depend on the type of music, but also the type of equipment used and the quality of the original recording, like others have said.

I recommend using absolutely no EQ settings at all -- that way, you'll get as close to what the artist intended as possible. Excess bass in a song changes the way the artist intended it to be delivered, as does excess trebel or midrange.

If you're experiencing lackluster performance from your digital audio setup, I would check these things in order first before resorting to modifying and distorting the music with an EQ:

1) Quality of original recording
2) Speakers (cheap-o speakers? EQ won't help)
3) Audio hardware (amplifier? pre-in? type of connection?)

If you're stuck with crappy speakers and a shoddy amplifier, I would recommend modest EQ settings -- not to the extreme of cranking the bass/midrange/high-end, though. If your equipment is up-to-par, though, I would highly recommend a flat EQ setting (turn it all the way off preferrably), as that will faithfully reproduce the original recording the best.
 
ElDiabloConCaca: well, the type of music and equipment goes without saying... (It's 9.27 AM here, and my brain's still slow...)

But no EQ settings at all? I have to disagree... I do have very cheap speakers on my Mac, and the settings I found on macosxhints.com did improve the overall sound quality a lot.

What do I care about the artist's intention? (I'm a musician myself, and if anyone wants to play around with my recordings: so what?) Besides: you often hear musicians say in interviews how they would like to be able to redo this record or that because the technology is now so much better than when they first released it...

My 2 cents,
patrice
http://www.patriceschneider.com/apple-osx/blog/
 
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