Rockbox: My ***300*** custom EQ presets you can download and easily use (updated thread)

[DiscoProJoe]

You can download an updated version of these at the following link:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/793688/discoprojoe-s-rockbox-eq-presets-version-3-1-complete-user-guide
 
Happy EQ'ing!
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

[SpiderNhan]

Just wanted to say that I love, Love, LOVE these presets. They sound amazing with both the M-100 and XS and have reunited me with my ignored Sansa Clip Zip and cMoyBB. Fantastic work!

 

[DiscoProJoe]

  Just wanted to say that I love, Love, LOVE these presets. They sound amazing with both the M-100 and XS and have reunited me with my ignored Sansa Clip Zip and cMoyBB. Fantastic work!

 
Glad, glad, glad you like 'em! 

 
I got back from an 80-minute walk (alone) a while ago, and had lots of fun jamming to the rock group Chicago's Greatest Hits 1982-1989 album, along with Huey Lewis & The News' Time Flies...The Best Of compilation -- both of which I've had in my collection for almost 20 years now. This was my first time to crank those albums up since redoing these EQ presets a month ago, and boy, oh, boy,... did they sound the best they've ever sounded! The soundstage, musical detail, and the powerful, hard-hitting deep throb to go with it all were simply...incredible....
 
Since overhauling the EQ presets late last month, I haven't even once used any other category (with headphones) besides the "Optimized" and "OptimizedLite" series. The only exception is when running my portable rig through my desktop stereo, when I turn off the EQ and set everything to flat (using the "0 Flat 0" preset in the original set), and just use the bass and treble controls on the stereo for the speakers. That's the only time that any other preset besides the "Optimized" and "OptimizedLite" ones get used.
 
Anyway, in the last few weeks I figured out a helpful shortcut trick. While you're in the "Now Playing" screen, on a Rockboxed iPod Classic you can press the "select" and "play" buttons simultaneously, and browse the track listing of the album that's currently playing. (You can choose another song to play from there as well.) This helps if you have a large music collection, and if you've already navigated your way back to the EQ preset folders since selecting the current song. This way, your menu cursor will remain in the EQ preset folder you were last in, and you can easily browse the current album's track listing and choose another song from it.
 
Well, thanks for the kudos, SpiderNhan! It's good to see that these presets work well on a Rockboxed Sansa player, too. 

 

 

[DiscoProJoe]

Here's another useful trick. Occasionally, if the "OptimizedLite" categories don't reduce the midbass and lower midrange enough for you and it still sounds colored (I've noticed this on some lounge-music songs, in which some of these recordings have an insane amount of midbass), then here's something you can try:
 
1. Download and install my "Cayin C5" set of EQ presets posted above if you haven't already done so -- even if you don't have a Cayin C5 amp.
2. Turn off the bass-boost switch on your portable amp.
3. In Rockbox, select one of the "OptimizedLite" presets in the "Cayin C5" set, and choose one that's 2-to-3 bass increments higher than you'd normally use with the bass-boost switch on your amp turned on.
 
This trick gives you the equivalent of an "Optimized Ultra Lite" preset, which will reduce the midbass and lower midrange even further.
 
(Without using an EQ at all, the handful of songs that need this trick will probably sound absolutely horrible played through the M-100 headphones without an EQ, if you were wondering.)

 

[DiscoProJoe]

I just created some simple screen-brightness presets that you can quickly and easily change on the fly.
 
Personally, at different times of the day and night, I often change the screen brightness in Rockbox. But it's always a pain-in-the-butt to navigate through all those complex settings menus to get to the one for the brightness.
 
So I just realized I could create some simple .cfg files and put them in their own folder in the root menu. Now, it's an absolute breeze to change the screen brightness! 

 
And if you have a Rockboxed music player, it's easy as pie for *you* to do that, now, too. Just follow these steps:
 
1. Click this link:  XXXXXX
 
(The page should say "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox Screen...resets.zip." The filename has been truncated, which was meant to read, "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox Screen Brightness Presets.")
 
2. Click the blue "Download" button.
 
3. If any sign-in box pops up, just click "No thanks, continue to download."
 
4. Save the file to your desktop.
 
5. Open the .zip file, and drag and drop the "Screen Brightness" folder onto your desktop.
 
6. Connect your Rockboxed music player to your computer.
 
7. Drag and drop the "Screen Brightness" folder onto the root directory of your music player.
 
8. Disconnect your music player from the computer, and reboot the music player.
 
9. On the main menu of Rockbox on your music player, go to "Files."
 
10. The "Screen Brightness" folder should be there. You can now open it, and can choose from 12 different brightness settings.
 
(The choices for the brightness values are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 48. I can't notice any difference in brightness above 48 (the highest possible value is 63), so I didn't include any choices above 48.)
 
Anyway,...Happy Rockboxing! 

 

 

[DiscoProJoe]

  For the brightness settings I've used the 'quickscreens': go to the brightness setting in the LCD Settings, hold the select button, assign it to both the 'Left' and 'Right' quickscreen item. Now you can adjust the brightness from basically any screen/menu within Rockbox by holding the 'menu' button for one second and then pressing left or right. (I've chosen not to assign brightness to 'top' and 'bottom' quickscreen item, as holding Play/Down in the quickscreen will still shut down the iPod

 
Well, everyone, thanks to the illustrious genius of the great r100, I've actually gone ahead and deleted my screen brightness presets from my Files menu, since this Quickscreen method is even-more convenient!
 
I also was able to reassign the "repeat" and "shuffle" options to the top and bottom buttons (in the Quickscreen) by going to the Playback Settings menu and pressing and holding the select button on those.
 
Next, I also was able to add some items to the Shortcuts menu (in the main menu) by connecting the iPod to my PC, going to the .rockbox folder, and creating (or modifying) a shortcuts.txt file. I inserted the following text into that file:
 
[shortcut]
type:setting
data: eq precut
name: EQ precut
 
[shortcut]
type: setting
data: balance
name: Balance
 
I put the EQ precut icon on top (as it will appear in the Shortcuts menu), because I may want to look at what level it's set at (out of curiosity) much more often than needing to adjust the balance. (There's only a small handful of songs where I need to adjust the balance.) But to adjust the EQ precut, I'll always use my personalized precut presets, located in every folder within my big EQ preset directories! It's more convenient that way -- as I usually do this while changing EQ presets.
 
Anyway,...there you have it.  Have fun! 

 

 

[PsiCore]

Dude, this is awesome - some really great basshead settings, but keeping clear sound. You should really post this in the basshead threads (i.e. The Audiophile Bass Lounge).
 
I don't see you using here the additional bass boost on Rockbox (apart from the EQ). Any reason for that?

 

[DiscoProJoe]

  I don't see you using here the additional bass boost on Rockbox (apart from the EQ). Any reason for that?

 
Wow, thanks for the heads up about the additional bass boost! When I first installed Rockbox 8 months ago (in March), I must've played with that bass-boost feature one time and then forgot about it. Perhaps, at that time, I hadn't created any EQ presets yet and just didn't like the way the bass boost sounded by itself. Maybe I also falsely assumed that it would affect the EQ settings and would need an extra precut, or something. (Neither is true!)
 
So since then until last night when seeing your post, I guess I just overlooked this bass-boost feature and forgot about it.
 
So when I tried it last night with it at +12 dB and the bass cutoff at 1, combined with my EQ presets, boy oh boy did it sound awesome! I could even make the rock group Heart's self-titled album (from 1985) pound really hard using my existing "OptimizedLite" presets -- without any coloration or excessive high-end treble on any of the songs! That's quite a feat to achieve with that album.
 
So one of the first things I did after that was assign the bass boost to the "up" and "down" buttons on the Quickscreen menu. I then spent the next few hours A/B'ing several songs with and without this +12 dB bass boost (using suitable EQ presets for with and without the bass boost), and figured out the proper adjustment to the EQ it needs:
 
  64 Hz: -4.0 dB
125 Hz: -2.5 dB
 
That's it. I'm now in the process of creating two additional sets of 300+ EQ presets with this adjustment -- one for the original set, and another for the Cayin C5 set. In these two new sets, I'll include an extra treble increment folder in the "Optimized" and "OptimizedLite" categories (for technical reasons) in case I ever need it.
 
I'll be really busy the next few days with other things, but I'll definitely be posting these two new sets on here for everyone to download once I finish making them and have a chance to listen for a day or two. These .cfg files require a lot of work  -- even to make a modified version of them -- when there's more than 600 total!
 
Stay tuned.... 

 

 

[PsiCore]

 
That's it. I'm now in the process of creating two additional sets of 300+ EQ presets with this adjustment -- one for the original set, and another for the Cayin C5 set. In these two new sets, I'll include an extra treble increment folder in the "Optimized" and "OptimizedLite" categories (for technical reasons) in case I ever need it.
 
I'll be really busy the next few days with other things, but I'll definitely be posting these two new sets on here for everyone to download once I finish making them and have a chance to listen for a day or two. These .cfg files require a lot of work  -- even to make a modified version of them -- when there's more than 600 total!
 
Stay tuned.... 

 

 
 
Great, can't wait for that!
I was also hearing to music with the bass boost mostly put on +12, so I was curious how it would sound with your settings. From your sets right now I'm enjoying the Optimized Less Treble 7 - man, the latest remix album of Enter Shikari sounds incredible with it. I knew, it had some nice bass, but this time it blew me away.
Thanks again for the tremendous work!

 

[DiscoProJoe]

***Edited Friday, December 11, 2015***
 
Well, I've been working hard (off and on when I've had the chance) these past 7 days on what's turned into another major project!
 
After creating the two new sets of EQ presets (with the adjustment in my last post) to go with the +12 dB bass boost feature in Rockbox, I realized I need to completely reorganize everything, and get rid of everything except what you've known as the "Optimized" and "OptimizedLite" categories. I'm also in the process of completely overhauling the first set of presets named "EQ presets" (i.e., "EQ presets 1.") Originally, that set was designed to work with the bass boost switch on the FiiO E12A amp. But I quit using that in April of this year after getting a more-powerful Cayin C5 amp. So therefore, I've now decided to make this regular set of EQ presets sound best without using any physical bass boost switch on any external amp!
 
Basically, I'll be taking my new, beloved, overhauled "Cayin C5" presets that I'll be happily using, and recreating a separate, new "first set" by modifying the "Cayin C5" ones with the following adjustment:
 
  64 Hz: +2.5 dB
125 Hz: +2.0 dB
250 Hz: +1.0 dB
500 Hz: +0.3 dB
 
(You can just use a higher bass increment in the EQ presets to make up the difference if you don't have an external, physical bass boost switch, and it'll sound good.)
 
So anyway, there will still be just two sets of EQ presets: one for use without a physical external bass boost switch, and one for combining with the bass switch on the Cayin C5 amp.
 
Well, to make use of all the new fabulous possibilities with Rockbox's +12 dB bass feature, each set of presets will have the following midbass categories (each in its own folder):
 
Cool
Hot
Lite
Ultra Lite
Wicked
Z Flat
 
Cool is the old "OptimizedLite," Hot is the new "Optimized," Lite is the new "OptimizedLite," Ultra Lite is the new "OptimizedLite" with further-reduced midbass, and Wicked is the old "Optimized." Z Flat will just have a couple of very basic presets.
 
And as you should already know, each midbass category (except Z Flat) will have its own set of treble sub-categories, each in its own subfolder:
 
Additional Boosted Treble
Boosted Treble
Classic
Less Treble
Reduced Treble
Treble Out
Treble Way Out
 
(The Additional Boosted Treble sub-category is new to the list, by the way.)
 
Anyway, these are sounding absolutely spectacular!  With this awesome +12 dB Rockbox bass feature, I can use lower bass increments in the EQ presets, and especially can use lighter midbass categories with better soundstage and less coloration that still pound hard and throb bigtime, which I sometimes couldn't do before. These presets are sounding a lot more solid with less background hiss noise and better dynamic range. I rarely need to use the 9th and 10th bass increments anymore (where the dynamic range is noticeably compressed and the background noise is the worst). And I also find myself using an extra volume precut on the EQ much less often.
 
After I've had a chance to re-organize everything and use it for several days, I'll post these newly-improved EQ presets here for you to download and relish. In the coming weeks, I'll eventually start a new topic thread with brand-new, detailed instructions, and with updated preset designations for those 12 songs. The thread will probably be entitled, "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 3.0."
 
Stay tuned, my friends!  The future is sounding beautiful. 

 

 

[PsiCore]

 
Stay tuned, my friends!  The future is sounding beautiful. 

 

 
Now I only need to replace the battery in my H320 and no new player can come close to Rockbox in the bass department.

 

[DiscoProJoe]

************DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 3.0************
 
At last,...here it is! 

 
Directions:
 
 
1. In Rockbox, go to Settings > Sound Settings > Bass Cutoff, and select "1."
 
2. In the Sound Settings menu, hover your cursor over the "Bass" listing, and press and hold the select button for at least half a second.
 
3. Choose "Set as Top Quickscreen Item."
 
4. (optional) Press and hold the select button over the "Bass" listing again.
 
5. (optional) Choose "Set as Bottom Quickscreen Item."
 
6. (optional) Go to Settings > General Settings > Display > LCD Settings, and hover your cursor over the "Brightness" listing. Press and hold the select button for at least half a second.
 
7. (optional) Choose "Set as Left Quickscreen Item."
 
8. (optional) Press and hold the select button over the "Brightness" listing again.
 
9. (optional) Choose "Set as Right Quickscreen Item."
 
10. From any screen, press and hold the menu button for at least half a second. This will give you the Quickscreen menu.
 
11. Tap the menu (i.e., "up") button 8 times to get a +12.0 dB bass boost. (If you tap the play (i.e., "down") button, it will skip over the +12.0 dB increment for some reason.)  It is very important that you choose +12.0 dB!
 
12. (optional) Use the left and right buttons to adjust the screen brightness. You can press and hold them to move the value faster.
 
13. Press the select button to exit the Quickscreen menu.
 
14. Click this link:  XXXXXX
 
(The page should say, "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Pr...on 3.0.zip" (The filename has been truncated, which was meant to read, "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 3.0."))
 
2. Click the blue "Download" button.
 
3. If any sign-in box pops up, just click "No thanks, continue to download."
 
4. Save the file to your desktop.
 
5. Open the .zip file, and drag and drop the "EQ presets 1" and "EQ presets Cayin C5" folders onto your desktop.
 
6. Connect your Rockboxed music player to your computer.
 
7. Drag and drop these two folders onto the root directory of your music player. (If you already have a previous version of these presets, be sure and remove them from your music player first before copying the new folders.)
 
8. Disconnect your music player from the computer, and reboot the music player.
 
9. On the main menu of Rockbox on your music player, go to "Files."
 
10. The "EQ presets 1" and "EQ presets Cayin C5" folders should be there. You can now open them, and can choose from 2 sets of 5 midbass categories, 7 treble sub-categories, and 10 bass increments (plus the original increment), for a total of 426 presets X 2 sets!
 
 
For some technical information about these new presets, for now, you can refer to...
 
This post (1), and...
 
This post (2).  (Click each link to view.)
 
Bear in mind that this new "EQ presets 1" folder is designed to sound good without an external, physical bass boost switch from an amp (unlike the previous version, which was meant for the FiiO E12A). The new "EQ presets Cayin C5" folder is designed to sound best when used with the physical bass-boost switch on the Cayin C5 portable headphone amp.
 
In the next couple of weeks, I plan to start a new topic thread entitled "DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 3.0." It will include brand-new, detailed instructions, and will have updated preset designations for all those 12 songs in the original post.
 
Oh well....Stay tuned, and enjoy my latest invention!  It sounds better than ever. 

 

 

[Thoft208]

I wish they'd get the 380 installation software/firmware figured out soon

 

[DiscoProJoe]

************Version 3.1 update************
 
 
While in the process of writing my long upcoming post for Version 3 and testing the best new preset designations for those 12 songs listed way above, I realized the "Lite" midbass category in Version 3.0 has a little too much lower midbass and doesn't sound close enough to the old "Optimized Lite" (in Version 2.0 without the 12dB Rockbox bass boost).
 
I realized the adjustment that I made when creating the "Hot" midbass category in Version 3.0 (in late November / early December) -- in order to sound like the old "Optimized" category in Version 2.0 without the 12 dB bass boost -- doesn't work perfectly for the "Optimized Lite" to "Lite" transition.
 
So, I made an adjustment to the "Lite" categories with the following fix:
 
64 Hz: -2.4 dB
 
And since the "Ultra Lite" midbass category is derived from "Lite," I also adjusted the "Ultra Lite" categories to sound a little better:
 
64 Hz: -2.0 dB
 
With these corrections, you can download DiscoProJoe's Rockbox EQ Presets, Version 3.1 at this link:
 
[size=small]XXXXXX[/size]
 
 
Anyway, I plan to finish writing my long post for Version 3 sometime in the next several days. Stay tuned!
 
(Edit: I will re-post a corrected Version 3.1 in the next few hours.)

 

[DiscoProJoe]

Here's the new link with the corrected Version 3.1:
 
XXXXXX
 
I realized when I re-did the "EQ presets 1" set in December, the adjustment I made (off of the Cayin C5 set) was ideal for the "Wicked" and "Hot" midbass categories, but didn't perfectly match the "Cool," "Lite" and "Ultra Lite" categories.
 
So, I went back and fixed those latter three midbass categories in the "EQ presets 1" set (which is the set that's now designed to work best without a physical bass-boost switch from an external amp). To those latter three categories in this set, I give them the following adjustment off of the initial release from last night:
 
64 Hz: +1.2 dB
 
(Please note that the "Z Flat" presets in both the "EQ presets 1" and "EQ presets Cayin C5" sets have also been fixed as well.)
 
Also note that in the "EQ presets 1" set (without using a physical bass boost switch), you'll need to use a bass increment that's 2-to-3 notches higher for it to closely match the way it sounds in the "EQ presets Cayin C5" set while using the bass boost on that amp.
 
Anyway, stay tuned for my long new post in the coming week!