Question about rockbox equalizer, or equalizers in general

[grzzlo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Febs Find the "Pre-cut" setting in the EQ and turn it down.

So the precut is the same as eq gain? Perfect. I guess I should have spent more time at the rockbox site and I could have figured it out myself. Anyway, thanks for the info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by donunus check out the beautiful attachment. the top eq represents the same db added or subtracted for each frequency the middle one represents the OPs eq graph in a perfect world. In this type of curve his question would have an answer no, there shouldn't be a difference between those values except for the level causing distortion if passed a clipping point. The one at the bottom represents an eq where the two +2dbs and the two -1dbs are not so tight beside each other so with this type of eq the answer to the OPs question is yes the sound would be different with those 2 settings. The letter e is what I have represented as the edge of my octave. That is the part that makes most of the difference. As you see the 0,0,-2,-3,-3 curve is flat at 0,0 because of the edges of the equalized frequencies

Ok. That's what I thought you meant in the first post, but I wasn't completely sure. What with the precut, it doesnt matter too much, but I'm still curious: the bottom graph is how the curve will look _if_ the eq works like that. But is that how the rockbox eq works? I guess you're saying that's the standard way it's done, but is that mainly for hardware eq's or it that how it is for most software eq's as well? And thank you so much for taking the time to explain this stuff.

Pretty picture, by the way.

 

[Laptopia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grzzlo I don't know if this question has been asked before, and if it has then sorry. My rockboxed h140 clips when I use the eq, so I was wondering about any easy way to get around it. I think some people use replaygain, or whatever, to turn down the volume of all their tracks, so they can boost some bands, but I haven't used replaygain, so I don't know how much work that would be to update all my tags (I imagine not to hard). Anyway, here's my question: is there a difference btw setting the eq at +2,+2,0,-1,-1 vs. 0,0,-2,-3,-3 with the volume turned up to compensate? It seems like there shouldn't be, but does anyone know for sure? Is there any reason the two should sound different?

How do you know it's clipping, what are the symptoms, and why do you think that the Rockbox equalizer is causing it?

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grzzlo er-6i's. I don't recall what exactly the eq settings were, but I was boosting the lowest 2 frequencies a little. I think at one point they were up as little as +2 and I still heard clipping. I just stopped using the eq for a while. I'd have to mess around a little to figure out what settings make it clip.

If your boosting the bass frequencies by just a few db it should NOT be clipping. I've horsed around with my eq settings a lot with my e2c's and i've never heard clipping. Never.

 

[grzzlo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob ♫ How do you know it's clipping, what are the symptoms, and why do you think that the Rockbox equalizer is causing it?

Well, I heard a slight crackling sound on some songs w/ the eq on. I was just listening to Jesus Lifted Me by Elizabeth Cotten off Shake Sugaree. About 30 seconds in, it makes a crackling sound. I can hear it clearly w/ the lower freqs boosted 3 db and I can still hear it if they're boosted 2 db. It's not there at all if I set them to 0. I guess I don't know for sure that this is clipping, but I just assumed, since it goes away when I set those freqs to 0.

This is on my h140 w/ flac. Also, the build is from May 25th or something, so maybe things have changed since then. Maybe I just need to upgrade firmware? [Edit: New firmware doesn't help]

 

[bigshot]

Your song is normalized to 100%. Normalize it down to somewhere in the 80s and you will be able to make any EQ correction you would want.

Bass is the easiest to get to clip.

See ya
Steve

 

[Febs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gloco If your boosting the bass frequencies by just a few db it should NOT be clipping.

You really can't make that categorical statement without knowing the level of his files. If his files peak at 0 dB, then application of *any* gain through EQ could very well make them clip.