[Jose Hidalgo]

Hi, maybe the title's not very clear, but I haven't found anything better.
First of all, this is not about "Hi-Fi" but about tweaking sound.

Let's say we want to subjectively enhance sound (adjust it to our liking), by the means of various parametric EQ filters.
Here's what I've found so far :

• Bass : we can typically enhance bass via a low-shelf filter, Fc 100 Hz, Q 0.65
• Male vocal warmth : peak filter, Fc 180 to 200 Hz, Q 2.0
• Female vocal warmth : peak filter, Fc 400 Hz, Q 2.0
• Male vocal clarity : peak filter, Fc 3000 Hz, Q 2.0
• Female vocal clarity : peak filter, Fc 4000 Hz, Q 2.0

Source for warmth and clarity : https://larryjordan.com/articles/eq-warm-a-voice-and-improve-diction/

Gains for each of these 'enhancers' should be adjusted to the listener's liking, and can be either positive or negative.
Positive gains will of course require a matching negative preamp gain to prevent distortion.

My questions are :

1. Can these filters be improved ?
2. Can we find other 'enhanceable' sound characteristics such as warmth and clarity, and what would be their frequency ranges ? Is there some consensus on that matter ? Any documents ?

Thank you.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

Oratory1990 talks about 6 characteristics in some of his presets :

• Bass (Low shelf, 105 Hz)
• Treble (Peak, 1200 Hz)
• Midrange accuracy/Shoutiness (Peak, 1250 Hz)
• Detail/Sibiliance (Peak, 5000 Hz)
• Grain/Clarity (Peak, 7500 Hz)
• Airiness (High shelf, 10000 Hz)

If we add the previous criteria, we get :

• Bass (Low shelf, about 100 Hz)
• Male vocal warmth (Peak, Fc 180 to 200 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Female vocal warmth (Peak, Fc 400 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Treble (Peak, 1200 Hz)
• Midrange accuracy/Shoutiness (Peak, 1250 Hz)
• Male vocal clarity (Peak, Fc 3000 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Female vocal clarity (Peak, Fc 4000 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Detail/Sibiliance (Peak, 5000 Hz)
• Grain/Clarity (Peak, 7500 Hz)
• Airiness (High shelf, 10000 Hz)

... but that makes 10 characteristics, and it may be a bit overkill for most people.

What if there could only be, say, 3 main characteristics, besides Bass ?

 

[sander99]

Oratory1990 talks about 6 characteristics in some of his presets :

• Bass (Low shelf, 105 Hz)
• Treble (Peak, 1200 Hz)
• Midrange accuracy/Shoutiness (Peak, 1250 Hz)
• Detail/Sibiliance (Peak, 5000 Hz)
• Grain/Clarity (Peak, 7500 Hz)
• Airiness (High shelf, 10000 Hz)

If we add the previoius criteria, we get :

• Bass (Low shelf, about 100 Hz)
• Male vocal warmth (Peak, Fc 180 to 200 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Female vocal warmth (Peak, Fc 400 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Treble (Peak, 1200 Hz)
• Midrange accuracy/Shoutiness (Peak, 1250 Hz)
• Male vocal clarity (Peak, Fc 3000 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Female vocal clarity (Peak, Fc 4000 Hz, Q 2.0)
• Detail/Sibiliance (Peak, 5000 Hz)
• Grain/Clarity (Peak, 7500 Hz)
• Airiness (High shelf, 10000 Hz)

... but that makes 10 characteristics, and it may be a bit overkill for most people.

What if there could only be, say, 3 main characteristics, besides Bass ?

It all is relative. If you lift one of those ranges it gets more in the foreground, but if you lift everything... that makes no sense. Might as well just turn up the volume then.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

Thank you, but that doesn't help. I posted this in "Sound Science" in order to hopefully get more accurate replies.
It's obvious that everything should be adjusted with common sense and that lifting everytning would be stupid.
Besides, I clearly stated that gains "can be either positive or negative".
Can we please get back on topic ?

 

[bigshot]

The problem isn't your EQ settings, it's the definition of "warm" or "voice" or "grain/clarity". Both those things are relative. And there is fundamentals and harmonics. And imbalances can be narrow Q or broad Q. It all depends. The best you can do is point to a general range.

This is the chart most of us here like...

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/atta...nce-various-musical-instruments-freqrange.jpg

You're asking for specific numbers to represent non-specific sounds. The answer isn't going to be a precise one. It all depends on the specific sound and the kind of imbalance you're trying to correct.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

Please, we all know that concepts like "warm" are relative. Could we please not state the obvious, and assume that all people in this discussion have at least that basic knowledge ? Can we try to go beyond one-liners and dive a bit into this matter ?

I am not talking about *my* EQ settings. And I have that chart already, but that is not what I'm looking for ultimately.
Maybe my OP wasn't clear enough. I'm sorry for that, so let's just try this again :

I know there are a number of subjective sound characteristics. Let me say this again : SUBJECTIVE. I KNOW. WE ALL KNOW.
Oratory lists 6 of them (Bass + 5), the linked chart lists 18. I could list 36 or 72, but who cares ?
I am (was ?) hoping that after all these years, people would have reached some kind of general consensus around this, to separate the important stuff from the less important stuff. Allow me to explain.

It's the same question as about bass / midrange / treble.
We could say that bass = 20-200 Hz, midrange = 200-2000, and treble = 2000-20000.
And of course some people would disagree :

• Some would dissect it even more (bass = sub-bass + bass + upper bass, and so on)
• Some others would try to be over-precise, and say that it's not 200 but 180, not 2000 but 2500, etc.

And people would discuss endlessly about it. There would never be a precise consensus... but there would at least be a loose consensus ! Because nobody cares if bass is really 20-200, or 20-180, or 20-250, or whatever. People care about the fact that there's "bass" (somewhere around 20-200), "midrange" and "treble". So that's the loose consensus : "bass, midrange and treble". Everybody agrees on that.

That's what I'm talking about here : the loose consensus. The main, most important categories, nothing more.

So in the same spirit, I am (was ?) hoping that among those 6 / 12 / 18 aforemendioned sound criteria, there could be maybe three (besides bass) "main criteria" for most people. And maybe some clever guy would have made some clever chart about those criteria, with suggested frequency ranges (that we could of course deviate from, but at least we would have them as reference). Maybe nobody has done it yet, but that's what I'm asking for here.

Let's take another example. Let's assume you have properly EQed your cans to the almighty Harman curve. They match it perfectly. You couldn't be happier (lol).
But still, you would like to deviate from it at will for some music, to compensate for the music's own recording imperfections. Because anybody with a large music collection knows that while some sound engineers are true artists, some others are either deaf, or crazy, or both.

Back to that example, if people only had, say, THREE parametric filter sets corresponding to three of the above criteria (bass aside), what would they be ?
For example if you had to choose between "warmth", "airiness" and whatever other criteria, but you could only pick three of them to fine-tune your music.

I hope somebody will finally get my point. Never thought I'd have to do so much explaining !
If that's too hard a question, then feel free not to answer, no problem. I'm not expecting any obvious answer anyway.
Thank you.

 

[bigshot]

Did you look at the chart I linked?

The Harman curve is just an average, not an absolute. When I EQ, I don't strive to emphasize any particular range. I try to strike an overall balance so all sounds are equal to my ears. If a transducer is imbalanced, I apply the particular correction for that transducer. If a recording is imbalanced, I apply the correction the recording needs. That target can vary from person to person, transducer to transducer and recording to recording. Some may be small narrow imbalances, others may be larger broad ones. I use a parametric equalizer because it is flexible enough to deal with whatever problem I run across. I couldn't deal with a three band equalizer with a fixed frequency band. It wouldn't suit most problems. EQ is all about frequency, amplitude and Q. You have to be able to adjust all three parameters. But I guess if you could only have a couple, a general tone control of bass and treble is better than nothing. With that, you can adjust three parameters in a general sense.

There is no one answer to your question. I know you don't want to hear it, but it depends.

My ears have a pretty consistent deviation from Harman if that is what you mean... I tend to prefer a gradual -2 to -3dB attenuation between 1kHz and 4kHz. My ears tend to be a little extra sensitive in that range. And I tend to prefer the earlier Harman Curve with the lower bass.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

Did you look at the chart I linked?

Please read me again :

I have that chart already, but that is not what I'm looking for ultimately.

As for the rest...

Do you know about bass boost ? Of course you know about bass boost.
Bass boost is a crappy name. They could have said "low shelf filter, 105 dB, Q 0.65" or whatever. But of course there is no standard. There can't be any.
Anyway, 90% people don't want to hear about technical details. Most of them don't even know about "low shelf", "dB" and "Q".
They just want... guess what... a BASS BOOST. So manufacturers give them exactly that.
That makes 90% people happy, and the remaining 10%, well, they discuss endlessly on Head-Fi, lol.

So this is what I'm trying to achieve here. Not something for the experts. Something for most people.
I don't know if you spend hours adjusting music every time the recording needs it, very precisely. But I'm willing to bet that you don't. Nobody does that.
However, if there was something similar to BASS BOOST, but applied to 2 or 3 other sound characteristics... Something that would NOT work all the time, something that would NOT work for everybody, but something that COULD work from time to time for a variety of people, THEN we would have achieved something.

I am talking about a simple filter (or set of filters), where the final user wouldn't have to know the details. He would just have, say, 3 positions : 0 = OFF, 1 = half boost, 2 = full boost (because very few people care about 0.5 or 1.5). Something simple, and of course unprecise, but still somewhat working.

I know you don't want to hear it, but THAT is what I'm trying to achieve. And if nobody has done it yet, then I will.

 

[bigshot]

I don't use stock EQ presets. I custom EQ. I don't think stock presets are very useful, even for ordinary people. EQ presets named as genres of music are completely useless. Bass boost kind of makes sense for cheap headphones with weak bass, but even that is like using a bazooka as a flyswatter. A basic bass and treble control would be MUCH more useful to average joes than EQ presets. I don't know why manufacturers leave that off. Every amp should have tone controls.

The fewer the number of bands, the broader the Q should be. Two pots- bass and treble- are enough to correct three ranges- bass, treble and midrange, and it would cover most average people's needs.

I have no idea why you're so cranky.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

You see, we sort of understand each other. EQ presets named as genres are useless indeed. A basic bass-treble control is always more useful.
I aim at achieving something similar. But instead of calling it "bass, mid, treble" it would be something like "bass, vocals, clarity and whatever". Something a little smarter and at the same time easier to understand for the average joe. If you want to push the vocals you press "vocals" and the system does the rest : you don't try to find the right bass, mid and treble balance to achieve that.
And cranky is my middle name, that's why.

 

[bigshot]

Well I suppose you could just call bass and treble “bottom” and “clarity”. You don’t need a name for midrange because cutting the bottom and clarity would boost the vocals. You really need only two controls for three ranges.

 

[Jose Hidalgo]

If you really think what you just said, then I was wrong. Sorry, we don't understand each other.
BTW, feel free to tell Oratory that he should rename all his preset adjustment instructions and put "bass" and "treble" instead. He'll be happy to do so.
I'll make it simple. You obviously aren't going to help me with this matter. You don't believe in the method and you don't have the required knowledge (otherwise you would already have answered my previous questions). So we might as well stop discussing here. Shall we ? If you're not going to help, at least let other people try and don't waste our time. Thank you.

 

[ADUHF]

I can't really find any good images at the moment. But most compact analog mixers will have a system of either 2 or 3 EQ controls, for low, mid and high frequency adjustments, which work something like the picture below.

https://www.prosoundweb.com/church-sound-eq-basics-essentials/

Since the midrange control actually controls the upper mids, and is generally centered around 2 or 2.5 kHz, you effectively have 4 different areas of adjustment, when you also include the lower mids.

These types of EQs controls come in at least two different varieties, "British EQs" or just generic/American EQs. And I'm not exactly sure what the differences are. (Though you can definitely hear the differences when making adjustments.)

Some of the more advanced 3-band EQs will also allow you to adjust the frequencies of one or more these bands. An adjustment for the midrange frequency is probably the most common. But there can sometimes be adjustments for the bass and treble frequencies as well.

 

[ADUHF]

I don't know how standard/accurate this is, but found it in the DIY Audio Heaven's frequency response article.

https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/tutorials/how-to-interpret-graphs/frequency-response/

 

[ADUHF]

Some vocal EQ charts. Again, I don't know accurate these are, since I'm just pulling them off the web.