Winamp's equalizer - how do I make old jazz sound better?

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kitkat · #1 Post by **kitkat** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 8:41 am

One time at home I was playing a low-quality early 30's piece for my boyfriend. My default player is Winamp, which comes with a few equalizer bands.

He's a professional musician who's done a lot of recording, so he flipped things up and down to make the recording better through my cheap speakers.

I noticed that unlike any of the presets that came with Winamp, he almost alternated each band up-down-up-down-up-down. That's not quite what he did, but it certainly wasn't the smooth curve that the "sliders" make in all the default settings.

I have no idea why he did what he did, and he's not awake. I've already called.

I'm at work with cheap speakers, and I'm wondering what the theory was behind his madness, and if anyone could give me a few tips on making this 20's jazz I'm listening to less grating.

Please--no suggestions for other software, as I don't have permissions to download much. I'm surprised Winamp even installed. A plug-in for it didn't.

Thanks!

Cyrano de Maniac · #2 Post by **Cyrano de Maniac** » Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:28 am

Katie,

It's hard to say exactly without being there to hear the results, but here's the basics I look for when running sound for live music:

Voice intelligibility usually falls in the range of about 1.2kHz to 2kHz -- bump this up if you're having a hard time understanding vocals. This varies from singer to singer. "Presence", or the feeling that the instrument/vocalist is right there, rather than distant and isolated from you, is controlled at the top end. I'm guessing up in the 10kHz and higher range. If you're having trouble with "S" sounds being too piercing, search around in the range of about 6kHz to 8kHz, and cut some of it. This varies from singer to singer.

To feel the kick drum and bass, play around below 100Hz, and also right around 200-300Hz. With live musicians this can vary instrument-to-instrument and musician-to-musician.

Be careful in the 450-600Hz range, as if you boost that too much vocals will sound "woofy", and other instruments will kind of wash out other aspects of the music. If keys are interfering with vocalists, hunt around in the range of 600Hz to 1kHz and cut it a bit.

And bear in mind all this advice is more useful for live performances, where you can control the equalization of individual instruments/voices. With a recording it will be more difficult, as you can only affect the entire band.

Brent

P.S. You're at work? I didn't know you'd found a job yet.

Bob the Builder · #3 Post by **Bob the Builder** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:55 am

There is a few things to know in regard to equalization (EQ).

The first thing is that generally when Track is mastered the EQ is set to what the masterer believes sounds best through their speakers in the room they are in.
When you came along then and play that track, your speakers and room acoustics will have a major effect on the EQ level that you end up hearing. There are other items that have some minor effects on the EQ but the speakers and room are the big ones.
You may have hear of a sound engineer tuning a room before a live gig. The is where the send out pink noise over the speaker system and analyze it with a mic pickup in the middle of the room. It’s a very good way to work out which frequencies need to be lowered or increased. Now, that is really only for sound engineers.

Some general tips.

Follow what Brent said.

This is a good website to give you an idea about what frequencies apply to different instruments.link
link 2

A final tip for old scratchy recording. A lot of the noise (ie hiss) are in the 6-8 kHz range. By reducing this range you will hear less hiss. Don’t reduce it to much as you will loose some fullness from the sound.

Brian

PS
Some thing interesting, it is possible to hear frequencies in out of a speaker the doesn’t cover that range. This can happen because of overtones.

Cyrano de Maniac · #4 Post by **Cyrano de Maniac** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 9:48 am

Brian,

Those were two fantastic links! I learned more than a little from each of them -- though they basically confirmed what I'd found by a bit of trial-and-error and a word of mouth.

Thanks a million!

Brent

Bob the Builder · #5 Post by **Bob the Builder** » Sun Apr 09, 2006 4:34 am

Kitkat,

I did forget to mention that you should play around with the EQ on your Winamp system using a good set of head phones. Play some very good modern and old recordings. You will get the know the "feel" of them and you can then translate that to your bad speakers.

Brian