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Perfect
iTunes EQ Settings
We've all seen the EQ setting in iTunes, but not many of us know exactly how to use it to its full potential. Rich Tozzoli, Senior Editor of Surround Professional Magazine breaks each EQ slider down and helps you get the most out of your music.
This type of EQ is called a graphic equalizer, because the selections of frequencies are laid out in a straight line. To be more specific, it's called a 10-band graphic equalizer, since there are 10 different EQ frequencies (bands) to choose from. A 10-band graphic EQ is slightly different from a typical stereos' EQ, which might have just a fixed treble and bass setting. For example, when you do turn up the bass, you'd be increasing only one set frequency usually around 100 Hz (hertz). The same applies if you turned up the treble knob, which might be set to 10K (kilohertz).
Understanding Each EQ Slider Let's start from left to right on the EQ and quickly discuss what each band does.
If you click and hold down the drop down menu at the top of the 10-band graphic EQ (now that you already know what that means), you can choose Presets for various types of music, such as Electronic, Jazz, R&B and Rock. If you choose "Electronic" for example, you'd see most of the frequency bands on the EQ boost up, especially the lows and highs. This will have a noticeable effect on your music, increasing the amount of low end and high-end information in the music. If you chose "Treble Reducer", it will do just that – lower the 1K thru 16K bands, therefore reducing the high end. A preset like "Loudness" boosted most of the low end, cut some 4K, and really turned up 8K, with only a slightly larger amount of 16K. If you do that, your music will seem, well… louder!
The only other choices on the Equalizer are the ability to turn on or off the EQ by selecting "On", and a variable Preamp slider. The Preamp will bring up the overall gain of iTunes, which is almost like turning up your volume on your stereo system. Be careful though, because by turning up a preamp too much, you can overdrive your system, which creates a nasty, crunchy distortion (unless you like that kind of thing). By turning it up just a little, you can certainly get more volume out of your speakers. Combine that with some of your own 10-band graphic EQ settings, and the Equalizer can be quite a powerful tool! Depending on your tastes, you may want a different EQ setting for each artist, album, genre, etc. iTunes actually lets you assign a preset to each individual song but you probably don't want to get that carried away. Award winning producer/engineer/mixer Rich Tozzoli is also a columnist for such publications as Pro Sound News and Digidesigns' DigiZine. A specialist in 5.1 surround sound, he has worked on DVD's for such artists as Carly Simon, Blue Oyster Cult, Billy Squier and David Bowie.
Special thanks to the following people for their comments: N. Ziarek, and David Ondrick. |
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