Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion
"Tagged" EQ PreSets - Possible?
Llorean:
Well it seems that if you're going to try to correct individual songs, an offset value just for that song would be necessary. Otherwise if you changed hardware (moved from headphones to speakers) any individual corrections you had would be more or less useless, or even worse, accentuate the new hardware's response differences.
If it's just turning EQ off and on for spoken word or whole folders, a .cfg file stored in the folder (or alongside the .m3u, perhaps even with the same name: x.m3u and x.cfg) would mean the user can just click one file, then the other, very quickly changing the relevant settings. Automating it for large selections of content that would all have the same EQ applied to them doesn't seem to make sense to me, since it takes about a second to load a presaved .cfg file manually if it's at the top or bottom of the folder, or alongside the m3u. But if you have mixed content that cannot be re-encoded without loss such as these files from emusic being played alongside files that don't need correction, the only two options seem to be either to encourage them to provide lossless, or to create a system for individual files to have offsets relative to the global equalizer.
Febs:
--- Quote from: Llorean on June 02, 2008, 12:16:04 PM ---Every idea should be challenged. Period. Socrates once said "The unexamined life is not worth living." Simply accepting an idea, or simply dismissing it, would be closed minded. But to challenge it, seek its weaknesses and strengths, and once fully examined, to make a decision, is quite opposite.
--- End quote ---
I agree with this in principle. In this particular instance, however, I disagree with the assumption underlying the challenge, which is the proposition that that the exclusive purpose of EQ is to adjust for hardware differences. I see that statement presented as if it were a fact. It is not. It is a preferene, or a philosophy, that is subject to debate. I do not think that we need to have that debate here (and in fact, I strongly hope that we don't, because I've been through it enough times in other forums to know that there is no "correct" answer), but I do think that we should recognize that not everyone subscribes to that philosophy.
With that in mind:
--- Quote ---In response to Febs: Why would you need different EQ settings for your audiobooks, etc? Wouldn't they still be played back on headphones with the same response curve?
--- End quote ---
It is purely a matter of personal preference. I enjoy adding a small amount of bass boost to certain music recordings both when listening on headphones and in my car. However, I prefer to listen to spoken word recordings flat.
--- Quote ---If it's just turning EQ off and on for spoken word or whole folders, a .cfg file stored in the folder (or alongside the .m3u, perhaps even with the same name: x.m3u and x.cfg) would mean the user can just click one file, then the other, very quickly changing the relevant settings. Automating it for large selections of content that would all have the same EQ applied to them doesn't seem to make sense to me, since it takes about a second to load a presaved .cfg file manually if it's at the top or bottom of the folder, or alongside the m3u. But if you have mixed content that cannot be re-encoded without loss such as these files from emusic being played alongside files that don't need correction, the only two options seem to be either to encourage them to provide lossless, or to create a system for individual files to have offsets relative to the global equalizer
--- End quote ---
I tend to listen to albums rather than individual selections, so the folder-based approach makes sense to me, particularly in light of the fact that folder-based configuration files could be used to adjust many things, and not just EQ. (See the example I used above with respect to study mode.)
In terms of being able to quickly select a .cfg file from within a directory, you are correct that that would not take very long to do. But there are plenty of situations where it would be convenient not to have to do so. For example, when one album ends and you have Rockbox set to advance automatically to the next folder, or a random folder.
Chronon:
--- Quote from: Llorean on June 02, 2008, 01:18:28 PM ---or to create a system for individual files to have offsets relative to the global equalizer.
--- End quote ---
That's what I was thinking.
--- Quote from: Febs on June 02, 2008, 02:19:37 PM ---I agree with this in principle. In this particular instance, however, I disagree with the assumption underlying the challenge, which is the proposition that that the exclusive purpose of EQ is to adjust for hardware differences. I see that statement presented as if it were a fact. It is not. It is a preferene, or a philosophy, that is subject to debate. I do not think that we need to have that debate here (and in fact, I strongly hope that we don't, because I've been through it enough times in other forums to know that there is no "correct" answer), but I do think that we should recognize that not everyone subscribes to that philosophy.
--- End quote ---
Keenly argued, Febs. I agree with you.
Llorean:
I agree that an assumption of that as fact is flawed. I think some rephrasing though could fix it. "The intent of the EQ in Rockbox is to fix shortcomings in the hardware." While this may not necessarily be the exclusive purpose of an EQ in general, this may be the exclusive intended purpose of the EQ in Rockbox. This could, though, be extended to "and make up for flawed files." But the statement does exist as a simple means of explaining what can become a complex argument. People frequently request things like "have the genre of my audio determine which EQ preset should be automatically loaded." There are many feature requests that can made regarding automated equalizer behaviour. But it's much more reasonable to have it be an aspect of the song either by way of preprocessing or the aforemention offset method. Anything unique to the song should be contained in it, while anything unique to the hardware should be handled by the actual direct use of the equalizer. This more or less boils down to "The equalizer is there for hardware deficiencies."
If an equalizer were loaded when you play a song, then you stop the song, and play another that doesn't have an equalizer preset associated, you're stuck with the strange preset. If you have it reset when there's not one associated, then the manual equalizer is useless. Meanwhile, if you go with an offset somehow embedded in the file, or associated with the file, and don't have it actually change any settings, it's much less accident prone (or containing hidden behaviour).
Edit: Note, I see no mention of "exclusive" purpose, only "general" use. Which is probably untrue in terms of statistics anyway, but just thought this bore mentioning. Judging at least from commentary, the majority of EQ users find that the normal Bass boost isn't enough, so make use of it to add some more.
Chronon:
I would still identify changes unique to a given song as part of the EQ setting. But it seems that now we wish to distinguish between persistent, absolute settings and temporary, relative settings.
Certainly, I agree that persistent settings should have something to do with the static properties of your hardware setup. Temporary settings would more logically correlate with properties of a given file or set of files.
I would agree with Llorean that as it currently exists (with only persistent, absolute settings) the EQ is more suited to compensating for variations in hardware performance.
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