If you have a music player on your computer or on your smartphone, it is very likely that at some point in time you have used the equalizer of the application or the device in order to fully personalize the listening experience, especially to time to listen to your favorite music.
Not surprisingly, one of the main advantages that the equalizer provides us in this type of device or apparatus is that, without being experts and with a little knowledge, we can adjust the audio of that device in question to improve it and leave it to our liking .
What is and what does an equalizer consist of?
An equalizer basically consists of a software or hardware filter that offers the possibility of adjusting the volume of specific frequencies , although the basis is found in the human ear (as is the case with sound engineering).
You may remember, as a child, those little sliders that we found in older music devices, and with which we tended to play while our father or older brother got angry for misconfiguring it. Sure enough, this strange gadget is an equalizer.
Some frequencies tend to be louder than others to our ears, despite having even more or the same energy behind it. In this sense, our range is between 20-20,000 Hz, so the more we exceed or approach these limits, the smoother things will sound to us.
Understanding how exactly an equalizer works can be very helpful when it comes to customizing the sound to our liking, but it is always necessary to carry out some tests, and discover which option we like the most: if we prefer a sound where the bass is more powerful, or we give preference to the treble.
Why might we need to use an equalizer?
Electronics manufacturers have their own ideas about what a computer should sound like. However, with the help of an equalizer we can fully customize the experience .
For example, we may be passionate about music and not like the sound that the player provides. In case the player has an equalizer, physical or digital, we could be able to personalize the sound.
It is true that the music we are listening to also influences , so that the natural sounds of that particular track not only tend to respond uniquely to different levels of the equation, but, in the case of digital music, it is possible that we also need to cover the imperfections introduced by certain file compression formats, which could affect the overall quality of the audio.
Taking all this into account, an equalizer can be very useful when it comes to improving the sound to the maximum . For example, it offers us the possibility of helping to soften the voice of the narrator of our favorite audiobook, or to make the bass sounds reverberate in our ears.
How does an equalizer work?
In its most basic definition, an equalizer is responsible for manipulating frequencies . Regardless of whether it is an analog or digital equalizer, an EQ is useful for adjusting different sound elements, achieving an end result slightly different from the original.
In this sense, most people know a total of three basic levels of equalization: bass, middle and treble . Therefore, if we want to add a bit of brightness to the sound, the ideal is to add some treble. Or, on the contrary, if we want more bass, we should give preference to bass frequencies.
Luckily, when we don’t want to customize each frequency, many media players, or music streaming applications, have their own popular presets such as “Jazz”, “Rock” or “Pop”, to name a few of the simplest examples.
As far as the graphic equalizer is concerned, we are faced with a graphic (pun intended), with a series of frequencies on one axis and decibels (dB) on the other. Thus, from left to right, we will find a series of sliders that allow us to adjust certain frequency bands, up or down, along the dB scale.
The high frequencies will start at the far right , while the low frequencies will start on the left. Finally, in the middle, we will find midrange frequencies.
