Topic: Replay EQ?

[friday]

I'm sharing an idea I have had for quite a while. I don't have the skills to do anything about it myself unfortunately so the point is sort of lost, but it would be interesting to get opinions. Maybe if enough people are interested the magical open source ferry will come around and create it for us

There are two approaches when sharing a recording today: Either you share/trade your unedited master or you remaster it to sound as good as possible to your ears before you share/trade it.

I do the latter but I understand that purists rather collect unedited masters, and that tapers don't like it when other people remaster their recordings. And some people do questionable remastering jobs.

Replay EQ would be like replay gain, but for EQ for those of you that hasn't figured that out yet. It would allow you to define a filter through meta-data that would be applied real-time in playback for supported audio players. It would require more processing power but I don't think that is a big problem today (except on mp3 players and such which wouldn't support it anyway).

Unlike replay gain I think this is mostly interesting for us archival recorders/collectors (don't use the b-word).

Sorry if this should be in the playback forum. I think this mainly targets people interested in editing, which would be this forum.

[Patrick]

What you're describing sort of sounds like what a multi-band compressor does (frequency-dependent compression).

Personally, I usually avoid "makeup gain," or "replay gain" when listening to recordings, and most likely would pass on using your idea if something like that existed on playback systems.  I feel that many of the Automatic Gain Control settings on certain systems are very distracting, and unless I'm watching a movie while trying to keep the volume low to not disturb my roomates, I always keep those options turned off.

YMMV, of course 

[friday]

Thanks for your input! Not sure I agree on the multi-band compressor comparison but that would work too.

I think replay EQ would be perfect for you as you could just turn it off while a remaster done today is undoable

In addition to having a software-calculated filter like replay gain I would prefer having ways of making your own filters. Different music should be equalized differently so the software generated one would not work in some cases.

I feel that many of the Automatic Gain Control settings on certain systems are very distracting

Not sure what you mean here. Replay gain as I know and use it calculate the difference between the perceived loudness and the optimal SPL for a file or a set of files. AGC changes the gain/volume constantly to not clip on recording devices or on TV sets to target a certain loudness. That is done real time introducing problems with shifting volume (or volume that should shift that doesn't, depending on how you see it) that replay gain doesn't have.

[Patrick]

In addition to having a software-calculated filter like replay gain I would prefer having ways of making your own filters. Different music should be equalized differently so the software generated one would not work in some cases.

Ah, I see.  I was a little bit confused as to what you were talking about in the first post, but I think I am getting it now.  And yes, I was very incorrect in comparing AGC vs. Replay Gain.  Oops.

One thing to keep in mind is that dynamics is translated in a similar way across almost all playback systems.  The "magic" level (89 dbSPL) is the same intensity whether played back on car stereos, home theater systems, studio monitors, etc.  On the other hand, frequency is NOT.  The different playback environments will should call for different EQ settings depending on what size and design of the speakers/room.  This is something that is very system-specific, like you said.  For this reason, I still don't think that including the psychoacoustic analysis in the metadata is terribly useful. 

[friday]

Ah, I see.  I was a little bit confused as to what you were talking about in the first post, but I think I am getting it now.

Sorry! I wanted to leave some details to the discussion but I should have been more clear. My main thought was basically being able to save a custom made EQ filter as metadata instead of EQing the file and saving as a new file. I have thought about a computer generated version too (psychoacoustic analysis), but I'm sure the results would vary. Maybe it would work if it created different versions you could chose from or something.