EQ and applet

ya, would be nice

I am a windoze user for work and Linux (all flavors) user for everything else. I love I tunes, however I am an open software guru and would love to completely remove I tunes forever. I am a Studio Engineer by trade and have to have my EQ. I have turned many people on to Songbird who would also make a total switch if there was a EQ Add on. Songbird can blow I tunes and Amrok away with a few things like an equalizer (preferably 10 -12 band) and maybe some other dynamic processing Add on's such as compression. Just a thought. I know that these things are probably in the works already but I just needed to show some love and constructive criticism for a real GEM in the world of media players.

I did a search for equalizer bugs and found a few. bug 4855 is probably the one with the most activity, so I'm going to post it here for people to follow. To follow the progress of this bug, put your email in the cc: field and click the commit button further down the page.

aatizzle, I've also added your comments to bug 4855.

Also, if you're running Ubuntu check out this forum post: Add a 15-band-EQ to songbird (Ubuntu 7.10).

this is what i did until the eq is implemented into songbird...i adjusted eq on my pc's soundcard ... helped tremendously...

That sucks that there's no EQ. I still use Songbird though.

I have to agree EQ is a must.

I would like to see the ability to save EQ pre-sets & the ability to ASSIGN CERTAIN TRACKS/STREAMS THEIR OWN EQ PRESET. -This is hugely helpful for tracks/streams with much heavier bass for instance, or low-bandwidth news-radio streams where you might want to roll off some treble.
It's also hugely helpful to have a PRE-AMP control on the EQ, the position of which is saved with the presets. This can help prevent distortion on hotter tracks/streams, & manage signal-to-noise ratio/ signal quality.

The sliders should be labeled by center frequency, and have an amplitude adjustment range of about +/-12dB to +/-15dB.

10, 12, or 15, bands should be adequate (20 or 31 is probably overkill..)
(15 would be amazing!)
-The low end should start at least as low as 31Hz

I think for most users it will be best to have more "resolution" (basically more sliders..) in the low, mid, & high-mid frequencies, (rather than the "very high" frequencies). -This alows compensating for speaker & room resonances, & adjusting for smaller desktop speakers.
The highest slider could be "shelving" from 12kHz or 16kHz & up.

As an example, I feel that iTunes has chosen more useful center frequencies for their 10-band EQ (32,64,125,250,500,1k,2k,4k,8k,16k) than Winamp has (70,180,320,600,1k,3k,6k,12k,14k,16k).

I feel that an EQ rises to the level of a basic functionality that should be included in the player.

Perhaps more advanced features (like dynamic EQ, or frequency-dependent compression) could be included in add-ons.

Thanks. Keep up the good work.

This idea is kinda a big deal! :)

In a more general way, songbird would be great having a better audio processing system, I'm having little blips and cuts in musics when I open new tabs and so
Really hope gstreamer (whatever that is) will help

It's "on the list" since years, so please, anyone, don't tell it will come "soon" or "when this or that is done".

I'm not sure what is the current state of GStreamer implementation. I see the GStreamer libraries in Songbird's directory (I'm using Windows). It should be possible to add a lot of DSP effects using it.

See these links: 1 and 2.

Yeah, I think having an EQ in Songbird would really be something outstanding, specially on Linux.
You see, I've been waiting for a software EQ for YEARS, and no sound architecture/daemon/scheme/whatever has provided one ever (except for Alsa, if your card has one HW EQ, but that really doesn't help me at all).
And that's basic and far more important than having nice visuals or even last.fm and other services support.

From what I read on gstreamer, it also handles video, which will probably ad better video to songbird.
What puzzles me is that Gstreamer seams to be in dev for nearly 10 years and it's still not in prod/stable release...
Anyway, once correctly implemented in Songbird, the whole experience and audio/video plug in support might make of songbird one of the best mediaplayer around...

U can make something like Enhancer_017 Plug-in for winamp..songbird rocks..

well, there's still many features missing in Songbird, that's for sure. But the fct that the activity on the project seems intense and that the devs are aware of the things to add to it is definetly a great thing.
I'm expecting great things out of it even if for know it can't suit all my needs...

I would like to see a 2-pass EQ like VLC has. It's better than a normal bass-boost option, in my opinion, because you can enhance the effect of your music on all frequency ranges.

i agree i think that good sound should come first on the list as a must as this is a music player. put everything else temporarily on hold to developing the sound is definitely a must. or this app may not take off. getting the basics right is a very important thing.

as there is much interest in it so far Hope we do not wait to long.

I asks for this in another question (how to change the sound-settings), and I really was surprised, that a such nice looking application doesnt have this basic feature. I thought, this is just a little bit hard to find ;)

Something like this would be nice ... Screenshot from Winamp:
http://www.fliptech.net/amp-eq.jpg

Music in Songbird sounds really cheap and tinny, so I have to switch back to Winamp.

Not sure why this has been going on so long and yet no equalizer. I wonder how hard it would be to port a winamp equalizer over to Songbird as an add on. It doesn't seem that waiting for gstreamer this long is the right path if an addon could give the functionality of an EQ and thereby improve the sound immediately until GStreamer gets going.
Songbird is a beautiful program with great potential but it does seem that an equalizer is a basic component in almost all music programs available today. I'm kinda suprised that it was released without one.

I wonder why this topic is marked as
"The company implemented this idea",
but RC3 has still no Equalizer.

got to have sound enhancement. not everyone has the same ear. not only does our perceptions differ, so does the way we hear and listen.. I'll wait to download

I'm a brand new Songbird user. I downloaded, pointed it at my 30GB music archive, pressed play, and immediately started looking for the EQ. What?! No EQ?

Why am I using this instead of Winamp or Media Player, exactly?

Yeah, I am kind of bummed that features like an equalizer are not being given more importance. And it seems to me that Songbird should be considered more of a media browser than a media player right now.

The lack of basic media player features and emphasis on browsing for music (most of the available customization options are related to the browser itself - they should consolidate all of those options into a "browser preferences" section) make it feel like a media search tool that happens to play music too.

It's advertised as a "music player", and it is supposedly at version 1.0, but the only thing that is 1.0 about it is the stability. I have been trying to find a good media player after bad experiences with other players like iTunes, but Songbird just doesn't have enough of the basic media player features one would expect for me to allow it as my primary media player.

According to the roadmap, all those basic features will be in place sometime in the middle of next year, so maybe I'll come back and check it out then.

So far there is no reason to move from Winamp/VLC to Songbird. Why not rename this app to BrowseTheWebDownloadShitUseLotsOfFunkyAddOnsButDon'tExpectDecentMusicBird

Same thing here, just realized there's no EQ. I'm going back to WinAMP.

Almost all the player that I used come with equalizer and visualizer like Winamp, foobar2000, Amarok but Songbird none.

of course i'd love to have an EQ, too. But: My unlimited love goes to those who let us participate in all the evolution process of this player. Better to wait for the whole app for years... plus: I really think the concept of songbird makes sense: Browsing through your own drives and browsing through the web became very close. And to me, the great success is right that advanced browsing. Including all those "fency" add-ons of course.
blessings.

oh...I just realized that my image could be mistaken as a religious statement.
IT IS NOT! the cross cam with the fencepattern...anyways.
good job songbirds!

I think the EQ should be implemented as an add-on because some people, like myself, don't use EQ. I, quite honestly, prefer to hear the song the way the artist/producer wanted it to sound. But that's besides the point. Songbird doesn't need to include features that aren't going to be used by all (yes I said all) users.

Hi!

There is some work in the way. I have made a patch to add an Equalizer to SongBird. It is incomplete and has some issues but at least you can use it now if you are brave enough.

Tested only in Linux ATM

http://bugzilla.songbirdnest.com/show...

Im really disappointed... but i found that usually all the social-networking-based players / services doesn`t give much attention to the equalizers.. (take a look at lastfm scrobbler).
Anyways , is a good player and very lightweight compared with itunes, so i will wait for that EQ in the future.
In the meantime windoze users like me will download some real time eq like :
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimed...
and i think that may exist another realtime eq for linux too.

i think an equalizer is essential. the player seems really cool, but at its core its a music player, and i think its very important to get the core functionality down right. without an eq, the playback quality just isn't that great, it just sounds kind of flat and mushy. i really don't think its proper to have a music player that takes over a year to play music in a way that sounds good.

I just want to boost the bass on my music :P.

What would be cool is if you could attach equalizer settings to playlist.
So songs in playlist x play with equalizer settings y.

Maybe also auto set the equalizer based on the 'genre' metadata tag.
So genre x plays with equalizer settings y.

This of course implies there is a way to save equalizer presets.

The lack of an EQ is the single most disappointing aspect of Songbird. I agree with what others have said; that focus should be placed on the sound, above all else. I doubt that Songbird will ever overtake Firefox as people's browser of choice, but if the few remaining problems with the music player--this one being chief among them--are solved, it stands to do to iTunes what Firefox did to IE.

I just remembered that even the most basic Windows media player has an EQ of some sort. I wonder y the developers did not start with a simple media player get that right first, then work on everything else. seems like they are moving to fast and trying to play the market without getting the basics right.

How do you think apple got such a kick ass music player. they did just that started with the basics got that right and then added improvements.

i would have liked to see this done. you could have worked on a good media player and then got permission to use Firefox for what you need as firefox is what you are basically using.

I like the eq.py script/plugin from xmms2 world. It offers the choice of:

{10 : 15 : 31} band Equalizer, plus a preamp.

Having tuned the 31-band EQ to the curve extrapolated from the "POP" EQ Preset on my COWON iAUDIO O2PMP... and applied that to xmms2's playback I would LOVE to be able to do that to GStreamer.

BRING IT!! :-)

Soon this bug has its one year anniversary, and still it's not getting enough attention, imho.

While it is still on the roadmap, it is not sheduled for the next releases.
The corresponding bug report doesn't seem very promising, too.

And this is the most requested feature for songbird since months!

This is absolutely something that needs to happen.

I just moved out of iTunes (it was giving me agita), and the only thing I miss, aside from podcast support- which is big for me, is the equalizer.

Not that I really plan on going back, but I absolutely hope these hopes come to fruition.

The fact that is on the way, though, seems promising.

I love most of the new developments the team is working on and I am really excited for most of them, but it would be great to hear from them that an EQ function is coming and has some kind of priority given it's popularity as a requested feature. Carlos K's comment seems to infer that an EQ is not a developer priority due to personal preferences and not the needs of the rest of songbirds users. As it stands, an EQ is not something that can be easily or seamlessly integrated into songbird through an external application. The current lack of an EQ has led users to switch back to admittedly inferior software music players. Songbird needs to be feature competitive in areas like this before implementing new and experimental features if it ever expects to grow.

The reason equalizers were invented in the first place was to EQUALIZE the sound. Equalization offers the ability to dial things in until a tonal balance is acheived that makes sense for the listener's acoustic space and physical playback equipment limitations. Making an EQ optional would be akin to making one size of television. If you want to see video "as the artist intended" you can just sit closer. Flawed logic at best. As many others here have said, Songbird needs to have EQ if it is to be taken seriously by those (like me) who take their music seriously. Period.

To be honest, I'm not sure how Songbird has made it this far. I'm glad that it has, because I think it will eventually be a spectacular program, but I'm amazed.

It is a music player that has reached version 1.0+, and yet its audio quality is noticeably worse than almost any other music player I try.

Whatever functionality Songbird offers over other music players (and believe me, I love some of the things Songbird is doing) hardly matters when the core functions, that of audio playback, are inferior.

Please lets have the equalizer fast!

can anyone tell me where to place the files to make this work, i got the images, but no idea what to do with the patch, i'm on vista, but just a simple like it's in app data and skin then bindings or whatever will do, i can figure it out from there. Thanks

Sorry, but I've recently tried the both the Official Release, (no EQ)
& the Nightly with the first EQ, & the SOUND IS STILL NOT RIGHT on EITHER VERSION. - Others are still complaining of poor sound quality in this thread, & here: http://getsatisfaction.com/songbird/t...

It seems like Songbird is not managing the sound cards correctly. - I'm getting gross distortion on some tracks, regardless of volume settings.
- This calls for a re-working of GAIN STRUCTURE, especially a reduction of "input gain" or early gain stages.

- Users should be given additional control via a "PRE-AMP" control on the EQ.

As I mentioned in a previous post; it's super handy to have the setting of the "PRE-AMP" control saved with the EQ PRE-SETS:

- Users should be able to create a "Default" EQ & PRE-AMP setting that works on their system with most music, but can be overridden if the currently playing track has been assigned an EQ/PRE-AMP PRE-SET of its' own; useful for "padding down" a super-hot, bass-heavy track & preventing distortion, or "gaining-up" a very quiet track, while preserving SIGNAL-TO-NOISE-RATIO.

P.S.: This can't & SHOULD NOT be fixed via NORMALIZATION using REPLAY-GAIN.. The basic gain structure needs to be set-up correctly first..

Please, someone from Songbird read this thread...

http://getsatisfaction.com/songbird/t...

Ghislain 'Aus' Lacroix, (Official Rep) :
"There are known issues with the current Equalizer that cause distortion, these will be fixed before it's released.

The first iteration of the Equalizer will not have any presets, there was simply not enough time to put those in there."
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THX! - Yeah, I figured the pre-sets were still planned for later.. I'm looking forward to that. I was just saying it's useful to have pre-amp adjustments that can be assigned to certain tracks, & once the EQ has pre-sets, that might be a good way to implement that. (I'm sure just saving pre-sets comes first, but I really hope that later certain tracks can be assigned to use certain EQ pre-sets, this is just very handy for reasons I've outlined in previous posts.. track with super heavy bass, etc..)

- I think the official release w/o EQ was having distortion on some tracks too..
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Ghislain 'Aus' Lacroix: "On Windows, Songbird uses the ACM MP3 Decoder and DirectSound to output audio. If you compare the sound quality of WMP and Songbird they should be basically the same."
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THX, that's good info.
- Of course I've always felt that iTunes, Winamp, & foobar, etc. sound much better than WMP. In fact older versions of WMP had the exact same problem I'm describing; hotter tracks caused gross distortion & you couldn't make any adjustment to fix it. I've heard newer versions of WMP are better, but I haven't tried WMP for a long time..

So, does Songbird come with the necessary files, or get them from a WMP or Windows folder? Could I need to install a newer version of WMP? Or can I install a different codec in Songbird or update, or fix it? Do you think something related to this could be causing my problem?

Anyway, it seems like you guys are definitely on the right track, both with the EQ, & Songbird as a whole. - Thank You! :)

P.S.: I think 10 fixed bands will be perfectly adequate. Might be fun to play with parametric or 15 bands, but hardly seems necessary just for music playback..