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Topic: What EQ-Curve for bad sounding cds? (Read 3555 times) previous topic - next topic
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What EQ-Curve for bad sounding cds?

I want to create some new "best of"-compilations from my cd-collection, but some of the cds are really, really bad sounding: they sound like played back from a tape deck with a totally bad azimuth setting.

(Gary Numan fans may know what i'm talking about... Especially the albums from the 1991s "Outland"-album up to now - no brilliance, much too much bass (with audible clipping sometimes!) and/or an increased mid high range and always very noisy. But noise and clipping is not the problem, because i have good denoiser and declipper).

I find it very annoying, when some very bad sounding tracks are mixed with good sounding ones in "my" compilations, because it imagines a sudden deafness sometimes... 

I tried some EQ-settings but couldn't find a real good solution. Then i tried a so-called "fletcher-munson-curve at 100dB" and it worked, but only for a few titles...
I'm really despaired in the meantime, because i tried to find a satisfying solution since 3 days now...

Now i need your help:
Are there any suggestions for some good EQ-Curves to "polish" the sound-quality?

Or is there any Gary Numan fan, who has tried the same with the terrible sounding albums and could give me some recommendations (i want to equalize some tracks from the albums "Outland", "Machine + Soul", "Sacrifice", "Exile" and "Pure")?

Btw. i have some software graphic and pragraphic equalizers
Or is there any other way to correct the sound?

What EQ-Curve for bad sounding cds?

Reply #1 –
If you know what you want it to sound like, take a parametric EQ and carve out a curve until it sounds right.  That's what the engineers do.  But, then again, you have to trust your ears and your equipment.

There's no EQ curve or preset that is a fix-all.

There are some EQ plugins that will match a song's frequency response with another song's frequency response, but I have found them to be dubious.  Steinberg makes one, as does Waves (I think).
 

What EQ-Curve for bad sounding cds?

Reply #2 –
Thanks for your reply.
But i don't have any steinberg software but audacity, nero wave editor, soundengine and diamond cut six (a really great tool).
Such a plugin sounds to be interesting...
It would be great if gary numan's newer recordings would sound like the older ones, available on "replicas" or "the pleasure principle". But i don't know, how to make a proper eq-setting. All my trials failed so far...

Btw. i hope a paragraphic eq will do a similar job than a parametric one, because i don't have a parametric one