What WinAmp equalizer setting will most emphasize the bass guitar?

May 14, 2011 4:03 PM

What WinAmp equalizer setting will most emphasize the bass guitar?

As if isolating it for study. Not to enhance pleasure listening.

WinAmp's equalization bands are 70, 180, 320, 600, 1K, 3K, 6K, 12K, 14K, 16K.

[If there are any plug-ins that will help, I'd try those.]

posted by Trurl to technology (3 answers total)

Low E on a bass is 41Hz, so you're going to need to boost the 70 to help anything low. If you boost the 180, you might bring out some overtones of the lowest notes too, and the same for 320. Boosting 600 should bring out some attack which may help picking out notes for learning.

If all you then want is the bass, I'd cut anything above 1K...
posted by benzo8 at 4:42 PM on May 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Not as simple as you'd think. Here's a discussion of that subject. Wikipedia also has a chart listing the standard tuning of a bass guitar (41-97Hz).

Of course, higher octaves correspond to higher frequencies -- and you can go pretty high on a modern bass guitar. Picking up the full range will likely also have you picking up drums and other instruments, particularly since Winamp's EQ does not offer you a particularly granular control on the low end.

If you've got a Winamp plugin that can produce a spectrogram for the song that you're listening to, you may be able to get a better grip on the range of the bass being used in that particular song.
posted by schmod at 4:43 PM on May 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I should elaborate on Octaves.

A note one octave above a 41Hz tone will be 82Hz. One octave above that is 164Hz, and so on and so forth. You approach the higher frequencies very quickly.
posted by schmod at 4:45 PM on May 14, 2011