pulseaudio equalizer

[phish3]

The main source of information and how to setup is here
For qpaeq, it is recommended you try git versions (listed on the wiki).

(old) Screenshots are available here
Video of equalizing in action (skip to 2:20) here


Here is a list of pros/cons for the pulseaudio equalizer vs the ladspa/mbeq backed equalizers (psyche83's eq. script thus included)
pros:

• realtime adjustments
• unlimited bands* (qpaeq dynamically scales the bands to the width of the window)
• higher accuracy
• frequencies are natural (mbeq's frequencies are proportional to the real frequencies we hear in)

*the limit is half the sample-rate of your master sink/sound card. One cannot specify any more useful information beyond that number of bands (theoretical limit).

cons:

• general/tradeable presets not implemented yet, slowly being worked on though (server side preset "states" exist though)

cons with a mbeq backed equalizer:

• frequencies (coefficients you specify in control) above it's 1024 hz are ignored
• aliasing occurs because the filter doesn't sample sufficiently, see the bottom two graphics here for a visual description.
• frequencies are proportional to the real frequencies we hear in

cons with psyche83's gui (mbeq backed):

• need to hit apply for changes to take effect (not real-time)
• fixed to 15 bands

Also note that this equalizer is in upstream pulseaudio and will be probably be released in the next official version (whenever that is).

[towheedm]

Pulseaudio works properly on my system even with Rythymbox. Did the whole HOWTO Pulseaudio Fixes.

I used pavucontrol to verify that the FFT equalizer was selected as the default sink and that my SoundBlaster was not muted, then daemonized pulseaudio. Opened Rythymbox and got the qpaeq to work. BTW, much much much better quality. However, problem #2 still exists. If I try to resize the qpaeq window, it becomes non-responsive and starts eating memory. I looked at the memory map using the system monitor and saw that the heap was eating all of the memory, looks like a bug in Python to me. qpaeq.py memory usage was quite low. After leaving it for about 15mins, it chewed up all of my physical memory and about 1GiB of swap.

The other thing now is that once I restart and log in, the SoundBlaster is always muted so I have to pavucontrol and unmute it. But once I do this, close pavucontrol, daemonize PA launch qpaeq and open up Rythymbox, there's nice sound. Unfortunately, once I daemonize PA I loose the ability to control the volume with the volume control on my kybd. Any suggestions on these two issues, especially the resizing will be greatly appreciated.

I will try and compile although I have never ever had to before. My only programming experience is with VisualBasic and VBA under Windows. BTW, went into GNOME Alsa Mixer and turned on the 3D Control. PA + qpaeq + 3D = WOW WOW WOW!

Thanks.

Just occurred to me that this eq sounds very similar to the Nevion Eq plugin for WinAmp, same author I'm assuming.

Using Karmic with latest updates, P4 2.8GHz 1MiB RAM 2GiB swap.

PS: I installed GIT using Synaptic. I then followed your instructions in the SystemEqualizer wiki, the following are the results from the clone and checkout GIT commands:

towheed@ga1a4ch:~$ git clone git://gitorious.org/pulseaudio-equalizer/pulseaudio-equalizer.git pulseaudio-equalizer
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/towheed/pulseaudio-equalizer/.git/
remote: Counting objects: 37374, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (7696/7696), done.
remote: Total 37374 (delta 30982), reused 35929 (delta 29643)
Receiving objects: 100% (37374/37374), 11.52 MiB | 34 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (30982/30982), done.
towheed@ga1a4ch:~$ cd pulseaudio-equalizer && git checkout -t origin/master
fatal: git checkout: branch master already exists

The first command under the Compiling section is

cd pulseaudio-equalizer.git

However there is no pulseaudio-equalizer.git directory. There is a pulseaudio-equalizer/.git directory. I'll assume it's a typo and cd to pulseaudio-equalizer/.git. But then the next command

./autogen.sh

will not work because there is no such file in the pulseaudio-equalizer/.git directory. Any advice?
Thanks again.

[phish3]

I'd discourage the weak at heart from compiling pulseaudio from source. That being said, the pulseaudio-equalizer.git thing is more of a trap than a typo and not all instructions should always be followed to the letter given configuration/system differences... There are instructions out there for how to compile pulseaudio though and it follows a standard layout & autogen.sh/configure/make cycle. In short, you cd'd into the .git directory and need to work a directory above it.

No clue about the 1G bug with qpaeq. What graphics drivers are you using? So far you are the first to have it... I can't fix it if I can't reproduce it. Hopefully somebody else will fall victim to it.

Regarding pavucontrol, it looks like it might be sufficient to simply close pavucontrol - perhaps no need to restart pulse or anything. I can use my system (kmix) and alsa mixers just fine btw (including w/ media keys).

Interesting coincidence with the winamp plugin, but no - not the same author .

[towheedm]

the pulseaudio-equalizer.git thing is more of a trap than a typo and not all instructions should always be followed to the letter given configuration/system differences... There are instructions out there for how to compile pulseaudio though and it follows a standard layout & autogen.sh/configure/make cycle. In short, you cd'd into the .git directory and need to work a directory above it.

OK so I thought that is what I needed to do. I'm not faint at heart, learn fast and am willing to take the risk if it means learning something new. Well I'll search for the instructions and give it a try.

My graphics card is the nVidia FX5200 and I'm using the proprietary (Version 173) driver. I'll uninstall and try with the non-accelerated drivers. BTW, I ran the lastest qpaeq.py from GIT but the same. What the last control 'Coda' used for?

Thanks.

I uninstalled the propriety nVidia driver, uninstalled Compiz (just in case) but it still has the resize issue.

[phish3]

Regarding coda, it is the control point for the last frequency band of the filter and so controls the taper off from the last numbered band to the end (potentially alot of high frequencies in the smaller views)

[towheedm]

So that between the DC and the Coda sliders, I can control the the bandwidth of the eq, correct?

I did some preliminary testing into the resize issue and it seems that the code is stuck in a never ending loop in the create_slider routine. Hope this helps.