Graphic EQ: In Audacity, you have a graphic equalization feature, which allows the user to make changes in the audio sound according to frequencies. You can increase sound for some particular frequencies and reduce the same for others. This is an advanced form of audio and tone controllers.
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Equalize it all!
You will find the ‘Filter Curve’ option present in the ‘Effect’ menu. You need to switch to ‘Draw Curves’ mode to make these sound changes according to frequencies. Another way of accessing this feature is by using the ‘Graphic EQ’ option in the ‘Effects’ menu.
When you enable this feature, a dialog box will appear on the screen. It will demand some inputs. Let us understand these, one by one.
Graphic EQ Sliders
These are a set of many sliders, which helps you set the frequency for the audio. You can shift the slider up and down and set a maximum value of 20 dB, which is at the center of the slider. Also you can shift the slider by using the ‘Tab’ option, by the use of arrows, or by clicking near the slider.
You can hover over the slider to check the accurate magnitude of the slider. Normally, you will notice that the frequency value is the loudest at the bottom end of the slider. You can always change that using the ‘Normalize’ option.
More Settings
It may happen sometimes that the edits you have made seem incorrect to you and you wish to reset the sliders again. You can definitely do that by using the ‘Flatten’ option. This will set all the sliders at the minimum value of zero frequency.
Another way in which you can reset the value of sliders is by inverting the whole range of values. You can use the ‘Invert’ option to do the same. This will make the positive gains, the negative ones, and invert the slider curve wholly.
Much More Edit options
At the most bottom of the message box, you will see four options, two at each side. The first of them is ‘Manage’. This button is used to reset the slider settings and manage them.
‘Preview’ feature is a very useful feature that lets you have a short insight into the edits made. You can have a look at what your track will sound like before even finally applying the edits. The default length of the preview is 6 seconds. You can change that using the preferences option in the ‘Edit’ menu.
At the bottom right, we have OK and Cancel buttons. Clicking the OK button will finally save your changes and will close the dialog box. ‘Cancel’ button will delete all the changes made and will keep the track as the original one.
Limitations
Using equalization in tracks can definitely help you set the loudness of the track according to frequencies, but also throw some limitations. You cannot process equalization until all the tracks in the project have the same sample rate. You can change the same using the ‘Resample’ button in the ‘Tracks’ menu.
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