[Guide] How to set your EQ

There's been quite a few threads on what EQ-setting people have so I thought I might as well create a guide on three good ways to set it to your ears. Try them and find out which one works best for you.


Ok, so this first method is setting it to your weak spots. The idea of this is to listen to the individal frequencies and set them each individually so their sound as a whole wont feel uncomfortable when you add them together. This is a really good starter because a) it lets you get familiar with the EQ and b) once it's done the end result is very neutral to your ear without any one frequence being too high or low.

Here's how:

1) Set your volume to 25. Make sure you use whatever earbuds, phones or iem's you are going to use with your music, setting your EQ to one and then using another would cause a completely different acoustic in your ears.

2) Find a good song that have strong vocals, bass and treble. It's good if it's something you've listened to a lot in your stereo and know instinctively how it should sound and feel to you. Select it and set your player to Repeat One.

3) Turn your Bass Boost, Treble Boost, ViBE, Phase Corrected EQ and Virtual 3D settings down to 0.

4) Turn all your EQ frequencies down to -15.

5) Turn the 60Hz one up to the point where it gets uncomfortable for your ear creates some flutter on your eardrum. Turn it down 2 notches and write the setting down so you'll remember it. When you're done, turn it all the way back down to -15 again.

6) Repeat the steps for the rest of the frequencies one by one. Turn it up until it gets uncomfortable/not pleasureable, take it down 2 notches, note the setting, and turn it down to -15 again.

7) When you have all your weak spots for the individual frequencies written down, set your entire EQ's range from your notes.

8) Compare your user-defined with the rest. If it's still tireing to your ears, try lowering 2,5K and 5K (most people find the range fatigueing). For more bass adjust 60, 150, 300. For more clarity 10K. Treble 16K and 20K. Vocals are usually a combination between 1K and 2,5K. 550 will add warmth and thickness.

9) Since we started with the volume at 25 it will be deafening loud at 40, so turn it up where you feel your max should be, note the volume and set it as a limit in Restrict Volume.

10) Go back into your EQ and normalise your presets. Check what your highest frequency setting in your user-defined EQ is and go to for instance Pop. Set it's highest frequency at the same level and lower or boost the rest in relative steps so you'll keep the original EQ-setting.


The second one is a quick fix, the smiley method. As you may or may not have noted the settings for Pop-presets are almost always shaped as a smiley. This will give you a nice, clean curve with a fair amount of treble and bass without being a strain on your ears in the middle range... which is why it's so usual and... pop. This is the one most people tend to use on their stereos and home systems too, since it's so difficult to get wrong. It's a cliché, but it's a fairly good cliché that'll give you a good basis for subtle tweaking.

Here's how you do it:

1) Set your volume to 25. Make sure you use whatever earbuds, phones or iem's you are going to use with your music, setting your EQ to one and then using another would cause a completely different acoustic in your ears.

2) Find a good song that have strong vocals, bass and treble. It's good if it's something you've listened to a lot in your stereo and know instinctively how it should sound and feel to you. Select it and set your player to Repeat One.

3) Turn your Bass Boost, Treble Boost, ViBE, Phase Corrected EQ and Virtual 3D settings down to 0.

4) Turn all your EQ frequencies down to -15.

5) Turn the 1K one up to the point where it gets uncomfortable for your ear and creates some flutter on your eardrum. Take it down a couple of notches to make it comfortable. Leave it as it is.

6) Once you have your marker in the 1K range, for the sake of the example +4, set the range like this:

a) +8 +7 +6 +5 +4 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8

(note the smiley ranging from your 1K marker on the right all the way to 60Hz on the left and 20K on the right in 1 step increments. This will give you something close to the Pop preset with lots of clarity, treble and bass without being too fatigueing)

or...

b) +12 +10 +8 +6 +4 +4 +6 +8 +10 +12

(this will add a lot more depth to the bass and treble and strip a lot of the uncomfortable frequencies. It sounds a bit like those bass and treble boosted freestyle Walkmans in the 90's actually)

7) Compare your user-defined with the rest. If it's still tireing to your ears, try lowering 2,5K and 5K (most people find the range fatigueing). For more bass adjust 60, 150, 300. For more clarity 10K. Treble 16K and 20K. Vocals are usually a combination between 1K and 2,5K. 550 will add warmth and thickness.

Note: The smiley method usually needs a little fiddling, most notably in 1K, 2.5K and 5K plus on either side of the high and low range depending if you like more or less treble and bass. You may also gain some definition if you make one of the frequencies that share a level (two that are +8 for instance) go one notch higher or lower so they don't share levels. All-in-all, it's a very good basis to start from with fairly easy and subtle tweaking. Difficult to go wrong since you're so used to listening to it whether you know it or not.

8) Since we started with the volume at 25 it will be deafening loud at 40, so turn it up where you feel your max should be, note the volume and set it as a limit in Restrict Volume.

9) Go back into your EQ and normalise your presets. Check what your highest frequency setting in your user-defined EQ is and go to for instance Pop. Set it's highest frequency at the same level and lower or boost the rest in relative steps so you'll keep the original EQ-setting.


The third one we can call the audiophile. It takes some practice with you actually listening to the individal frequencies before picking them out properly in a complete sound picture, so if it's a first, briefly try the weak spot method before using this one. The idea of it is to start somewhere in the mid-range and work your way out to the sides left to right and right to left while maintaining the composition and balance of the sound as a whole all the way through. There's a YouTube guide on it here.

How to:

1) Set your volume to 25. Make sure you use whatever earbuds, phones or iem's you are going to use with your music, setting your EQ to one and then using another would cause a completely different acoustic in your ears.

2) Find a good song that have strong vocals, bass and treble. It's good if it's something you've listened to a lot in your stereo and know instinctively how it should sound and feel to you. Select it and set your player to Repeat One.

3) Turn your Bass Boost, Treble Boost, ViBE, Phase Corrected EQ and Virtual 3D settings down to 0.

4) Turn all your EQ frequencies down to -15.

5) This time we start with the 2,5K one. Turn it up to the point where it gets uncomfortable or create "flutter" on your eardrum and drop it a notch or two. Leave it as it is.

6) Once you have your marker, go to the right and the 5K one and adjust it so it doesn't dominate the 2,5K but blends in nicely with the sound without being too high or low, make sure not to have it sound "tinny", "boooingy" or "SCREAMY"... but make sure it blends (you can always add more bass or treble through your bass and treble boost or even your ViBE later on).

7) Repeat, left to right, with 10K, 16K, and 20K, blending them all into the range nicely without any one frequency dominating (helps if you don't look at your EQ and do it strictly by ear). Once your done, go the 1K and repeat the process right from left with 1K, 550, 300, 150 & 60... blending them all in nicely with the sound picture.

Note: If you like your bass you can do step 5, 6, 7, but instead starting at 1K going right to left and then 2,5K going left to right.

8) Compare your user-defined with the rest. If it's still tireing to your ears, try lowering 2,5K and 5K (most people find the range fatigueing). For more bass adjust 60, 150, 300. For more clarity 10K. Treble 16K and 20K. Vocals are usually a combination between 1K and 2,5K. 550 will add warmth and thickness.

9) Since we started with the volume at 25 it will be deafening loud at 40, so turn it up where you feel your max should be, note the volume and set it as a limit in Restrict Volume.

10) Go back into your EQ and normalise your presets. Check what your highest frequency setting in your user-defined EQ is and go to for instance Pop. Set it's highest frequency at the same level and lower or boost the rest in relative steps so you'll keep the original EQ-setting.


Continued below..

A quick guide on the EQ and what the frequencies does (in most cases). It's a copy and paste so I can't take credit for it.

Eq Settings:
20 Hz and below - impossible to detect, remove as it only adds unnecessary energy to the total sound, thereby most probably holding down the overall volume of the track
60 Hz and below - sub bass
80(-100) Hz - feel AND hear bass
100-120 Hz - the "club sound system punch" resides here
200 Hz and below - bottom
250 Hz - notch filter here can add thump to a kick drum
150-400 Hz - boxiness
200 Hz-1.5 KHz - punch, fatness, impact
800 Hz-4 KHz - edge, clarity, harshness, defines timbre
4500 Hz - exteremly tiring to the ears, add a slight notch here
5-7 KHz - de-essing is done here
4-9 KHz - brightness, presence, definition, sibilance, high frequency distortion
6-15 KHz - air and presence
9-15 KHz - adding will give sparkle, shimmer, bring out details - cutting will smooth out harshness and darken the mix

EQ Reference: Frequencies
50Hz
Boost: To thicken up bass drums and sub-bass parts.
Cut: Below this frequency on all vocal tracks. This should reduce the effect of any microphone 'pops'.
70-100Hz
Boost: For bass lines and bass drums.
Cut: For vocals.
General: Be wary of boosting the bass of too many tracks. Low frequency sounds are particularly vulnerable to phase cancellation between sounds of similar frequency. This can result in a net 'cut of the bass frequencies.
200-400Hz
Boost: To add warmth to vocals or to thicken a guitar sound.
Cut: To bring more clarity to vocals or to thin cymbals and higher frequency percussion.
Boost or Cut: to control the 'woody' sound of a snare.
400-800Hz
Boost: To add warmth to toms.
Boost or Cut: To control bass clarity, or to thicken or thin guitar sounds.
General: In can be worthwhile applying cut to some of the instruments in the mix to bring more clarity to the bass within the overall mix.
800Hz-1KHz
Boost: To thicken vocal tracks. At 1 KHz apply boost to add a knock to a bass drum.
1-3KHz
Boost: To make a piano more aggressive. Applying boost between 1KHz and 5KHz will also make guitars and basslines more cutting.
Cut: Apply cut between 2 KHz and 3KHz to smooth a harsh sounding vocal part.
General: This frequency range is often used to make instruments stand out in a mix.
3-6KHz
Boost: For a more 'plucked' sounding bass part. Apply boost at around 6KHz to add some definition to vocal parts and distorted guitars.
Cut: Apply cut at about 3KHz to remove the hard edge of piercing vocals. Apply cut between 5KHZ and 6KHz to dull down some parts in a mix.
6-10KHz
Boost: To sweeten vocals. The higher the frequency you boost the more 'airy/breathy' the result will be. Also boost to add definition to the sound of acoustic guitars or to add edge to synth sounds or strings or to enhance the sound of a variety of percussion sounds. For example boost this range to:
Bring out cymbals.
Add ring to a snare.
Add edge to a bass drum.
10-16KHz
Boost: To make vocals more 'airy' or for crisp cymbals and percussion. Also boost this frequency to add sparkle to pads, but only if the frequency is present in the original sound, otherwise you will just be adding hiss to the recording.


Basic understanding of the (mid-range) frequencies and what they do to your ear:

Imagine your eardrum being a big drum. Hitting it with a bowling ball would be like 60Hz, beating it with your fist would be the mid-range, beating it with a hammer would be the far right of the mid-range and beating it with stick would be 20K. Now imagine the impact. The bowling ball spreads the force to make it fairly subtle, the same goes for the fist and the stick would be too small to cause any real damage unless you really put some force to it... but the hammer, has both force and doesn't spread the impact... The same thing applies to your ear and the far right of the mid-range frequencies when your using something, like an earbud or an iem, that will interact directly with your ears inner acoustics or in a sense are "beating your eardrums". Be wary when setting the 2,5K and 5K. Your ears will thank you in the long run.


And finally - please remember. There isn't one perfect EQ-setting. What sounds like a great bass with your favorite indie band might sound like crap when playing some reggae. You simply can't find one EQ-setting that will work perfectly in each and every situation, but what you can do is find a really good, easily tweakable compromise that will allow you to listen to all your music in your earbuds without any sense of real annoyance with the sound. In every case where you have a sound device with adjustable EQ, there is no such thing as "it sounds bad", "it hurt my ears" or "the bass is muddy"... there is only more or less competent producers (responsible for the initial presets) and more or less lazy users (responsible for the end result). NOT fixing the EQ would essentially be like buying a computer and complaining it "has few programs and stuff" or "Windows Media Player is fat and bulky" when in fact, customizing it, really is up to you. The producers can only do so much and their presets are, in best of cases, set to a large test group to make it as unoffensive to as many numbers of people as possible, so it's in no way out of the box adapted to your specific hearing and frequency response and you may just find you'll react badly to what a 100 other people think sounds great.

So take your time and do it right. The end result is well worth it.


That's it. Enjoy your Meizu.

thank you for the detailed explanation, i will try it now!

Excellent guides, fellas.. thanks..