Lesson 22

22. Equalization ‘Eq’ in Audacity

Resource Type:

Tutorial Video

Duration:

4 minutes

Outcomes:

Learners are expected to:

SO 4.8.            adjust a sound sample by using the Equalization effectof music and apply appropriate Fade In and Fade Out effects

Suggested Evaluation:

Learners can be evaluated through the completion of the following activities and projects:

How to Mess Up a Piece of Music

Interview a Superhero

Radio Play

Instructors may choose to observe learners complete this task as the evaluation method.

Procedure:

Audacity gives us many useful effects that allow us to change the way our projects sounds - Equalization is one of those effects. Equalization, or ‘EQ,’ allows us to change the tone of your sound by increasing or decreasing the volume of a certain frequency range (pitch). For example, a recording may have too much bass. You can use the Equalization effect to reduce the amount of bass.

To use Equalization you first need to select the portion of sound you wish to change. Next go to the EFFECT menu and choose EQUALIZATION. You should now see the Equalization window.

A good place to start in this window is with the SELECT CURVE pull-down menu. Here Audacity provides a number of presets for you to try. Explore these and note how each preset changes the sound of your project. As you select different presets you can click OK to hear how it sounds. If you do not like the sound just go EDIT->UNDO to go back to your unchanged sound.

Once you have explored the presets you can click the GRAPHIC EQ button and try moving some of the sliders to make a custom EQ curve. The sliders to the left are low frequencies and the sliders to the right are high frequencies.

Explore the Equalization effect to find settings that best work for you. When you find some settings that work, you may want to save the Equalization effect settings within the plugin by clicking SAVE AS. You can come back to this setting in future projects by using the SAVE/MANAGE CURVES… button.