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music251

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 22, 2005
10
0
Hi.

Well, the title pretty much says it all.
I bought the iPod Shuffle a couple of months ago, but I just got some new canalphones. Unfortunately these need some serious EQ'ing to sound great.
I've read that the iPods doesn't have a customisable EQ internally, but can the iPod nano import your custom EQ settings saved in iTunes? I basically need one custom EQ setting for all my music (when using the nano). Is this possible?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! :)
 
Anyone? :)
I know this isn't a standard feature, but I read something about a way around to get your custom eq setting into the ipod. Maybe I misunderstood something, possibly someone here could shed a light on this? It would be appreciated. If this isn't possible, then I'll just hold out for the next generation of iPods, hoping they will have a real EQ.
thanks.
 
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think your best bet is selecting the songs you want to EQ, then picking a EQ preset in Options.

I'm pretty sure that will encode into the ID3 tag, which will carry over to your iPod.
 
yes, everything in the tag carries over (embedded album art, volume levels, tags, and custom set EQ's) you cannot however customize the EQ for all songs...hence u would need to customize it on every song, tedious and long winded. If you depend on a full featured EQ in the iPod it will surely dissapoint, it is very basic.
 
Wow, that's great! Basically I just need one custom EQ (the same setting) setting for all my tracks to make up for certain frequency boosts in my canalphones.
So all I have to do is mark all my songs in iTunes, then press @+I and select my own made EQ setting. Then this will be transferred into my iPod Nano, keeping my custom EQ setting intact?
Just clarifying... It would be a bum to actually buy the iPod Nano, when I just got the shuffle a few months ago, and then find out the EQ thing didn't work..

Thanks! :)
 
Wait a second!

It's quite possible choose a built-in EQ-preset in iTunes and make your iPod play songs using the same preset. But as far as I know, it's NOT possible to transfer a custom EQ-setting to an iPod using only Apples software. By "custom" I mean a preset you have defined yourself by manually adjusting the frequency-band sliders. And that seems to be exactly what music251 is looking for (if you don't happen to be really lucky, and one of the pre-defined presets provides exactly the "serious EQ'ing" needed for those headphones).

From the article "iPod: About the Equalizer" on Apples website:
1. iPod does not use custom equalizer settings made in iTunes.
2. You can't create custom equalizer settings on iPod, or transfer custom settings to iPod.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61567

I came across one piece of software which could help you out, an open-source project called Rockbox. http://www.rockbox.org/
But it involves changing the firmware of your iPod. (I haven't tried it myself.)

Comparison of features, Rockbox/Apple firmware:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/FeatureComparison#Apple

Screenshots:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/ScreenShots16bpp
 
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