questions about how save/assign works...

[Ricobico]

So I get that when you tweak the EQ, you can manually save it for a specific device, and also save it for the particular song or the folder. But  it doesn't seem to auto save. For example, I am listening to a new song in a folder of older songs; I pull up the EQ, adjust then I hit save/assign, and select for the song. When that song is over, it goes to the next track, one where I have already assigned the EQ parameters, yet it doesn't pull those up, instead, it uses the setting I just saved for the new song. Am I missing something?

 

Also, if I have auto-save selected, do I have to select save/assign, scroll down and tell it to save for the song or folder? What exactly does auto-save save?

 

Thank you.

[andrewilley]

Auto-save should save any slider adjustments that you make back to the current Preset's name, overwriting whatever was there before.

You can save a Preset for a given song, which will override whatever else you were using at the time. There is a priority order that dictates which type of saved Preset should take precedence (general output method, specific named device, album, song, etc) and I think the intended logic is that song is meant to takes the highest preference over any of the other saved presets.

Andre

[Ricobico]

Thank you for the quick reply.

 

So, just to make sure I am clear: if I have auto save on and move one of the equalizer sliders and do nothing else, the app should automatically update the presety for that song (assuming I had already saved an EQ setting for that song.

 

Sorry if this has been answered before. I really did look for quite a while to try and find the answer.

[andrewilley]

@Ricobico Yes, with Auto-Save that's basically how it's meant to work. When you have a Preset currently active, and you make some new adjustments to the EQ Sliders, Tone Controls, etc, those adjustments will be automatically saved back into the original Preset - so you should get the changed version back again the next time you activate that Preset.

Andre

[Ricobico]

On 1/15/2024 at 12:52 AM, andrewilley said:

@Ricobico Yes, with Auto-Save that's basically how it's meant to work. When you have a Preset currently active, and you make some new adjustments to the EQ Sliders, Tone Controls, etc, those adjustments will be automatically saved back into the original Preset - so you should get the changed version back again the next time you activate that Preset.

Andre

Thank you for the reply. The app does not seem to be working as you describe, but maybe I am missing something. So, to be clear, if I set the EQ for a song and then select Save/Assign and check the box "apply to songs: song", then a week later I play that song, should the EQ automatically adjust to what I had saved the week before?

What I am seeing is this: I play a song, adjust the EQ, save it as described above (even though I have "auto sae" checked) and exit the app. If open the app back up and I play a different song and adjust the EQ, and save, whatever song plays next uses the EQ for the previous song, even if the new song had a previous EQ setting saved.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I have a folder with a ton of songs and they all need their own EQ settings and even though I adjust them all\ and save, it doesn't really seem like the app is remembering. It is acting more like I have saved the EQ setting for the folder, when I clearly did not. In fact, I just checked and I went through 4-5 songs and checked the EQ for each and they all have the same EQ setting, even though I have adjusted them all differently.

 

Also, on a different note, the shuffle option keeps randomly turning on. Maybe I need to reload the app?

[andrewilley]

Re: EQ. Yes, that's how it is supposed to work, and that's how it does work for me. Make sure you have AutoSave turned off or you might accidentally change your assigned preset. A preset that was assigned for a specific Song should override any other saved presets (device, Album, etc) which may also be in force.

So: First adjust the EQ sliders as desired, then tap the three-dots icon and select Save/Assign. Enter a name for the preset and tick the 'Song: xxxxx' entry and press 'Save'. Next time you listen to that song, that EQ preset should be activated.

When the song is finished, the assigned EQ values will remain in place until something else overrides them - such as an overall saved Preset for the current output device, or if there is a saved Preset for the overall album, folder, next song, etc.
 

Re: Shuffle. There is a known bug with Android 14 on some devices, where the OS can forward a command to change the Shuffle and Repeat modes during Bluetooth connections. See:

There is a new option in recent beta builds of PA to try to override this (Settings=>Headset/Bluetooth=>Ignore Repeat/Shuffle) but it doesn't seem 100% effective for all devices yet, should be improved still further in the next beta release.

Andre

[Ricobico]

Thank you, sir. I think my problem is because I was not giving the preset a name; I thought it was just assigned to the song. I will try giving itg a name and report back.

[MotleyG]

3 hours ago, Ricobico said:

but I have a folder with a ton of songs and they all need their own EQ settings

This seems highly unusual. Is this due to your headphones not being able to reproduce the desired curve? Or are these files not well mastered or transferred?

Typically the EQ is used to balance the playback device and headphone/output device to be tailored to achieve a personal output curve preference. I get the occasionally need to tweak this for some tracks, but an individual curve preset for each song seems excessive.

Don't get me wrong, I am not judging your desired preferences. I'm just curious if there is a technical reason you need to have this per-song EQ save requirement, or just a choice to tweak what you hear compared to what the artist originally intended it to be.

[andrewilley]

@Ricobico I've never tried not giving an EQ Preset a name, but if that's even possible the list of assigned Presets would quickly become unmanageable if they are all blank.

[Edit] I just tried, and the 'Save' button is greyed-out in the Save/Assign panel until you give the new Preset a name, so you couldn't have saved anything without naming it anyway.

I agree that assigning a different Preset for every song is very unusual though, and not really what an Equalizer is intended for. But it would be feasible to do it if you really want to though. 

Andre

[Ricobico]

On 1/24/2024 at 12:40 AM, andrewilley said:

@Ricobico I've never tried not giving an EQ Preset a name, but if that's even possible the list of assigned Presets would quickly become unmanageable if they are all blank.

[Edit] I just tried, and the 'Save' button is greyed-out in the Save/Assign panel until you give the new Preset a name, so you couldn't have saved anything without naming it anyway.

I agree that assigning a different Preset for every song is very unusual though, and not really what an Equalizer is intended for. But it would be feasible to do it if you really want to though. 

Andre

The app automatically put in "bass and treble" as the preset (or something like that). So every time I was saving a setting for a new song, it was just saving a new preset for ":bass and treble".

 

What do you do for a playlist of various songs in various genres? For example, if I left the the EQ set for one of my more mainstream songs (like Nirvana) and the next song was Dr Dre, the bass would be crazy high.
 

[Ricobico]

On 1/23/2024 at 7:18 PM, MotleyG said:

This seems highly unusual. Is this due to your headphones not being able to reproduce the desired curve? Or are these files not well mastered or transferred?

Typically the EQ is used to balance the playback device and headphone/output device to be tailored to achieve a personal output curve preference. I get the occasionally need to tweak this for some tracks, but an individual curve preset for each song seems excessive.

Don't get me wrong, I am not judging your desired preferences. I'm just curious if there is a technical reason you need to have this per-song EQ save requirement, or just a choice to tweak what you hear compared to what the artist originally intended it to be.

On headphones, there is not need for me to adjust anything. But in my truck, where I do most of my listening and where I have a very good audio system, from android auto, I have to back out like 4-5 times to get to where I can adjust the bass and treble as there is no way to do it  from android auto. like the example above, going from Nirvana to Dr Dre just doesn't work unless they both have their own EQ settings. And I have songs from the 80's that  are not as polished as more modern stuff. So yeah, I need to adjust things a lot. Honestly, just sitting down and assigning a preset for each song isn't taking me that long.

[Ricobico]

Okay, more issues...

I have created presets and things seemed to be going well, then not so much. So I name a preset "devo" for a devo song and adjust the EQ and save/assign it. Then I go to the next song that doesn't have a preset and so the preset says devo, which I assume a holdover from the last song (makes sense). I select "rename" and call it "pantera" and adjust the EQ and save/assign. when I get all the way through my folder and I come back to that original devo song, the "devo" preset is no longer there and it is just taking the preset name from the song before it, even though I have already assigned a preset to that devo song. am I missing something? Do I need to re-install the app? are there only so many presets you can have?

And I still don't get why you have to give a preset a name, if you are already saving the preset to a particular song. Seems redundant, no? would it be that hard implement a function where the app just remembers the EQ setting for each song? Like literally a toggle "remember eq setting for each song"? I'm asking because I don't know squat about programming but it seems less cumbersome from the user end. if it is not, then I will request it on the request thread.

 

I really am not a dumb person, and I am a pretty quick student when it comes to tech (for the most part). I am having a hard time with this one though.

 

Thank you!

[andrewilley]

And I thought this one was all sorted now...

Yes, if a song (or album, genre, folder, device, etc) does not have its own intended Preset values, it will inherit any settings previously in use for the last song - whether that means manually adjusted values made by the user, or a loaded Preset. Otherwise, what different values should be assigned during playback? I tend to use Save/Assign to define a 'clean' default setting for each Output device - Speaker, Wired Headset, etc - which (assuming nothing else wants to override it for a particular song) will be used whenever a new song starts playing to that output device.

Don't use Rename before saving a new Preset, as that will simply give a new name to the currently in-use Preset. In your example, that would change the existing named Preset "devo" to a new name "pantera" (which would still be linked to any song that have may have originally assigned the old "devo" to) which you probably don't want to do. Instead, simply tap Save/Assign and enter a new name into the Save screen at that point, which will create a new Preset rather than renaming an existing one.

Remember that the Save/Assign system is first and foremost a way to save your current EQ settings so you can retrieve them later - hence the need to give it a name, otherwise you'd have a ton of completely unidentifiable items in the list. The fact you can also ask for that newly saved Preset to be automatically re-loaded when a particular Genre, or Album, or Song is playing is a secondary feature.

As has been said above though, assigning specific EQ values for every song is not really what the system is intended for. Indeed, it's actually rather counter-productive as EQ Presets are not additive (perhaps they should be?) so by assigning one Preset for a specific Song, that exact EQ setting will be used regardless of the output device - thus overring any configurations you may have created to compensate for the differing acoustic properties of that particular headset/speaker/DAC/etc. 

Andre

[Ricobico]

Thank you., Andre

I looked and the eq settings that stuck had the device unchecked and the ones that didn't had my truck selected. Meaning,if I check any of the boxes for the outputs, then it doesn't remember for some reason. So now I hit save/assign, then give it a name and I don't check any boxes (no folder'/song title/output device) and that seems to work. So I think  this solves it (knock on wood). I have auto-save on, FWIW.

As for the EQ no being additive, I am not sure what that means unless you mean that literally. in my truck, if a song has way too much bass I (like going from Devo to Dr Dre) I have to back out of android auto (like 3 clicks), then select my truck, then go to audio settings, then adjust the bass level, then go back to android auto. Or I can just open the EQ in Poweramp and just slide down the bass frequencies for that song and be done with it. See why is doesn't seem counter productive to me?

[andrewilley]

Pressing Save/Assign and not ticking any of the boxes will Save a Preset under your chosen name, but not do the 'Assign' part. So it just creates a named Preset that you can select from the list at will. Does what it says on the tin basically.

By "additive" I mean that only one EQ setting can be applied at any given time. Let's say your car headunit happens to be horribly bass-heavy so you create a Preset for its Bluetooth connection to lower the bass significantly. If you then play a song which has its own individually assigned Preset, which perhaps asks for just the treble to be lowered, then that's what you'll get. That one song's high-end reduction won't be combined with the necessary bass-reducing adjustments required to balance the headunit's output.

Andre

[Ricobico]

15 hours ago, andrewilley said:

Pressing Save/Assign and not ticking any of the boxes will Save a Preset under your chosen name, but not do the 'Assign' part. So it just creates a named Preset that you can select from the list at will. Does what it says on the tin basically.

 

That is not what I am finding. I do not select any output device and so far the EQ settings are staying put with each song.

[andrewilley]

@Ricobico Any EQ adjustments will stay in place without having to press Save at all.

Any changes you make will remain current until either you change them again, or some previoualy saved/assigned Preset (song, album, output device, etc) overrides them.

So when a new song starts playing, Poweramp will check to see if there are any assigned Presets that it should apply. As far as I know, they are prioritised in this order, and the first matched entry will be used:

1. Specific Preset assigned for the current song.
2. Specific Preset for the current playback category - e.g. matching the current album/folder/genre/etc.
3. Specific Preset for a named output device - such as a named USB DAC product, or one particular Bluetooth device.
4. General Preset for the output method in use - such as an overall setting to be used for the Phone Speaker, all Wired Headsets, all Bluetooth devices, all DACs, etc.
5. If none of the above apply, continue using the existing settings from the last song. That could have been a manual adjustment by the user, or could have previously been read from a Preset using the above process.

(1) and (2) would be used to correct what you consider to be specific badly mastered audio content. (3) and (4) are the more common usage for a player/amplifier EQ, which is to rebalance for the quirks of your local hardware/speakers/headset/etc in order to create more accurate audio reproduction, or just for your personal preference in music listening (you may like less bass and more midrange for vocals for example).

Andre

[Frisk]

Maybe this isn't the right thread but I think it is related.

Just found out about the EQ assignment to specific devices etc.

Is there any way to list all assignments I've done? How to remove a faulty assignment if I'm not close to the device or not have the actual track/genre available?
I think this should have helped the thread owner as well to see what's actually assigned, and maybe what preset have priority.

The EQ was very helpful for my bad quality headset, but not necessary for my main headphones, Is there a way to assign to completely disable eq for specific devices? (or rather enable it just for certain).