EQ Preset for Psy Trance: CLICK TO ENLARGE
Psy-Trance is sometimes difficult to listen to on headphones. This is because of the frequencies and how most mid-quality headphones work. What happens is that Psy-Trance music has a lot happening both when it comes to stereo effects and especially with the mid frequencies. The kick drum is usually a sound that is more prominent in the middle frequencies as opposed to hip-hop kick drums that are usually sub woofer rumbling. But if someone is on headphones, the headphones tend to put extra emphasis on the mid and high frequencies. Only extremely high-quality headphones play bass notes properly, and these types of headphones can be extremely expensive. Part of the reason for this is because Psy-Trance is designed to be listened to loud and on monitors or loud speakers, for lots of people to enjoy. The DJ has a lot of sonic information to work with and can control the equalizer with skill to get the effects he or she wants. But many of us live in confined spaces so we use headphones. Fortunately, there is a simple fix for this problem.
MediaMonkey Equalizer button location
If you use the audio library and music player program called, “MediaMonkey” you can click on a button with a couple knobby looking things. That’s the Equalizer button. If you click on it you will see an equalizer, and if you aren’t familiar with what a graphical equalizer is, here’s a quick crash course. A graphic Equalizer or EQ is a bunch of knobs that let you control how your music sounds. The ones on the left are for bass and low notes, and the ones on the right are for treble and high notes. But the middle range is what we want to focus on for fixing this Psy Trance problem.
If you look at the above picture on the left you will see a good preset pattern for the EQ that will make headphone Psy-Trance much easier to listen to and will probably cause less headaches. The shape of the EQ knob positions is similar to a ‘valley.’ The knobs dip in a gradual pattern toward the middle frequencies. By doing this, the music will be not as loud, so you will probably want to turn your overall volume or else the “preamp” knob up a little bit.
By doing this, the kick drum will have a more bass-sound and the overall sound of the music will be less ear-pounding. I really like this style of EQ because headphones are a great way to listen to all the stereo magic that happens during Psy-Trance.
If you use other programs like Winamp there is an EQ that you can manipulate in a similar way.
But if you use MediaMonkey, then you can use this simple Equlizer Preset that I made. If you unzip the file and put it in a directory that you remember, then you can click on the “load preset” button in Media Monkey and then navigate to the folder with the file. Once you load up the file it should automatically adjust your EQ. Just remember to change your EQ when you listen to a different genre of music.
-Tyler
