System wide parametric equalizer for Raspberry Pi - is there such a thing?

[jazzendapus]

Hi,
I want to use my RPI4 as a media streamer. The media streaming part is easy - Kodi, but there are some acoustical issues in my room that need some dealing with, namely a 50hz boomy peak (and some other smaller issues). Currently I deal with it rather effortlessly with Equalizer APO on Windows, but with RPI4's Raspbian OS I don't see a viable, usable option that would replace Equalizer APO.

So did anyone here get a system wide parametric equalizer working for RPI? If yes, I would love to learn how to achieve this, switching from Windows to Linux world is quite challenging, and I need some hand holding...

 

[HemiRick]

Moode Audio which is designed to run on a Pi has a parametric eq (Four Mitra-Regalia peaking equaliser filters in series; a vector arithmetic re-implementation of Fons Adriaensens "Parametric1" equaliser[fafil] with minor differences. Parallelisation of the serial filter organisation causes the output to lag by three samples. This EQ uses the EqFA4p component of the CAPS suite of DSP programs written by Tim Goetze)
Note: Equalizer processing applies to MPD, Airplay and Spotify output.

And a Graphic equalizer....built in....and its free. Check it out.

 

[jazzendapus]

Thanks, but that looks like an audio player with EQ capabilities, I'm specifically looking for a system wide EQ similar to Equalizer APO on Windows.

 

[Berwhale]

Apparently, you can run Manjaro Linux and the pulseaudio equalizer...

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=256868

 

[jazzendapus]

Apparently, you can run Manjaro Linux and the pulseaudio equalizer...

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=256868

Yep, I encountered this post as well, but Manjaro has troubles with Kodi apparently.
I did manage to install PulseEffects on Raspbian (via "installation from source") which has a very nice EQ, and it does what's it's supposed to do system wide, but Kodi doesn't work through it for some reason despite detecting it under "audio devices".

So I'm closer, but no cigar yet...

 

[jazzendapus]

Looks like pulseaudio won't work via HDMI on Kodi...
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=187835

 

[jazzendapus]

Looks like pulseaudio won't work via HDMI on Kodi...
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=187835

OK, that's not true, it actually does work, but for 2 channels only, seems like a PulseEffects limitation: https://github.com/wwmm/pulseeffects/issues/353

 

[somebodyelse]

All of the filters available in PulseEffects can also be used directly in alsa by editing the config file. In basic usage you fix all the variables (filter frequency, gain etc.) in that config, but you can use the alsaequal plugin if you want them to be adjustable - see the 'More Advanced Stuff' section about 2/3 of the way down the readme. There's no hand holding or nice error messages with the config file editing - get a character wrong and it'll just not work. It's also likely Kodi won't work with it either - I think for multichannel it's doing passthrough of the multichannel stream to the HDMI port rather than decoding it and passing it through the usual audio subsystem. That lets your TV, AVR or whatever decode multichannel formats that linux can't decode itself.

 

[QMuse]

Hi,
I want to use my RPI4 as a media streamer. The media streaming part is easy - Kodi, but there are some acoustical issues in my room that need some dealing with, namely a 50hz boomy peak (and some other smaller issues). Currently I deal with it rather effortlessly with Equalizer APO on Windows, but with RPI4's Raspbian OS I don't see a viable, usable option that would replace Equalizer APO.

So did anyone here get a system wide parametric equalizer working for RPI? If yes, I would love to learn how to achieve this, switching from Windows to Linux world is quite challenging, and I need some hand holding...

There is a BruteFIR plugin for Volumio. It will accept the same filters as Equalizer APO, but Volumio is audio streaming only.

 

[jazzendapus]

All of the filters available in PulseEffects can also be used directly in alsa by editing the config file. In basic usage you fix all the variables (filter frequency, gain etc.) in that config, but you can use the alsaequal plugin if you want them to be adjustable - see the 'More Advanced Stuff' section about 2/3 of the way down the readme. There's no hand holding or nice error messages with the config file editing - get a character wrong and it'll just not work. It's also likely Kodi won't work with it either - I think for multichannel it's doing passthrough of the multichannel stream to the HDMI port rather than decoding it and passing it through the usual audio subsystem. That lets your TV, AVR or whatever decode multichannel formats that linux can't decode itself.

Thanks, that's getting quite Linuxy indeed. I did manage to get alsaequal working, but I need some more flexibility than that, like EQing separate channels and choosing specific bands and setting Q values for those. So I'm not sure where to go from here.

Kodi has no problem decoding DTS and Dolby to PCM and pushing multichannel audio to AVR via HDMI on RPI, that I know for sure, so I don't think it will be an issue.

 

[somebodyelse]

There is a BruteFIR plugin for Volumio. It will accept the same filters as Equalizer APO, but Volumio is audio streaming only.

The Volumio plugin is automating the process of setting up BruteFIR and the alsa config. It's reasonably easy to recreate this manually in , say, Raspbian and use it system-wide.

Thanks, that's getting quite Linuxy indeed. I did manage to get alsaequal working, but I need some more flexibility than that, like EQing separate channels and choosing specific bands and setting Q values for those. So I'm not sure where to go from here.

The 'more advanced' usage of alsaequal provides a mixer interface to adjust the settings on whichever LADSPA filter you want. If you use it with one of the parametric eq filters it'll let you adjust center frequency, Q and level. There are a load of filters available, and I _think_ there's a way of using VST filters too. You'll probably have to do a bit of searching to find one that does exactly what you want. Steve Harris' plugins include a single band one, and a triple band with shelving.

I just happened upon System-Wide-DSP-Guide which might be some help.

 

[QMuse]

The Volumio plugin is automating the process of setting up BruteFIR and the alsa config. It's reasonably easy to recreate this manually in , say, Raspbian and use it system-wide.

Exactly. Once you setup BruteFIR convolver on Raspbian you are good to go with using filters system-wide. IMO that is the best solution for RPI.

 

[jazzendapus]

Thanks guys,
after figuring out the above, it seems there's another dead end with Kodi, it simply doesn't roll with this configuration:
https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=253845

 

[bogart]

Moode Audio which is designed to run on a Pi has a parametric eq (Four Mitra-Regalia peaking equaliser filters in series; a vector arithmetic re-implementation of Fons Adriaensens "Parametric1" equaliser[fafil] with minor differences. Parallelisation of the serial filter organisation causes the output to lag by three samples. This EQ uses the EqFA4p component of the CAPS suite of DSP programs written by Tim Goetze)
Note: Equalizer processing applies to MPD, Airplay and Spotify output.

And a Graphic equalizer....built in....and its free. Check it out.

@HemiRick - have you played with this much? I'm struggling to use the graphic EQ - it seems extremely prone to clipping, and I can't find a way to cut the pre-amp ahead of the G-EQ.

I have also been flipping back and forth with the P-EQ to try to apply headphone EQ corrections; unfortunately the P-EQ calls for bandwidth instead of Q, and is band limited from 20Hz-14kHz. I'm struggling to convert the AutoEQ suggestions for my headphones into their constraints. Any DSP junkies able to help me?

 

[thefsb]

So did anyone here get a system wide parametric equalizer working for RPI? If yes, I would love to learn how to achieve this, switching from Windows to Linux world is quite challenging, and I need some hand holding...

System-wide is the key. I don't want to change the software I use to get eq.

1. I found that you can use EqFA4p as an ASIO plugin that's then available as a device. I use upmpdcli for playback so I just needed to configure MPD to use the new plugin device.

2. You can use ffmpeg. One way is to start a cli command setting it up with ASIO plugin input and output. Then proceed roughly as for 1.

3. It's not system-wide but ... I use BubbleUPNP android app to control my renders. So I added BubbleUPNP Server as a proxy to my media server (Minim), why not? It has a very simple way to use ffmpeg filters to create a proxy for the rederers. So now I can choose eq or no eq from the control app.

 

[HemiRick]

@HemiRick - have you played with this much?

Not at all....the Moode support forum is here> Link

 

[RickSanchez]

I recently pulled one of my Raspberry Pi's back from the 64-bit beta to the standard 32-bit production version of Raspberry Pi OS. This latest OS has dropped ALSA in favor of PulseAudio.

So in resurrecting this thread I was curious if people know of a good parametric EQ app for the Raspberry Pi with PulseAudio?

• I tried to install PulseEffects (both through the Debian 9+ instructions and via Flatpak) but it didn't work. I think because the dev has moved on from PulseAudio and is now using PipeWire? I believe that change happened with v5.0.0 so I thought the Flatpak install would work (v.4.8.4) but didn't have any luck.
• I was hopeful that Calf Studio would work but then read it's based on JACK, not PulseAudio.
• I realize both moOde and Volumio are great apps but I'm trying to stay on Raspberry Pi OS, not install a full-system audio player.

Worst case I'd settle for a good graphical EQ app (or player with graphical EQ capabilities).

 

[somebodyelse]

Alsa's still there - PulseAudio uses it. I've not tried any of the EQ options with it on the Pi yet.

 

[drfous]

MoOde is making a change to their 7.1 release which is upcoming sometime in Q1.

"First new feature is full integration of CamillaDSP into the WebUI"

 

[jazzendapus]

Did anyone successfully use CamillaDSP on Rpi4 as a system wide EQ? If so I would love to see an example of a config file with some simple filter. I have trouble comprehending how pulse audio interacts with alsa on rpi4 (it's some kind of default output now), and what and how to capture and process and then output by CamillaDSP itself.