The location of the equalizer depends on the skin. In the default skin it is shown in one of the tab pages. If not visible then it can be made visible from the Preferences menu.

The Equalizer

The Equalizer can amplify frequencies from +15dB to -15dB. Note that setting sliders in the area of 0dB to +15dB can lead to "clipping" which leads to distortion of the sound. This happens when the sound levels does not have "room" for amplification.

The Equalizer can be switched on and off, this only affects the 9 sliders and not the Normalization function and Balance slider. The reset button resets all sliders to the middle position including the Balance slider. The preset button shows predefined settings for the equalizer. With the "Save Preset" and "Delete Preset" it is possible to create your own presets.

Normalization

The Normalize button is very useful when you have playlists containing albums recorded on different sound levels. The Normalize function raises or lowers the sound level so you don't have to adjust the volume each time yourself when another song starts to play. Before you can make use of the Normalize function you first need to let the AlbumPlayer analyse the songs. For this the AlbumPlayer uses the "Replay Gain" algorithm. The "Replay Gain" algorithm calculates an amplification factor which is stored for the song and the album. The values are stored in the database of the AlbumPlayer, your files will not be affected and you don't need separate tools like mp3gain. Everything is integrated.

The analysis have to be initiated by the user. In the collection editor the albums to analyse should be selected. From the edit menu choose "Calculate Replay Gain". Calculating Replay Gain is a very time consuming process, having 100 albums can take several hours depending on your computer. So it is not wise to do everything at one time if you have a large database of 300 or more albums. You can see which albums are done when a Replay Gain value is shown in the collection editor.

In the AlbumPlayer the album value is used, so songs of one album always use the same amplification factor. In case of a track collection the song value is used.

In general when using Replay Gain values, songs sound quitter. For pop songs an amplification factor is between -12dB and 2dB in most cases. Classical albums are most of time recorded much quitter which results to positive amplification factors. In case of pop songs users sometimes experience the volume level due to the negative amplification as too quiet. Therefore A pre-amplification factor can be entered in the Normalization (Replay Gain) page of the preferences screen at the audio-tab. For pop-songs a factor of +6dB is an acceptable value. People having a classical collection will prefer a setting of 0dB. The default in the AlbumPlayer is set to +3dB.

When you want to know more about the Replay Gain technology. You can choose the following links to read more about it:

Overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_Gain

Technical Outline:
http://www.replaygain.org/technical_outline.html