Apr
20
Date: 20-May-2026
Time: 10:00 AM ET (New York Time)
Presenter: Dr. Vesa Välimäki
Abstract
This webinar provides an overview of graphic equalizers (EQ). Intelligent audio applications require the graphic EQ to rely on automatic design that closely approximates the target magnitude response. Today, we can design highly accurate cascade or parallel graphic EQ filters. A cascade graphic EQ consists of a chain of parametric EQ filters, which may be based on various alternative coefficient formulas. The choice of parametric EQ design significantly impacts the accuracy of the graphic EQ, as it influences the interaction between filter bands. Designing a parallel graphic EQ system is more challenging than the cascade one, because both the magnitude and the phase response of each band filter must be considered. A series-to-parallel conversion technique offers a straightforward solution. The use of neural networks to control the graphic EQ is also discussed. Additionally, recent approaches that use shelving filters to design a graphic EQ or a single first-order shelving filter to enhance the range of accuracy are summarized. Finally, application examples are presented, including artificial reverberation and unmasking of music in a noisy listening environment.
Biography
Vesa Välimäki (M’92, SM’99, F’15) received the M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, in 1992 and 1995, respectively. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the University of Westminster, London, U.K., in 1996 and a visiting scholar at Stanford University in 2008 and 2009.
He is currently a Full Professor of audio signal processing and Vice Dean for research in electrical engineering with Aalto University, Espoo, Finland. His research interests include audio and musical applications of signal processing and machine learning.
Dr. Välimäki is a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society, a Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association and a Life Member of the Acoustical Society of Finland. He is the winner, together with a student and colleagues, of the 2019 Best Paper Award of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. During 2007–2013, he was a Member of the Audio and Acoustic Signal Processing Technical Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. During 2005–2009, he was an Associate Editor for the IEEE Signal Processing Letters and in 2007–2011, and an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing. From 2015 to 2020, he was the Senior Area Editor of the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing. From 2020 to 2025, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society and is currently the Deputy Editor-i
