For our July 2019 “Staff Pick” Project of the Month, we selected Peace Equalizer, a Windows PC user interface for Equalizer APO. Creator Peter Verbeek shared some thoughts about the project’s history, purpose, and direction.
SourceForge (SF): Tell me about the Peace Equalizer project please. What made you start this?
Peter Verbeek (PV): After buying Bluetooth headphones I needed a system-wide audio driver to boost the bass of these headphones. I stumbled upon Equalizer APO as that driver but it lacked an interface back then so I made my own. After creating it I put it on SourceForge next to Equalizer APO. My thought was that perhaps a few others could find it of use. Turns out to be a lot instead of a few.
SF: Has the original vision been achieved?
PV: Yes, my vision was to create a simple equalizer interface which would be useful to others. I’ve tried to keep things as simple as possible.
SF: Who can benefit the most from your project?
PV: The hearing impaired, although this group of users is probably smaller than the groups of people that use Peace for other matters such as home theater and audio correction of speakers, headphones and microphones.
SF: What core need does Peace Equalizer fulfill?
PV: Changing the audio of your computer, input and output, in a system-wide manner. And quickly switching between audio presets for this audio changing function.
SF: What’s the best way to get the most out of using Peace Equalizer?
PV: As Peace is quite user-friendly for simple audio equalization and effects purposes, it’s just playing around with it. But when it needs to be used for very specific and/or detailed purposes one could refer to the manual, Youtube tutorials and Peace wiki and forum on SourceForge. Of course anyone can ask me for help.
SF: What has your project team done to help build and nurture your community?
PV: It’s difficult to fully grasp the nature and size of the Peace community. My goal is to support every single user. When questions arise I’m not only willing to answer them but are fully committed to. I want my community to have the best understanding of all products of the Peace project. For this purpose I’m monitoring the Peace forum and tickets here on SourceForge, and the posts on the Youtube tutorials. Some (main) users and the translators are addressed by me through email. In short, everyone will be supported.
SF: Have you found that more frequent releases helps build up your community of users?
PV: Yes, keeping the project alive by new releases, new presets, new themes, etc. is essential. They are signs of a healthy project.
SF: What was the first big thing that happened for your project?
PV: Direct from the start Peace took off. I was expecting a maximum of 100 downloads per week. Obviously I was mistaken. My interface is in high demand. This took me by surprise.
SF: What helped make that happen?
PV: My initial thought of putting it on SourceForge next to Equalizer APO. As the reach of SourceForge is large many people were and are directed to the Peace project. Nowadays Peace is mentioned on many forums and other websites. As such people are easily connected to the Peace website on SourceForge.
SF: How has SourceForge and its tools helped your project reach that success?
PV: Generally speaking many features of SourceForge helped (and continue to help) the Peace project to be successful. But in the first place I’m interested that the features can do for the Peace project what is needed. For instance the forum (which is a little bit misleadingly called discussions) is a great way to help people. And the Files section offers a good way to give access to all Peace files like the executables, presets and source code. Besides, the new layout of SourceForge helps to capture people.
SF: What is the next big thing for Peace Equalizer?
PV: Basically the answer to this question is where the community takes it. As Peace is a project for the people with audio needs, it’s them who decide. I would like to make a version 2.0 of Peace with a more modern look (Windows 10) but it isn’t a high priority.
SF: How long do you think that will take?
PV: Talking about version 1.x every new release is a small step forwards in functionality. This usually takes anywhere from 1 month to 6. Talking about version 2 this is a huge task to accomplish. It’s difficult to give a time period for this. I want to use c# and .net (through Visual Studio) instead of AutoIt, the language Peace is programmed in now. But as the functionality of c# and .net is nice, it lacks the easy access to things like programming hotkeys compared to a dedicated language like AutoIt. So why c# and .net then? It provides a way to use modern tools like WPF. Therefore the look and feel of Peace can be made modern (metro look).
SF: Do you have the resources you need to make that happen?
PV: That’s one of the powers of the Visual Studio and .net experience. Everyone is using it so many resources are available. And SourceForge can easily support a Peace project 2.0. It has all tools available.
SF: If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently for Peace Equalizer?
PV: Nothing. It has been and continues to be a good run 🙂 Perhaps looking at the issues of AutoIt. It’s a bit slow and is often flagged as malicious by virus scanners that aren’t aware what AutoIt actually is. I would start with c# and .net but that would be the more difficult route.
Very good