Standard Octave Bands

The “standard” centre frequencies for 1/3 octave bands are based upon the Preferred Numbers. These date from the 19th century when Col. Charles Renard (1849–1905) was given the job of improving captive balloons used by the military to observe enemy positions. This work resulted in what are now known as Renard numbers. Preferred Numbers were standardised in 1965 in British Standard BS2045:1965 Preferred Numbers and in ISO and ANSI versions in 1973. Preferred numbers are not specific to third octave bands. They have been used in wide range of applications including capacitors & resistors, construction industry and retail packaging.

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Audio Equalisation Filter & Parametric Filtering

When working with audio signals a common requirement is to be able to equalise, cut or boost various frequency bands. A large number of hardware devices on the market provide this capability. The key aspect is that such filters are able to control bandwidth, centre frequency and gain separately. There are broadly two classes of filter used, a “shelving” filter and an “equalising “filter (also known as a “peak” filter). A shelving filter is akin to low pass and high pass filters. An equalising filter is like a bandpass or band reject filter.

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