does anyone have any thoughtson live's eq? im pretty new to the whole music production game but i do notice, when i use the live eq there is a lack of clarity in the output. does anyone know of another good eq for use in live?
thanks
mark
live eq
-
monolake.
EQ
Hi mark,
The EQ 4 in Live is a pretty normal standard implementation of a classical digital IIR filter. It does not need much CPU and it sounds okay. But of course there are much more sophisticated algorithms out there, ranging from nice analog emuations to linear phase response FIR filters.
As someone who`s pretty much involved into the devolopment of Live´s devices i can completly agree that EQ´s with more character are desirable. Unfortuntely we are still only a handfull developers facing a huge workload. There is a reason why whole companies like Waves do nothing else then creating and improving algorithms for filters, compressors etc.
There will be more complex filters in Live one day, but do not ask me when.
For now here are some general notes on digital EQ´s which wil also help you in Live:
- almost all EQ`s sound better if you do not boost frequenices but rather cut other ons.
- almost all EQ´s sound better if you do not use very high Q settings, especially if you boost a band.
- all digital systems sound bad if you clip the output ( have a look at the meters inthe BUS view. if they are getting red you are distorting the output signal ! )
- filters with a sharp resonace like the analog filter emulation ( which sounds good i think ! ) in Autofilter boost the output signal around the filter frequency. If you feed it with a normalised input signal it will produce a signal at the output which is much higher then the input. Lower the gain of that track or the master gain in order to avoid the above mentioned output clipping !
- if filters do not use oversampling internally then they do benefit from higher system sample rates. Running Live with 96k makes a huge difference both in sound and in CPU usage...
... and till we at Ableton provide the ultra fat secret wapon EQ 4000 there is still a huge variety of good sounding VST EQ`s out there....
Btw.: A very cool book i recently bought covers lots of these things:
Bob Katz " Mastering Audio , The Art and The Science"
Cheers, Robert / Ableton
The EQ 4 in Live is a pretty normal standard implementation of a classical digital IIR filter. It does not need much CPU and it sounds okay. But of course there are much more sophisticated algorithms out there, ranging from nice analog emuations to linear phase response FIR filters.
As someone who`s pretty much involved into the devolopment of Live´s devices i can completly agree that EQ´s with more character are desirable. Unfortuntely we are still only a handfull developers facing a huge workload. There is a reason why whole companies like Waves do nothing else then creating and improving algorithms for filters, compressors etc.
There will be more complex filters in Live one day, but do not ask me when.
For now here are some general notes on digital EQ´s which wil also help you in Live:
- almost all EQ`s sound better if you do not boost frequenices but rather cut other ons.
- almost all EQ´s sound better if you do not use very high Q settings, especially if you boost a band.
- all digital systems sound bad if you clip the output ( have a look at the meters inthe BUS view. if they are getting red you are distorting the output signal ! )
- filters with a sharp resonace like the analog filter emulation ( which sounds good i think ! ) in Autofilter boost the output signal around the filter frequency. If you feed it with a normalised input signal it will produce a signal at the output which is much higher then the input. Lower the gain of that track or the master gain in order to avoid the above mentioned output clipping !
- if filters do not use oversampling internally then they do benefit from higher system sample rates. Running Live with 96k makes a huge difference both in sound and in CPU usage...
... and till we at Ableton provide the ultra fat secret wapon EQ 4000 there is still a huge variety of good sounding VST EQ`s out there....
Btw.: A very cool book i recently bought covers lots of these things:
Bob Katz " Mastering Audio , The Art and The Science"
Cheers, Robert / Ableton
-
monolake.
EQ
Hi mark,
The EQ 4 in Live is a pretty normal standard implementation of a classical digital IIR filter. It does not need much CPU and it sounds okay. But of course there are much more sophisticated algorithms out there, ranging from nice analog emuations to linear phase response FIR filters.
As someone who`s pretty much involved into the devolopment of Live´s devices i can completly agree that EQ´s with more character are desirable. Unfortuntely we are still only a handfull developers facing a huge workload. There is a reason why whole companies like Waves do nothing else then creating and improving algorithms for filters, compressors etc.
There will be more complex filters in Live one day, but do not ask me when.
For now here are some general notes on digital EQ´s which wil also help you in Live:
- almost all EQ`s sound better if you do not boost frequenices but rather cut other ons.
- almost all EQ´s sound better if you do not use very high Q settings, especially if you boost a band.
- all digital systems sound bad if you clip the output ( have a look at the meters inthe BUS view. if they are getting red you are distorting the output signal ! )
- filters with a sharp resonace like the analog filter emulation ( which sounds good i think ! ) in Autofilter boost the output signal around the filter frequency. If you feed it with a normalised input signal it will produce a signal at the output which is much higher then the input. Lower the gain of that track or the master gain in order to avoid the above mentioned output clipping !
- if filters do not use oversampling internally then they do benefit from higher system sample rates. Running Live with 96k makes a huge difference both in sound and in CPU usage...
... and till we at Ableton provide the ultra fat secret wapon EQ 4000 there is still a huge variety of good sounding VST EQ`s out there....
Btw.: A very cool book i recently bought covers lots of these things:
Bob Katz " Mastering Audio , The Art and The Science"
Cheers, Robert / Ableton
The EQ 4 in Live is a pretty normal standard implementation of a classical digital IIR filter. It does not need much CPU and it sounds okay. But of course there are much more sophisticated algorithms out there, ranging from nice analog emuations to linear phase response FIR filters.
As someone who`s pretty much involved into the devolopment of Live´s devices i can completly agree that EQ´s with more character are desirable. Unfortuntely we are still only a handfull developers facing a huge workload. There is a reason why whole companies like Waves do nothing else then creating and improving algorithms for filters, compressors etc.
There will be more complex filters in Live one day, but do not ask me when.
For now here are some general notes on digital EQ´s which wil also help you in Live:
- almost all EQ`s sound better if you do not boost frequenices but rather cut other ons.
- almost all EQ´s sound better if you do not use very high Q settings, especially if you boost a band.
- all digital systems sound bad if you clip the output ( have a look at the meters inthe BUS view. if they are getting red you are distorting the output signal ! )
- filters with a sharp resonace like the analog filter emulation ( which sounds good i think ! ) in Autofilter boost the output signal around the filter frequency. If you feed it with a normalised input signal it will produce a signal at the output which is much higher then the input. Lower the gain of that track or the master gain in order to avoid the above mentioned output clipping !
- if filters do not use oversampling internally then they do benefit from higher system sample rates. Running Live with 96k makes a huge difference both in sound and in CPU usage...
... and till we at Ableton provide the ultra fat secret wapon EQ 4000 there is still a huge variety of good sounding VST EQ`s out there....
Btw.: A very cool book i recently bought covers lots of these things:
Bob Katz " Mastering Audio , The Art and The Science"
Cheers, Robert / Ableton
-
mark
hey man,
wasnt trying to offend anyone about ableton eq. like you said you have ahuge workload ahead of you in live( which i feel isthe best and most groundbreaking audio app around and is only at version 2. i have tried cubase, logic, sonar, pretty much all of the big dogs out there and i feel for ease and quickness of use, beautiful interface, nothing compares to Live. with live everything can be done so quickly that there is no time to lose that cool idea in your head. especially now with project 5, rewire and some vst mastering effects, pretty soon i can abandon the other sequencers all together(hopefully and just use live + P5 for everything).. also the effects in live are amazing-- grain delay(my god!), ping pong, erosion,filter delay, vinyl dist.. all so innovative and easy to use, also Lives autofilter sounds better and is more versatile than most other filters out there..i could go on for ever about the beauty of Live ...anyway sorry again if any offense was taken in my post basically i was just looking for advice on an eg with a more sophisticated algorithm.. what i have been doing recently is using Lives eq, dropping the gain on it and bringing it back up with antares tube to add a little color
also thanks for the eq points you mentioned
mark
wasnt trying to offend anyone about ableton eq. like you said you have ahuge workload ahead of you in live( which i feel isthe best and most groundbreaking audio app around and is only at version 2. i have tried cubase, logic, sonar, pretty much all of the big dogs out there and i feel for ease and quickness of use, beautiful interface, nothing compares to Live. with live everything can be done so quickly that there is no time to lose that cool idea in your head. especially now with project 5, rewire and some vst mastering effects, pretty soon i can abandon the other sequencers all together(hopefully and just use live + P5 for everything).. also the effects in live are amazing-- grain delay(my god!), ping pong, erosion,filter delay, vinyl dist.. all so innovative and easy to use, also Lives autofilter sounds better and is more versatile than most other filters out there..i could go on for ever about the beauty of Live ...anyway sorry again if any offense was taken in my post basically i was just looking for advice on an eg with a more sophisticated algorithm.. what i have been doing recently is using Lives eq, dropping the gain on it and bringing it back up with antares tube to add a little color
also thanks for the eq points you mentioned
mark
