Live lacking bottom end ?

[wildcon]

Hi,

Just to say straight off. I'm not looking to start another 'does live sound worse than ......." thread.

However -

I was listening to a wave track (Imported from a CD into Cubase SX3) through my monitors (Genelecs) and it was fairly thumping along.

I then dropped it into Live 4 (also tried with 5) to incorporate it into my DJ set and the bottom end seemed to have gone completely. I tried a couple of comparisons removing all the effects etc and the same thing. The 'thump' of the bass and kick just wasn't there. I put the levels up in Live to the point of clipping, which made the clarity better but still not up to the original sound.

Now, I'm not interested in what sounds better than what. I will be using Live. End of story.

I just wondered if anyone else has had this problem and am looking for some advise on the best way to get the bottom end happening again.

I've tried the Live compressor and adding a EQ 4 with the bass up (and saturator in 5) with limited success

Any advice on the best way to acheive this.

BTW - My DJ set is mainly House music.

Thanks

[spiderprod]

don't forget cubase gives too much bottom end ,so if you produce with cubase you might feel that other softs lack of it .
myself i try not to use cubase because it make my sound too loud .
if you are doing house music you don't need to boost the whole bass spectrum ,if i was you i would boost above 50/80 , you want to boost the bassline not the full bass spectrum .i think you can come to a good result with eq4 .

[wildcon]

Hi Spiderpod,

Thanks for the reply.

I was messing around yesterday (actually in Cubase) and found a really nice sweet spot for the kick with a sharp Q curve at just about 50.

I'll put an eq on the master to try and boost this.

Interestingly - If I sample the wave files from the browser using the 'pre-listen' (the same outputs as my main) the sample is louder than when I drag it into the session view. I have to push the fader level to max (thus clipping the track) to get near the same level.

I'm sure theres a valid reason for this and I'll check through the previous posts.

Thanks

[olafmol]

did you disable warping and correct for volume differences?

Olaf

[DJRetard]

don't forget cubase gives too much bottom end ,so if you produce with cubase you might feel that other softs lack of it .
.

I have to disagree with this spider. Your basically saying SX's audio engine is flawed.

[DJRetard]

Interestingly - If I sample the wave files from the browser using the 'pre-listen' (the same outputs as my main) the sample is louder than when I drag it into the session view. I have to push the fader level to max (thus clipping the track) to get near the same level.

I'm sure theres a valid reason for this and I'll check through the previous posts.

Thanks

There is a reason. Just above the master fader is your pre listen volume control. You have it set high probably.

When your importing and exporting remember to have your master faders set to 0db, and of course your track volume. The smalles difference in volume can effect what you hear. if you raise a track volume faader by 3db thats actually a doubling in total volume. The same as if you decreae by 3db.

I can assure you theres nothing wrong with Lives audio engine or bottom end, of course warping will effect audio. Im atlking about pure untreated WAV files.

The should sound exactly the same in SX and Live

[Cryocon]

if you raise a track volume faader by 3db thats actually a doubling in total volume. The same as if you decreae by 3db.

it's 6dB that doubles or -6dB that halves the volume not 3dB.

[mike holiday]

there is science in the bottom end!

[spiderprod]

don't forget cubase gives too much bottom end ,so if you produce with cubase you might feel that other softs lack of it .
.

I have to disagree with this spider. Your basically saying SX's audio engine is flawed.

nop , i think sx audio is very good but to produce electronic music it's not the best tool you can find ,as for acoustis recording it sound really great .
last week i did a dance/rock recording ,i had to pull one of my old computer & ran sx on it just to record the drum kick ,simply because it gives a loud sound .but all the synth sounds had to go into live because cubase is too loud to process these kind of sounds .you end up having a cinema sound ,electronic music in my experience needs to be produced without this big loud sound for vinyl cutting because it gets cut anyway .

[spiderprod]

don't forget cubase gives too much bottom end ,so if you produce with cubase you might feel that other softs lack of it .
.

I have to disagree with this spider. Your basically saying SX's audio engine is flawed.

nop , i think sx audio is very good but to produce electronic music it's not the best tool you can find ,as for acoustis recording it sound really great .
last week i did a dance/rock recording ,i had to pull one of my old computer & ran sx on it just to record the drum kick ,simply because it gives a loud sound .but all the synth sounds had to go into live because cubase is too loud to process these kind of sounds .you end up having a cinema sound ,electronic music in my experience needs to be produced without this big loud sound for vinyl cutting because it gets cut anyway .

[DJRetard]

if you raise a track volume faader by 3db thats actually a doubling in total volume. The same as if you decreae by 3db.

it's 6dB that doubles or -6dB that halves the volume not 3dB.

well I am slightly retarded

[DJRetard]

don't forget cubase gives too much bottom end ,so if you produce with cubase you might feel that other softs lack of it .
.

I have to disagree with this spider. Your basically saying SX's audio engine is flawed.

nop , i think sx audio is very good but to produce electronic music it's not the best tool you can find ,as for acoustis recording it sound really great .
last week i did a dance/rock recording ,i had to pull one of my old computer & ran sx on it just to record the drum kick ,simply because it gives a loud sound .but all the synth sounds had to go into live because cubase is too loud to process these kind of sounds .you end up having a cinema sound ,electronic music in my experience needs to be produced without this big loud sound for vinyl cutting because it gets cut anyway .

Im speculating the difference in volume you are hearing is SX panning law which I think is now adjustable?

If live and sx had the same panning law I reckon that recording a kik drum in to each program using the exact same settings would produce the exact same volume.

[3phase]

You said you will life with the bad sound quality of live so you have to...
No compressor will help..carefull equing might help a bit..but not with the live eq´s..they are more fx filters than mastering EQ´s...
Only trick that helps that i know is to avoid the mix bus and do the mix external... So you need 4 individual outputs

[Meffy]

there is science in the bottom end!

Water dissolving,
And water removing:
There is water
At the bottom of the ocean.

[Livewire]

maybe its cuz you have the EQ on in itunes which turns up the "bottom end" and when you drag it into live it plays the original sound with no changes so it sounds like there is less "bottom end"

problem solved