Lives EQ 8 for track-lowcut good enough?

[mr.adl]

Hi,
I heard you should lowcut all tracks (channels) except bassdrum and bassline to keep the lows free for, well, bassdrum and bassline.

I searched for an easy on cpu track eq to do so and found "Precision EQ": http://keytosound.com/?desired_section= ... ial_no=169

I own UAD-cards and the Cambridge EQ, but don´t want to waste UAD powers for the lowcut thing.

Precision EQ sounds clean and good to my ears and is really low on cpu. I was allready going to buy it, but then i thought: "Let´s compare it to Lives 7 EQ8 in high quality mode".

I dialed in the exact same values and did a blind test for about half an hour. Honestly: i couldn´tell a difference!

So maybe i can save the 60$ for Precision EQ and just take EQ8 for the each-channel-lowcut.


Just wanted to hear some opinions if the new EQ8 is really good enough for that, or if you´d recommend another EQ to do my lowcuts. For boosting i have got my UAD-Neves, so never mind the boosting, this is just about getting rid of unwanted lows lets say of an synthchord, claps and stuff like that.

Thanx in advance for any help, tips, oppinions!


PC user here so no need for mac EQ recommendations needed

[michaellpenman]

yah the eq8 is amazing , i love how you can eq the left and right channels sepratly , also if you want to save on cpu put you eq in th ereturn set to pre fade and send all the elements to there.
I heard a quote from Tayo if it dosnt need bass cut it , this stops freq's getting muddy.

[Angstrom]

Firstly although it depends of the type of music you are making, and where it is destined for - but this idea of 'cutting all the bass out' is very simplistic. You will tend to end up with weak assed snare drums as an example. Many instruments have low fundamentals which give them their power, even when the higher overtones are the dominant ones. EQ carving is usually considered an extreme corrective measure for having chosen sounds badly.

imagine that your kick and bass hit on the first beat and then on the third beat a piano plays ... do you really want that piano to have no balls?

Of course there are certain circumstances which you do need to tame the bass, but doing it by a script is the wrong way to proceed.

As far as using EQ8 as a shelving eq for taming bass, it will work best if you stack a few bands together with the same settings and map the dials to macros. EQ8 isn't particularly steep, 6db per octave perhaps? So to get anything close to a brick wall you need to use a few bands and then just be aware of any phase issues, especially if you are using it on whole tracks for 'mastering'.

[BASSbüro]

the best tool for cut-off disruptive frequencies is the bassline-vst-plug:

http://www.otiumfx.com/files/otiumFX_ba ... VST1.2.zip

& it's free!

[michaellpenman]

yes but the low fundamentals of the snare with now be compety with the kick and bass for room which will create a mudy mix, each part has to have its own space to breath other wise you have a muggy messy cluttered track.
Slight EQ Cuts to the correct ranges in each intrument are most needed.
When i said low cut i didnt mean to cut every low freq out.

[BASSbüro]

@michaellpenman: no, you didn't, but mr.adl did. anyway, i'm talking about to cut the lows in the kick and the bass.

[mr.adl]

Slight EQ Cuts to the correct ranges in each intrument are most needed.

That`s what I meant, thanks michaellpenman

I found out that this technic makes my tracks sound more open and less muddy.


@BASSbüro: Thanks, will try that!

I`m doing electronic music btw.

[Tarekith]

I agree with Angstrom, this isn't something you should just indescriminately do to all your audio tracks. Make sure the track actually needs this, and make sure it doesn't sound worse afterwards. A lot of times people confuse "more open" with "too light sounding".

EQ8 is more than good enough for this kind of work, though if you have a UAD already, I'd opt to just use the EQ-1 plug in it comes with, the default cheapo one. Vastly under rated plug in IMO, I used to use that one more than any of the other UAD plugs when I had mine.

[mr.adl]

@Tarekith
You mean the CS-1 Channel Strip EQ? Or which "EQ-1"?

[Tarekith]

Cs-1, sorry its been awhile.

[mr.adl]

Point is: i wanted to save uad cpu! Cambridge is like 1% on uad cpu but when i use it on 10-20 tracks it eats up cpu which i´d rather had for other effects than for the lowcut thing.

otiumFX_bassLANE is

a utility to control the stereo field of lower frequencies

So it´s not what i am looking for.

[Nod]

So it´s not what i am looking for.

However it is very useful. Try these mate:

http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/?page_id=8

NoNameEQ is very CPU friendly and, for more extreme cuts, Rubberfilter. The Posihfopit EQ on that page has also spawned this beauty:

http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/pos ... tion/30/0/

The best freeware EQ bar none imho - it's also skinnable.

[dj superflat]

the default low cut on vocals is worthwhile, to avoid mic rumble, etc. but i wouldn't do it on anything else, for all the reasons everyone else had ID'd.

[mr.adl]

http://www.savioursofsoul.de/Christian/?page_id=8

NoNameEQ is very CPU friendly and, for more extreme cuts, Rubberfilter. The Posihfopit EQ on that page has also spawned this beauty:

http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/pos ... tion/30/0/

The best freeware EQ bar none imho - it's also skinnable.

Thanx, didn´t know about "NoNameEQ".

I tried Posihfopit several times but honstly i never got my head around how to use this thing quick and usefull. Always seemed to change for no reason the settings i did before.

[Renan]

Although Basslane is not mean't for this, it rocks! it's the first thing i load each session, it's the only thing i use in the master chain from beggining to end always in the last chain position.

In case of electronic music production at least (i guess rock also use this) you should leave frequencies from 0hz to 300hz (some cases more) in mono. Just leave the WIDTH jog all the way to left. This way you'll have a solid strong and defined song with weight, all your bass instruments will have that "heavy" consistency and be dead centered no mater what in your mix.

Of course when things start to get blurry, muddy and instruments have frequencies conflict (as usual) you should go for rolloffs, filters, sidechainings, EQ corrections etc. But you will always have that added weight in your mix do the corrections and turn on and off basslane if you're not believing, you'll hear it by yourself!

You can even use some stereo image widening plugins (with care as usual, try to not take out the life of things but insted make'em bigger!) not having to worry about loosing your bass power and widen the song or individual instruments, synths, vocals, or *even the upper part of basslines* (this is a trick also i read on the book the remixer's bible of how to do that giant wide and monstruous basslines). without loosing the bottom end power and heavyness.

The same technique is undispensable if your tune is going out to be pressed on vinyl, if frequencies of sub, bass, and low range are not in mono, the needle would be skipping and jumping the grooves on the record, but of course, the engineer at the pressing plant would apply this technique before pressing the record. But even then, if you're not going to press it on vinyl, you should *definitely* do this on digital also to add more weight and power to your mix!

Pound'em Speakers!