Ableton Forum

scutheotaku wrote:

Ill Frequencies wrote: Another question a bit off topic but do you have a certain way of splitting up the frequencies (low, mid and high)?

Are you wanting no color (or as little color added as possible) after the frequencies have been split? If you're EQing already and don't mind a little color, then there's really no reason AFAIK to be exact about it. Just take an Audio Effect Rack and create three chains in it - one will be the Low, the second will be the Mid, the third the High. For the low, just use a low pass filter. For the high, use a high pass filter. For the mids, either use a bandpass filter (harder to control) or both a low pass and a high pass filter.

I am a bit confused with how to split it because I have been told that a linear phase EQ would be best so that you don't get any phase distortion where the bands cross over. But does it all really matter too much, am I over thinking this whole frequency split thing?

Ill Frequencies wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:

Ill Frequencies wrote: Another question a bit off topic but do you have a certain way of splitting up the frequencies (low, mid and high)?

Are you wanting no color (or as little color added as possible) after the frequencies have been split? If you're EQing already and don't mind a little color, then there's really no reason AFAIK to be exact about it. Just take an Audio Effect Rack and create three chains in it - one will be the Low, the second will be the Mid, the third the High. For the low, just use a low pass filter. For the high, use a high pass filter. For the mids, either use a bandpass filter (harder to control) or both a low pass and a high pass filter.

I am a bit confused with how to split it because I have been told that a linear phase EQ would be best so that you don't get any phase distortion where the bands cross over. But does it all really matter too much, am I over thinking this whole frequency split thing?

EQ8 is perfectly OK for splitting - easiest to use it on normal rather than HQ mode. Just remember that depending on which EQ band type you use and number of stacked bands, you will have to use a utility module to phase invert the result.

For band splitting, its best to create one band, then subtract that band from the original (phase invert + summing is the same as subtract) to yield the opposite band - ie making a single cross over.

The other adavantage of using subtraction is that you can use the notch mode of an EQ8 band as a transparent (ie non-resonant) band isolator - for eg you want to apply compression to a very narrow band - for eg when de-essing, or sidechain compression to let a soft bassline displace a kick to yield a melodic kick tail when both kick and bass hit together when both the bass and kick are deep and soft sounding.

To understand the basics of this - well worth reading up on the net (probably wiki?) about damped filters (Q<=0.5), phase impact of filters (ie the impact of a single filter stage on phase rotation), phase inversion for summing etc as then this will give you the understanding needed to easily make loads of really useful splitting racks for quite complex and adavanced audio processing that is hard or at least messy to do in other DAWs, but quite easy and neat in ableton live.

I always meant to scribble up some note on this but never got around to it

Tarekith wrote:It's the opposite IMO. When you start smearing transients, there's less you can do with a limiter to get volume boosts as cleanly. Or rather, with smeared transients, the effects of heavy limiting can be more audible.

In the hands of someone who has some respect for preserving the original audio (ie yourself ), but take a cross section of your average dance music compilation albums (particular alot of recent MOS stuff) and its really aweful - utterly smashed.

(I have loads of such compilations - they are just useful to have for house parties etc - at least that my excuse )

Do you use them as coasters for people to put their drinks on?

Khazul wrote:

Tarekith wrote:It's the opposite IMO. When you start smearing transients, there's less you can do with a limiter to get volume boosts as cleanly. Or rather, with smeared transients, the effects of heavy limiting can be more audible.

In the hands of someone who has some respect for preserving the original audio (ie yourself ), but take a cross section of your average dance music compilation albums (particular alot of recent MOS stuff) and its really aweful - utterly smashed.

(I have loads of such compilations - they are just useful to have for house parties etc - at least that my excuse )

below is a tool i found to kinda fight the loudness war.. and it's free (vst... besides being a peak and rms meter, it measures the dynamic range.. it states that a dynamic range of around 14 db is great and as you squash it more, the meter turns red, it tells you that your losing all the dynamics of your song..
http://mastering-media.blogspot.com/200 ... r-mix.html

a link to the makers of the plug-in, and their little presentation about recent music being over compressed and why they made the plug-in..
http://www.pleasurizemusic.com/

I went and bought the PSP mixquad about a year an d a half ago. The idea lis you have 4 different Eq with different characteristics. However i almost never use them. I dislike the operating the gui and i can't build any sort of intuition on which model to reach for in specific situations, it's all just time consuming guesswork. So i stick to the sonalksis which i love. Anyone want to buy a mixquad licence now i've sold it so well?

scutheotaku wrote:The TT Dynamic Range plugin is a nice VST, though I think a DR of 14 db is a little unrealistic for dance music.

So what is considered a good DR for dance music?

So I have the same question but about reverb.

What makes Reverb plugins better than lives "Reverb"?

The Live internal reverb is not bad- it brings very good results, especially for a live situation. And you can set the quality!
You have to know how to tweak it correctly.

I would consider to take 3rd party plug-ins (conv ones or algos) only for mixing or freezed (and fiexed) audio to save CPU power for doing live.

Or you need it, because it's part of the performace- as I do

Ill Frequencies wrote:So I have the same question but about reverb.

What makes Reverb plugins better than lives "Reverb"?

just the sound of it for me. Live's reverb isn't "bad". It just gets a lot of bad hype and so it makes it sound like it's terrible. But third party reverbs just sound "fuller" to me. Like the decay and tail just seems more realistic and alive.

max. value of predelay on live´s reverb is way too small. should be 500 ms at least....
my only concern and workaround is fiddly.

ze2be wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:The TT Dynamic Range plugin is a nice VST, though I think a DR of 14 db is a little unrealistic for dance music.

So what is considered a good DR for dance music?

I use TTDR (always after my ears!) and I'm usually aiming for 10+ - I make techno and I think that's fine!

ollyb303 wrote:

ze2be wrote:

scutheotaku wrote:The TT Dynamic Range plugin is a nice VST, though I think a DR of 14 db is a little unrealistic for dance music.

So what is considered a good DR for dance music?

I use TTDR (always after my ears!) and I'm usually aiming for 10+ - I make techno and I think that's fine!

OK, im arround that aswell.

some have 'flavor' or nice emulations, some transparent, some good for surgical, etc, depends on what you are after. I think its possible to get fantatic results with Live's EQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXIygTrVIHU

waves renaissance eq has always been my go to eq but more out of familiarity than anything else. i've started to use eq8 a lot more recently and have been happy with the results.

as far as reverb goes i'm actually a big fan of lives reverb. it took me ages to come to grips with it and i used to really dislike it but now that i understand how to get the best out of it i choose it over my waves reverbs.

cool thread by the way, lots of good opinions and no flaming/trolling