Ableton Forum

So obviously you want to roll off the bass frequency on an EQ8 on the master track, is everyone using 40hz or do people set a lower freq?

My main question though is concerning the order or devinces in my mastering chain. In every song i will use an EQ8 for the bass rolloff, Waves' Maxxbass, and my Liquidmix Compressor.

Normally i have the EQ8 feeding into maxxbass, but i was thinking, is it better to feed MaxxBass the full spectrum THEN rolloff its output? I do know that the rolloff should be made before a compressor so you're not making it do any unnecessary extra work.

Any ideas on what you guys would do? I know the real answer is just listen to what sounds best, but i'm waiting til 8.0.5 before i reinstall ableton onto my system...just looking for theory and outside opinions here.

maxxbass > eq8 > compressor > limiter. imho

rolloff depends on yer low end. Sometimes it goes down there a bit. Go between 20 to 40 and pick the spot that's nice. If you hear no diff, leave it at 40.

There are no magic frequencies to roll off - everything depends on the choice of your sounds and the frequencies generated - for example, dub, hip hop and old school Bob Marleyesque reggae all make a lot of use of frequencies in the 30Hz range, even though many sound systems can't produce that low.

I would say that typically you are looking to attenuate frequencies sub 50Hz but use your ears and speakers and cans that produce those low sounds before making a decision of how much to trim and where. Subby sine wave basses cut at 40Hz will sound weak in a mix. Also TR808 kicks often generate a lot of frequency in this area - if you have Maxxbass, you can use this to shift the frequency fundamentals to a more audible range, so in some instances, even with 808 kicks and sine wave sub bass, you could then trim those frequencies. Otherwise take real care.

Use your ears and use all your analysis tools before deciding on where and howm much to roll off bass frequencies. Spectrum, or Voxengo Span or Blue cat's free spectrum analysers can assist your ears here.

knot, yeah i use Ozone at the very end to limit, or sometimes Waves L3 or Sony Oxford (Sonnox) limiter.

but i think you're right, i don't know why i've always been doing eq8 first.

And i produce trance so i don't need anyting as low as 30hz, i have the Yamaha HS80m so i obviously can't hear in the 30-40 range to decide where i should be setting the rolloff. I suppose the smartest thing to do is run the newest commercial trance mix cd through HarBal to get the average bass and hi rolloffs for the entire CD and just use that as my guideline for eq8. Now Ableton just needs to hurry up and release 8.0.5 so i can finally install it again, i reformatted my comp and am a little scared of installing 8.0.4 at the moment lol

Harbal is one tool, but you can see what is happening in the sub areas by using Live's Spectrum tool too.

You don't know what is going on in your sub bass if you're listening on HS80s unless you have a subwoofer or cans that produce low freqs (my ATH-50s can go as low as 15Hz, also the car stereo speakers have subs so I sometimes burn a rough mix and adjust according to a combination of sound sources). Just because you produce trance (brave man admitting this on the Live forum, he he!), doesn't automatically mean that you can just roll off 40Hz and have it sound good everytime - like I said before 808 kicks and instruments with sine wave in the low end can go very low and your mix can lose power if you attenuate them too much. So, make a decision not to use sine wave bass or keeping away from 808 kicks, or layering them with samples etc. might be a good option if you do typically want to avoid putting a lot of sub 35 Hz frequency in there. Also cutting/hi passing non bass instruments so they don't accumulate in this area is also a good idea.

I wasn't aware of the trance hate on the ableton forum, i sort of figured this program was geared directly to us guys lol. Now watch, after saying that no one is going to reply to any of my posts anymore haha.

As headphones i use the Sony 7506, not sure how low they go, but i'm sure they do the trick decent enough (they have for 20 years in all the major studios right?). I've had the cans for something like 3 years, and i guess i still haven't totally learned them yet because i still can't set up the low bass right in my songs.

I think that your Sony 7506's go down to 10Hz or thereabouts, so you should be ok there.
I use this - http://www.nugenaudio.com/visualizer.php - to see what's going on in my tracks. Try the demo, i found my mixes improved dramatically when i started using it, although of course you still have to use your ears and check playback on other systems etc

BTW, what's 'trance'?

Man, that nugen visualizer seems a bit TOO detailed and comprehensive lol. How exactly do you use it macmurphy, just to compare the spectrum of your song vs. a professional one? Technically the Ozone or Live spectral analysis would be enough right? or does that program offer anything extra (i know it obviously offers a ton of extra bells and whistles, but i mean from a bass adjustment standpoint).

IntotheBlue wrote:Man, that nugen visualizer seems a bit TOO detailed and comprehensive lol. How exactly do you use it macmurphy, just to compare the spectrum of your song vs. a professional one? Technically the Ozone or Live spectral analysis would be enough right? or does that program offer anything extra (i know it obviously offers a ton of extra bells and whistles, but i mean from a bass adjustment standpoint).

I find the spectrogram to be an incredibly useful tool. You can really get a clear idea on what's going on in the sub frequencies better than you can in a normal spectrum analyser. It's also great for honing in on masking freqs - put one on your kick and one on your bass for example and you'll have them separated in no time.
It's definitely worth running your favourite pro mixes through it to see what's going on, it's very revealing.
I've not used Ozone, and Live's spectrum analyser is ok but i find, for me at least, Visualizer is easier to read and way more accurate.

I LOVE spectrograms! I know I should use my ears, but I don't have a sub in my studio and I don't have the appropriate bass traps anyway, so a spectrogram helps me a LOT!