Ableton Live 12 O’Clock EQ Issue FIX
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Ableton Live 12 O’Clock EQ Issue FIX

on Nov 27th 2011 with 10 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
  • Time: 6:44
  • Requirements: Ableton Live

I’ve been DJing with Ableton for a long time, a good few years, and love it. The one thing that always annoyed me was the fact that the EQ Three plugin, supposedly designed for easy DJing and Live Performance, provided one completely out of touch feature – the Gain controls for the 3 bands didn’t set themselves at Unity Gain (0Db) in the ’12 O’Clock’ position.

But I have discovered a fix. Watch the following little screencast I’ve made to demonstrate how to get around this little but significant bug.

This video is taken from Paul’s website, and is used by permission.

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Paul Nolan is a professional Composer & Lecturer based in Liverpool UK. His skillset is multifaceted, having worked in the realms of studio recording, post production, electronic music, DJing, and film music composition for a number of years.  

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  • http://supahfilms.com Anthony

    Hi i know this might be off topic but here is a idea that i think you guys will really love.

    Why don’t you make a series about how to make music or sound effects from movies like the dark knight how they had that choppy effect and transformers i would really like if you guys could do that.

  • http://www.paulnolansound.com Paul Nolan
    Author

    Happy to do so! Will have a think about some fun stuff and pull something together! Any requests?

  • Neam

    I’ve tried to do in this way before.But there is a bad thing happened ! The sound quality of EG (-14db) + Utillity ( +14 Db ) was suck.It is not good if you perform in a big show

  • http://www.paulnolansound.com Paul Nolan
    Author

    Anthony, give me a time reference on where it comes in and i’ll see what i can do…that’s a great video by the way, one of my favourites regarding Hans Zimmer’s work…

    • http://supahfilms.com Anthony

      Sure and if you are going to do it can you please do it in logic

  • http://hector-lee.com Hector Lee

    Sorry but this doesn’t work well. The method mentioned above doesn’t work well because the utility doesn’t neutralise the effects of the EQ. You are essential creating a boost at the crossover points which usually are on frequencies that make the music bad(since you are trying to boost above and below already).

    EQs affect frequencies using curves so you are creating three dips in the low, mids and highs of the music rather than just lowering the volume. My suggestion is to just use the EQ Eight and group it to use the macros(so you can see everything if you need to).

  • http://www.paulnolansound.com Paul Nolan
    Author

    Hector, this method is for DJ’s who are not experts with either Macro’s or have no knowledge of full parametric EQ.

    As you will probably appreciate, full parametric EQ in a DJ situation is not practical. It’s an overcomplicated tool for what should be an easy task.

    You also say that the Utility boosts at crossover points. This is not true. Utility provides a uniform boost / cut and is not frequency specific.

    The point is that the fix is easy, quick and convenient for DJ’s using this for the feel of a DJ Mixer with their MIDI controller, such as a Vestax VCM600, Evolution UC – 33, or others I could mention.

    I’m not saying it’s perfect, but outside of Ableton producing an easy fix for the EQ Three to have unity gain set to 12 o’clock as part of the UI, this is the simplest and most direct way.

    • http://hector-lee.com Hector Lee

      Hi Paul. I honestly appreciate you coming up with an easy fix to a silly design fault in the EQ Three by Ableton. EQs should be and have mostly been having symmetrical boost and cut rather than -inf to +6dB gains. This looks extremely easy but I believe that reader should know the imperfections of this method as well.

      I must have not phrased myself properly about the boosting of the crossover points. You are correct to say that the utility does a uniform boost across all the frequencies. However, in this case where you have already created three huge cuts of 14dB, changing the frequency spectrum of the sound. Using the utility to do a boost will bring up the entire EQ curve to neutralise the -14dB cuts to 0dB, but will create the negative effect of bring the crossover points from 0 to +14dB. 14dB is huge when it comes to EQs considering 1-2dB is already a significant change. This results in a extremely thin sounding track (possibly unusable to some) with reduced bass, mids, and highs like Neam had already mentioned.

      With regards to using EQ Eight, you can easily rebuild the EQ Three with macros(audio effect rack) and not realise that you are using the EQ Eight. The only feature that you might miss is the Low/Mid/High mute switches in the EQ Three. Building a macro isn’t much different from mapping to a MIDI controller so if the DJ uses MIDI controllers, he/she probably can or have been using macros already.

      I would say to each his own method. If someone finds this a good fix for him and can’t hear the difference then there’s cause for stopping him. We are all here to learn from each other and make music. Kudos for your first screencast.

  • http://www.tylerparkersounds.com parker

    I apologize if I’m overlooking something here, but wouldn’t an easier method be to simply set the max dB value to 0 (instead of +6) for each of the mapped EQ channels (lo, mid, hi) in the “midi mappings” screen?

    On my mac, I just hit “CMD + M” (where all the purple areas appear suddenly), find my corresponding parameter in the mapping list, change it’s value in the “maximum” field to 0, and presto!

    Regardless, thank you to the author and everyone contributing. : )