Emulate Mixing Console EQ in Ableton Live

Introduction to Music Production - Week 5

Hi again, Dennis Dillon from California, USA with another lesson for Introduction to Music Production from Coursera.org. For Week 5, I decided show how to configure an EQ device in Ableton Live 9 to resemble the mixing console at my church, which is a Yamaha MG32/14fx. We will briefly describe EQ, explore the EQ features of the mixing console, endeavor to configure the Live EQ in the same way, and then save the settings for future use.

Yamaha MG32/14fx

What is an EQ?

I'm so glad you asked! EQ is an abbreviation for "equalization". An EQ device is a group of filters that work together to manipulate the timbre of an audio signal. Timbre is that aspect of sound determined by the combination of frequencies that are prominent in a sound (generally the fundamental frequency along with harmonics (multiples of the fundamental frequency) and other overtones and their strength relative to each other). We hear these frequency combinations as the tone of a sound. So manipulating the timbre of a sound will change aspects of its character as we hear it. We use words like dark, warm, rich, thin, tinny to describe the tone. 

In music production, we may use channel EQ to cut frequencies that are not relevant to the sound and boost frequencies that are more relevant. We may also cut frequencies in one instrument to make room for another instrument in that frequency range. For instance, because guitars, pianos, trumpets, violins and vocals can often share the same frequency range, cutting the instruments in the vocal frequency range is one way to help the vocals come through more clearly in the final mix.

EQ On The Mixing Console

At my church, the physical mixing console has 24 mono inputs and four stereo inputs. Mono and stereo inputs on this console have differing EQ setups. Stereo channels use a four-band EQ (HIGH, HI-MID, LO-MID and LOW bands). Mono channels use a three-band EQ (HIGH, MID and LOW bands). Mono channels also have an additional high pass filter (HPF) that cuts very low frequencies.

Mono Channels EQ Section

Stereo Channels EQ Section

Here are each of the EQ bands for both stereo and mono channels along with the EQ type and base frequency:

• HIGH . . . . . . .Shelving @ 10kHz
• HI-MID . . . . . Peaking @ 3 kHz
• MID . . . . . . . . Peaking @ 250Hz to 5kHZ (adjustable)
• LO-MID. . . . . Peaking @ 800Hz
• LOW . .  . . . . .Shelving @100Hz
• HPF . . . . . . . . High Pass Filter @ 80Hz (toggle ON/OFF)

Shelving means that the base frequency defines the boundary of the EQ band (e.g. HI band is 10kHZ and above, LOW band is 100kHz and below) and cutting or boosting affects the entire band of frequencies essentially equally. Peaking means that frequencies near the base frequency are cut or boosted more than frequencies farther from the base frequency. The HIGH and LOW EQ bands are identical between stereo and mono channels.

EQ in Ableton Live 9

There are actually two EQ devices in Live 9. EQ3 is a three-band equalizer, and EQ8 is an eight-band equalizer. We could perform this emulation a number of ways. I will choose to set up all six EQ bands into the Ableton Live EQ8 Audio effect, and then I will save two presets. One to emulate the EQ settings for a stereo channel and one to emulate the EQ settings for a mono channel.

Above is a display of the default settings for the EQ8 audio effect. Note that four filter bands are turned on (red), and four are turned off (grey). To setup our bands to match the physical mixing console, we need to modify the Freq(uency) setting, and the filter response type as follows:

Band      Freq       Filter Response type
1              80 Hz   Low Cut (48dB/octave)
2            100 Hz   Low Shelf
3            800 Hz   Bell Curve
4              3 kHz   Bell Curve
5            10 kHz   High Shelf

Here are those settings as displayed in the Live EQ Eight device

Bands 6-8 will not be used. Note that each band is represented in the filter curve display as a numbered dot at its base frequency (x-axis) and gain level (y-axis).

Since the Stereo EQ does not include the HPF (or low cut filter), We turn off Band 1. The remaining EQ Bands represent the MG32 stereo channels. We can save this as a preset by selecting the disk icon in the upper right corner of the EQ Eight window.

For the Mono channel EQ, we turn on Band 1, and turn off Band 4. We would then adjust Band 3 wherever we desire between 250 Hz and 5 kHz. Again, we can save this as a preset as well.

We now have two presets that can emulate the EQ options available on the Yamaha MG32/14fx mixing console. Using the same steps, we can emulate the EQ options of any physical console. But of course, our Live EQ is much more flexible. We can adjust the base frequency of any band, and we can also adjust how narrow or wide a frequency band we want the gain control to impact (using the Q parameter). But the presets give us a reasonable starting point based on a physical professional mixing console.

Thanks for viewing this lesson. As always, feedback is welcome. Now go make some music!

Source: Yamaha Mixing Console Owner's Manual - MG32/14fx MG24/14fx