EQ Strategies
How to EQ in Live 12 — EQ Eight modes, slopes, oversampling and M/S, Channel EQ, EQ Three kills, carving vs boosting, dynamic EQ with Multiband Dynamics, resonance hunting, and per-element EQ curves for kick, sub, bass, vocal, pad, hats and the mix bus.
EQ is the tool you reach for most and understand least. Most EQ moves in a club mix are not about tone, they are about allocation: deciding which element owns which band, then removing everything else from that band. Live 12 gives you three EQs with three personalities (EQ Eight for surgery and M/S, Channel EQ for fast musical shaping, EQ Three for DJ-style kills) plus Multiband Dynamics as a dynamic EQ and Auto Filter for moving filters. This page is about which one, where, and the handful of curves you will draw a thousand times.
Concept
Three facts make EQ decisions for you. Masking is asymmetric: a loud low sound masks a quiet high one more than the reverse, so low-mid clutter (150–400 Hz) hides more of the mix than high clutter does. Equal-loudness curves mean the ear is most sensitive around 2–5 kHz, so ±1 dB there is as audible as ±3 dB at 100 Hz. And every boost is also a phase shift (minimum-phase EQ) and a headroom cost; a cut is free. The practical consequence: cut first, cut narrow, boost wide, and treat a high-pass filter as the default state of every track that doesn't carry sub.
Live's three EQs in one line each. EQ Eight: 8 bands, 6 filter types per band (low cut 12/24/48 dB, low shelf, bell, notch, high shelf, high cut), Stereo / L/R / M/S modes, Adaptive Q, Oversampling (context menu), Audition (band solo), spectrum overlay, scale control; this is the surgical tool and the M/S tool. Channel EQ: a 3-band console-style EQ with a sweepable Mid, fixed-slope Low and High shelves and a high-pass, with curves tuned to sound good when pushed; this is the fast musical one. EQ Three: three bands with Kill switches and a 24 or 48 dB/oct crossover slope; built for DJ-style kills and live performance.
Techniques
EQ Eight: filter types, slopes and oversampling
The core decisions in EQ Eight are the slope of the cuts and whether Oversampling is on. 12 dB/oct high-pass is gentle and phase-friendly; 48 dB/oct is a wall. Oversampling fixes the "cramping" of bells and shelves near 20 kHz so a high shelf at 12 kHz behaves like the analogue curve instead of bending down toward Nyquist.
| Parameter | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Low-cut slope | 12 dB on musical sources, 24 dB default, 48 dB for sub cleanup on non-bass tracks | Steeper = less phase shift above the cutoff, but more ringing near it |
| Low-cut frequency | Where the fundamental starts, minus a third of an octave | HP at the fundamental itself thins the note; the slope eats into it |
| Oversampling | On for anything above 8 kHz, on the master always | Accurate high shelves and bells; costs CPU, adds no latency in Live |
| Adaptive Q | On | Q gets narrower as gain increases, so big boosts stay focused and small ones stay broad; matches analogue behaviour |
| Scale | 50% to halve all gains, 200% to double | Fast way to audition "the same shape, less of it" |
| Q for cuts / boosts | 2–6 for surgical cuts, 0.5–1.2 for tonal boosts | Cuts can be narrow (the ear forgives notches); boosts must be wide |
Carving vs boosting: give every element a band of its own
The allocation method. Decide who owns each band, cut the others there, and only then boost. A 3 dB cut in the kick at 300 Hz plus a 2 dB cut in the bass at 80 Hz is cleaner than a 4 dB boost in either, because nothing new has been added and the limiter sees less.
- Pick the two elements that fight (kick vs bass, pad vs vocal, snare vs clap). Solo both together, never alone: EQ in solo is how you make everything sound great alone and bad together.
- Decide ownership: kick owns 50–70 Hz on a techno track, bass owns 70–150; in dubstep the sub owns 40–60 and the kick owns 80–120. See the per-genre table.
- Cut the non-owner by 2–4 dB, Q 1–1.5, at the owner's centre frequency. Listen for the owner coming forward, not for the cut.
- Only now boost, broadly (Q 0.5–0.8) and by ≤3 dB, where the element's character lives.
- Boost-and-sweep to find a problem, but cut to fix it: boost +8 dB Q 4, sweep to the ugliest spot, then set gain to −3 and widen to Q 2.
Channel EQ for fast, musical shaping
When you want "brighter" or "warmer" rather than "−2.7 dB at 312 Hz", Channel EQ is faster and sounds better. Its low and high shelves have curves modelled on console EQs with a slight resonant bump at the corner, the Mid is a sweepable peak with a sensible Q, and the HP is 24 dB/oct and sits before the shelves. It also saturates gently when pushed.
| Parameter | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| High-pass | On, 60–120 Hz on non-bass tracks | Fixed 24 dB slope with a musical knee |
| Low shelf | ±3 dB | Corner around 100 Hz; adds weight or cleans low-mids in one knob |
| Mid | 200 Hz–3 kHz sweep, ±4 dB | Broad peak; cut at 300–500 for mud, boost at 1–2 kHz for presence |
| High shelf | +1 to +4 dB | Corner around 8 kHz; the "air" move, with a slight lift that reads as expensive |
| Gain | To taste; push it for subtle drive | Channel EQ's output saturates, useful on drum buses |
EQ Three: kills, isolators and DJ-style transitions
EQ Three is the Live equivalent of a DJ isolator: Low, Mid, High gains from −inf to +6 dB with Kill buttons, two crossover frequencies (FreqLow, FreqHigh) and a 24 or 48 dB/oct slope. It is not a mixing EQ; it is a performance and arrangement tool. Mapped to Push or a MIDI controller it becomes the way you take the low end out of a loop for 8 bars and slam it back.
- Set FreqLow where the kick ends (100–150 Hz) and FreqHigh where hats begin (2–4 kHz). The 48 dB slope gives the hardest kill with the least bleed; 24 dB sounds more like a rotary mixer.
- Map Low Kill, Mid Kill, High Kill to buttons; map Gain Low to a knob with a range from −inf to 0 dB so it only ever cuts.
- Arrangement use: automate Low Kill on the bass bus for the 4 bars before a drop, and GainHi −inf → 0 over 2 bars as a filter-less riser.
- Dub use: EQ Three on a return before Echo; killing the lows on the delay input is the classic dub-siren clean-up.
EQ Eight M/S: clean the sides, de-mask the centre
In M/S mode each band can be assigned to Mid or Side. The two moves worth memorising: Side low-cut on anything wide (pads, reverbs, delays, stereo loops) and a Mid cut where a wide element masks a centred one. The L/R mode is for fixing asymmetrical sources (one-sided guitar amp, a live recording with a resonance in one channel).
| Parameter | Value | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Mode | M/S | Bands get an M or S target instead of acting on both channels |
| Side low-cut | 150–300 Hz, 24–48 dB | Side low end cancels in mono and clutters the low-mids; always safe to remove |
| Mid cut for centred element | −1 to −3 dB, Q 0.8–1.2 | Only what mono hears gets ducked; the wide image stays bright |
| Side shelf | +1 to +3 dB from 6–10 kHz | Width impression without raising Side level in the mids |
Resonance hunting: find and notch the ringing frequencies
Distorted bass, resonant filters, physical-model instruments (Collision, Corpus) and small-room samples all produce narrow peaks that ring. A 6 dB narrow cut at the right frequency makes the whole mix louder because the limiter stops reacting to one resonance. The method is boost-sweep-cut, done with the band's Audition button.
- EQ Eight after the saturation. Band 3: bell, +10 dB, Q 6. Hold the band's Audition (headphone) button and sweep slowly from 150 Hz to 5 kHz. The resonance is where the tone becomes a pure, painful note.
- Set the gain to −4 to −8 dB, Q 4–10. If the resonance is a single note (Roar Feedback, Corpus pipe), use the Notch type with Q 10+.
- Repeat for the two or three worst peaks. More than four narrow cuts means the source needs fixing (less resonance, different filter), not more EQ.
- Enable the analyser (Post) and look for sharp spikes that don't move with the note; those are fixed resonances from the device, not the pitch.
- For pitched material where the resonance moves with the note, use a dynamic band instead (next technique) or the Multiband Dynamics approach.
Dynamic EQ with Multiband Dynamics (and the EQ-plus-compressor rack)
Live has no dedicated dynamic EQ, but Multiband Dynamics is one: three bands with independent crossovers, upward and downward compression and expansion per band, and an external sidechain. A band set to a narrow range with a downward threshold cuts only when that band gets loud, which is exactly a dynamic EQ cut: a de-esser, a dynamic mud cut, a kick-triggered bass dip at 60 Hz.
- Multiband Dynamics. Set the crossovers so the band you want to control is isolated (e.g. High from 5.5 kHz for sibilance; Low up to 120 Hz for a bass dip). Use the band's Solo to confirm.
- On that band only, drag the Above threshold down until the band compresses on the offending moments. Ratio 2:1–4:1. The others: threshold at 0 (inactive).
- Attack 0.1–2 ms for sibilance, 5–10 ms for low-mid mud; release 30–80 ms for sibilance, 100–200 ms for mud.
- Sidechained dynamic cut: enable the external sidechain from the kick, isolate the 40–110 Hz band on the bass, and compress only that band on each kick. The bass's harmonics never duck; only the sub steps aside. This is the surgical version of sidechain ducking.
- Upward dynamic EQ: drag the Below threshold up with a ratio below 1:1 to bring up a band when it's quiet, e.g. the 2–4 kHz of a vocal that disappears on soft phrases.
| Use | Band | Threshold / Ratio | Attack / Release |
|---|---|---|---|
| De-esser | High 5.5–9 kHz | Above −20 to −30 dB, 3:1 | 0.3 ms / 40 ms |
| Dynamic mud cut | Mid 180–350 Hz | Above −18 dB, 2:1 | 8 ms / 150 ms |
| Kick-keyed sub dip | Low <110 Hz, SC kick | Above −30 dB, 4:1 | 1 ms / 120 ms |
| Harshness tamer (master) | Mid 2.5–5 kHz | Above −12 dB, 1.5:1 | 2 ms / 80 ms |
High-pass discipline: the default state of every track
Thirty tracks each contributing a little rumble below 80 Hz add up to a lot of mud and a limiter that works on nothing audible. The rule: every track that does not intentionally carry sub gets a high-pass, set by ear with the mix playing, not by number in solo.
| Element | HP starting point | Slope | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | 25–35 Hz | 12–24 dB | Removes DC and sub-sonic without touching the fundamental |
| Sub / 808 | 20–30 Hz | 12 dB | Or none; the Operator sine has nothing below the note anyway |
| Bass (non-sub) | 35–60 Hz | 24 dB | Leave room for the sub layer |
| Snare / clap | 80–150 Hz | 24 dB | Snare body is 150–250; below that is the kick's |
| Hats / shakers | 250–500 Hz | 24–48 dB | Nothing useful below; sample noise floor often lives there |
| Pads / chords | 100–200 Hz | 12–24 dB | Depends on whether the bass carries the root |
| Leads / plucks | 150–300 Hz | 24 dB | |
| Vocals | 80–120 Hz | 24 dB | Higher on breathy/backing vocals (150–200) |
| Reverb / delay returns | 200–400 Hz | 24 dB | Most effective single HP in the mix |
| FX / risers / noise | 300–600 Hz | 48 dB | Unless the FX is a sub drop |
Mix bus EQ: broad, small, and last
On the mix bus, EQ is tone, not allocation. Moves are ±1–2 dB, Q below 1, and they come after the mix is balanced. Three reasonable curves: a tilt (low shelf −1, high shelf +1) for a brighter club mix, a 2.5–4 kHz dip of 1 dB on harsh digital mixes, and a Side low-cut for mono safety.
Settings per source / genre
Starting-point curves for the elements you EQ most. Each curve is a full EQ Eight setting; adjust the frequencies to the key and the kick. Then the genre table says where the allocation lines move.
| Genre | Kick owns | Bass/sub owns | Typical cuts | Typical boosts | Mix bus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deep / dub techno | 50–70 Hz | 70–150 Hz (bass), chords HP 150 | Chords 300–400 −2; hats HP 400 | Kick 55 +2; chord stabs 1.5–2k +1.5 | Low shelf +0.5, Side HP 100 |
| Hard / industrial techno | 45–65 Hz + 2–4k click | Rumble 60–120 (sidechained) | Rumble above 200 LP; everything HP higher | Kick 3.5k +3; noise 8k shelf +2 | Bell 3k −1 for fatigue |
| House / tech house | 55–80 Hz | 80–200 Hz | Bass 60 −2; pads 250 −2 | Bass 800 +2; vocal 3k +2; hats 10k +2 | Tilt: low −1, high +1 |
| Dubstep / 140 | 80–120 Hz (kick above sub) | Sub 40–60 Hz; growl 150–3k | Kick HP 60; growl notches at resonances | Sub 45 +1; snare 200 +2, 5k +3 | Side HP 120; LP 18k |
| DnB / neuro | 50–70 Hz (short) | Sub 35–55; Reese 100–2k | Break 150–300 −3; Reese 300–500 notch | Snare 180 +2, 7k +3; sub 45 +1 | Side HP 150 |
| Trap / drill | 808 is the kick: 40–60 Hz | 808 owns 40–120; harmonics 200–800 | Everything else HP 120+; 808 notch at 2nd harmonic if boomy | 808 60 +2 with Saturator instead of EQ; hats 12k shelf +3 | Tilt high +1.5 |
| UK garage | 55–75 Hz | Sub 40–60, bass 100–300 | Chords 200–300 −2; vocal chops HP 200 | Snare 1k–3k +2; shuffle hats 8k +2 | Light: bell 300 −0.5 |
| Trip-hop / downtempo | 55–90 Hz (sampled, broad) | Bass 60–200 | Bass 90 −1.5 under kick; vinyl noise HP 500 | Kick 80 +1.5, Rhodes 2k +1; air shelf +2 | Low shelf +1 for warmth |
| Ambient | n/a | Drone 40–120 | Layers staggered: each pad HP at a different frequency (120 / 250 / 500) | Air shelves on top layers only | Side HP 80, high shelf +1 |
| Lo-fi hip-hop / boom bap | 50–80 Hz | Bass 60–180 | Everything LP 10–14k for the lo-fi roll-off; sample 250 −2 | Kick 60 +2; snare 200 +2; bell 1.5k +1 on sample | LP 16k, low shelf +1 |
Common mistakes
- EQ in solo. Decisions made in solo optimise the wrong thing. Solo the pair that fights, or nothing.
- Boosting to fix masking. If the vocal can't be heard, cut the pad at 2–4 kHz. Boosting the vocal raises the peak, costs limiter headroom and makes it harsh.
- Narrow boosts. Q 4 boosts ring and sound like a resonance. Boosts are Q 0.5–1.2; cuts can be as narrow as you like.
- Steep HP on bass tracks. 48 dB/oct at 40 Hz on a sub layer rotates phase through the fundamental and can fight the kick. 12 dB on sub, 24 dB on mid-bass, 48 dB only on tracks with no low end.
- High-passing by number. "Everything at 100 Hz" removes the body of a snare and does nothing for a hat. Set each HP by ear with the mix playing.
- Forgetting Oversampling. High shelves above 8 kHz without it bend toward Nyquist and sound dull; turn it on for any track with a high band and on the master.
- Static cuts for dynamic problems. A sibilance that happens twice per phrase gets a de-esser (Multiband Dynamics), not a permanent −6 dB at 7 kHz.
- Too many bands. Eight bands all engaged on every track is a sign the source is wrong. Three to four moves per track is normal; more than six, fix the sound design.
- EQ Three for mixing. It's an isolator with crossover bumps; use it for kills and performance, EQ Eight or Channel EQ for the mix.
Related
- Mid/Side & stereo — M/S mode and Side low-cuts in context
- Sidechain & ducking — the dynamic alternative to static carving
- Compression & glue, Loudness & limiting — why cuts are free and boosts are not
- Saturation & distortion — resonances come from here
- Layering rules — allocation before EQ
- Mix templates and Mix bus rack
- Kick, Sub bass, Voice & vocals, Hi-hats & percussion
- Frequency chart, Note to Hz, Listening checklist