Need M4L patch feedback - Bento's EQ / Filter / Gater / Volume Fader Curve

**BentoSan** · 02-24-2010, 10:52 AM

So as some of you might know i have been working on a patch over the last couple days that i plan to publicly release. Ableton users will be well aware that the EQ3 in ableton isnt 0db gain at the center position, which causes some issues when mapping it to your midi controller. Also theres no easy way to make a filter that is off at the center position and when moving the knob either way acts as rather a high or low pass filter(ala Traktor Pro Style). Ontop of this its impossible to edit volume fader curves inside of Ableton to your own custom curve.

So i have made a patch that includes all three of these things !

Note: The part of the image surrounded by red is all that you will see in the effects section of the Ableton. To edit the curves you will need to open the patch to see the area below the area in the red rectangle.

EQ -

The Eqs cut to a full kill, at the center position 0db gain, and at the fully on position +6db gain.

The EQ also contains kill switches so you can kill any of the three bands.

Also included in the EQ is the ability to set your own frequency crossover points - this is where your low range ends and your mids start and where your mids end and your highs start.

Filter -

The filter control is a highpass and lowpass filter in one while being neutral in the middle position.

Also included is a resonance button, something Traktor is sorely missing for those who want to tweak the resonance to their liking.

You can draw how sharp or subtle you want your filter sweeps to be, from a gentle linear to a sharp exponential curve - or anything in between ! Its just a simple matter of drawing your own frequency curves that the knob will react to in the bottom section of the patch (only visible when is in edit mode so it doesn't take up precious screen space while your gigging).

Volume fader -

The volume fader curve can be edited with your own curve by simply drawing the curve you would like with your mouse. You can use this to make your fader act like a scratch mixer.

In a future version i plan to add two things to this volume fader part of the patch.

1 The ability to reverse the fader to make it easier to do scratch tricks with.

2) The ability to do Moldover style gating effects, a great thing to hook up to your arcade buttons so when your holding the button down the track will let audio through and released will cause silence (this option will obviously wont be on all the time so you don't have to hold down a button for the entire clip if you just want to play a clip).

Presets -

Included are 3 presets, the preset will save your custom frequency and volume curves while also saving the position of the resonance knob. This way you can have multiple different presets for different situations. So for example you could have a preset for scratching and another preset for general mixing.

This patch is meant as a general mixing tool and will not have any effects inbuilt into it (im saving some advances superknob effects for another patch). If anyone has any general mixing tools going along the lines of what is already included into this patch they wish to have included into this patch then just speak up and ill think strongly about adding it to this patch.

I will probably also release this as three separate patches as well as an all in one for those people who want to just use a single element of the patch and not the entire thing. The patch is pretty CPU efficient too, so you can easily load it up on all your channels without any worries of hogging up precious CPU power.

Edit: I am looking for beta testers so PM me if you have M4L and your interested in trying out this patch

**V-Hoff** · 02-24-2010, 11:22 AM

I'm curious about the sound of different curves, I can't imagine the sound that you can make with that kind of customization of EQ curves...
Can you show us a video or a soundfile + printscreen of the preset configurations and sound outputs?
Thanks and Good Job!

**BentoSan** · 02-24-2010, 11:43 AM

The EQ curves are not customizable, i could make them customizable but i dont think making them customizable really would yield enough boost of performance to make it worth while for the user to edit them - they work good as it is.

The only editable curves are the frequency high/lowpass response curves and the volume fader curve.

**V-Hoff** · 02-24-2010, 11:57 AM

ahh ok, I understand it now, but I really want to see it in action and the sound difference between the stardard Traktor Filter and a customized filter

Can we expect a video or wav file?

Thanks bento!

**Fatlimey** · 02-24-2010, 01:34 PM

From the Ableton point of view it's not so much a sound difference as it is an Interface difference.

The sounds will be the usual Ableton filters, but the positions on a fader where the highpass really starts to tweak or the lowpass starts to boom will be better placed along the fader track. Instead of having to play with tiny motions at the top of a range, the range gets remapped so the interesting parts of the filter are easily accessible and have plenty of room for play.

It'll make the knobs feel easier to use. The sound will be the same.

This is an essential basic technology for smart knobs, the ability to place where effects kick in or where they cut out entirely at whatevr place on a curve you need. When you map multiple effects to a single smartknob the way they interplay is the heart of the mapping, and Bento's technology will allow you absolute control over the design.

Respect to the Bent one.

**BentoSan** · 02-24-2010, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Fatlimey

This is an essential basic technology for smart knobs, the ability to place where effects kick in or where they cut out entirely at whatevr place on a curve you need. When you map multiple effects to a single smartknob the way they interplay is the heart of the mapping, and Bento's technology will allow you absolute control over the design.

Yup what he said, those "lookup tables" are essentially what is needed to make true smartknob effects. I would personally call the effects capable in Traktor "superknobs" because they fall slightly short of this sort of functionality when it comes to mapping the effects. Though the effects that are capable with Traktors mapping engine is very cool, this is the next step up in the evolution of effects mappings as it allows for a much higher level of control than the mappings available in Traktor.

I will be using the same technology in this patch to be making smartknob effects that i will eventually release to the community down the track.

Theres still a long road ahead of us to match a lot of other bits of djing fundamental functionality found in Traktor inside of M4L though, much hard work still ahead but i am positive we will get there.

**BentoSan** · 02-24-2010, 04:09 PM

Just added a way for the filter to turn on and off, and now the crossover points are also saved in the presets

Still looking for more suggestions if anyone has any though

Getting these lookup tables for the filters and volume fader just perfect is tedious work i must say, but well worth the effort ! Hopefully by the time i have put it out i will have a few different presets so most people do not have to go through the effort of customizing it perfect for their selves.

Still gotta work on making the patch look nicer, i need to re arrange it a bit and perhaps even add in a DJTT logo somewhere.

**V-Hoff** · 02-24-2010, 04:28 PM

Know I understood it completely thanks fatlimey and bento.
This is really awesome
With the Oxygen .xml Enigma Map Ean did something to achieve a better precision of filters.
He changed the range of two knobs on each deck both mapped as filters, one with range 0-64 and the other 65-127. But in traktor we still get a full range twist knob.

Similar but with Bento's patch we can also change the increment value from somepoint of the knob's range, making a Exponential Curve, is that right?

Even better

Congrats! Can't wait for what's comming next bento! I'm a big enthusiast