DJM500....

hyperd4eva

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Dec 9, 2008
Hi people!

I am confused... I always used to have the channel gain at the top of my mixer facing about 10 o clock! ( if this make sense, the gain knob at the top of each channel under the line/phono switch) this used to keep the channels within the yellow line and not red line it. But when it came to recording mixes it just wasnt loud enough! i record straight from booth out to my laptop microphone input.

Only when i turned my gains up to 12 o clock did the recordings sound much much better. But now the red line is always right up at the top and i just dont know if this is how i should be mixing..


Should i keep the gains at 10oclock and make sure they do not red line? or do i keep them at 12 and just ignore the fact they are red lining at all times!

Sorry to give u another samey tedious question but it just isnt clear to me!

Thanks in advance
 
Keep them at 12 o'clock and adjust from there. Red lining doesnt always mean that the sound will distort or is distorting, its just that the sound is being pushed a little harder on certain tunes as some are louder than others
 
If you record at 10 oclock you'll keep enough headroom for you to go louder. When you get 2 tunes going at once you'll end up with more noise.

After youre done slap the recording into audacity and run the default compressor on the whole file. Theres also a check box that brings the entire mix upto 0db after the compression.

This will give your mix more bass, level it out somewhat (some tunes are always louder) and bring the volume up to a proper level :)
 
Keep them at 12 o'clock and adjust from there. Red lining doesnt always mean that the sound will distort or is distorting, its just that the sound is being pushed a little harder on certain tunes as some are louder than others

Problem with it always red lining is it literally pushes it right to the top of the lights so its hard to see what tune is playing louder if ya get me!? cause they both constantly being pushed?

---------- Post added at 11:52 ---------- Previous post was at 11:50 ----------

If you record at 10 oclock you'll keep enough headroom for you to go louder. When you get 2 tunes going at once you'll end up with more noise.

After youre done slap the recording into audacity and run the default compressor on the whole file. Theres also a check box that brings the entire mix upto 0db after the compression.

This will give your mix more bass, level it out somewhat (some tunes are always louder) and bring the volume up to a proper level :)

This is interesting.. didnt know audacity did that.. where abouts if u mind me asking? Also its hard to just mix it at 10 oclock because it just sounds so quite i doubt that audacity will be able to enhance the sound that much to make it sound good? Whenever i see videos of peoples mixers doing what mine does in the red.. you see comments like ' you shouldnt own that mixer ' haha!
 
sorry if this is a stupid reply...but cant you just record at whatever level and normalize afterwards to bring everything up to 0?

if you dont have enough volume from your speakers, just adjust the gain on them?
 
whack the speakers up high to hear, keep the mixer gains at 10, then you should be able to adjust in audacity.

i have an external soundcard, i put the gains higher on that than on my mixer, and it comes out fine
 
have u tried going from the master out into your laptop and then your monitors from the booth output? might get more of a leveled sound that way.

Even failing that.... have u tried turning the booth knob up lol!! i no it seems really silly, but i've done this before and it turned out i had the booth volume turned right down.
 
sorry if this is a stupid reply...but cant you just record at whatever level and normalize afterwards to bring everything up to 0?

if you dont have enough volume from your speakers, just adjust the gain on them?

Yeah i see what you mean, to be fair the recording quality isnt really what this is about.. its more whether or not its ok to actually keep mixing with the gains high and have the channels red lining.

---------- Post added at 13:10 ---------- Previous post was at 13:09 ----------

whack the speakers up high to hear, keep the mixer gains at 10, then you should be able to adjust in audacity.

i have an external soundcard, i put the gains higher on that than on my mixer, and it comes out fine

Cool, where in audacity is this thing to put the whole thing to 0db
 
also just had a thought. the microphone may be turned right down on your laptop. so if u go to ur volume settings, click options, properties, change the drop down box to recording then click ok. your microphone input volume control should be there and if its quite low down, then you've found your problem. you might of already tried this tho but ya never no
 
have u tried going from the master out into your laptop and then your monitors from the booth output? might get more of a leveled sound that way.

Even failing that.... have u tried turning the booth knob up lol!! i no it seems really silly, but i've done this before and it turned out i had the booth volume turned right down.

Yea, to be fair i think this might help... i only realised that booth volume needed to be up slightly. the only prob with it is it is so sensitive that i have to have it literally just up slightly... but this is possibly because the gains are set to 12 oclock. i think i will try recording at 10 o clock and have the booth volume a bit higher! safe freek. If that fails to work... meh!
 
I used to have a djm 500. At 12 oclock I just hit the red. Used the booth monitor levels to record and had the master just on the first red from memory. Mixes were always loud & clear. I did have my bass set to about 10 o'clock though.
 
Does it make a difference what sort of sound sytem set up you have? i have a really old shitty amp and speakers. mine is like far in the red at all times when at 12 o clock. so i take it this is wrong?
 
Red is bad, yellow is acceptable.
Push to far into the red and you'll distort the signal before it even reaches your amp. Theres no coming back from that. It'll make your music and any recordings you do sound like ass.
 
Its weird then! because when you hear the recordings they sound crisp! even though its being pushed into red at all times!
 
should be better off recording in the yellow and then adding a gain or normailizing to near 0db afterwards
try both ways with like a minute clip of the same tune and see if you can tell a difference.

unless pushing into the red on your mixer sounds better i would do it the other way.
 
depends how far into the red you are. Most mixers do have headroom to at least +4 db, thats probably middle of the red leds. You can push harder than that and not get distortion in some cases.

basically, youre better off running just nudging the first red LED and cranking your amp instead. Its called gain staging, definately do some reearch on this.
 
I've got a similar issue recording into audacity from an old allen & heath xone 32. It makes it twice as difficult using serato and vinyl with different starting gains. Is it a good idea to compensate by turning the input volume up on audacity? Or better to let the mixer do the work?

Also if anyone uses Serato is it a good idea to use the auto gain? If so what level do you want to set it at generally?
 
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