tranceaddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- DJ Booth
-- Traktor Headroom/Whats your take?
Pages (2): [1] 2 »

Traktor Headroom/Whats your take?

How much headroom do you leave on?

0
-3
-6
-9

?

half

which is -10 to -7 something like that no?

More space for gain adjustement on the mixer.

Also when you mix too close to O with the cumulated tracks playing at the same time it makes it all clip to heck. It's digital let us no forget.

Thats cool, i leave it at -3

Interesting topic.. I've had a discussion with others about this before.

I leave mine (on traktor 2).. at 0db.

Reason being I have the limiter setting in Traktor switched on.

Rarely does the meter bar go into the red. Orange is the highest it hits.

use your ears, the speakers are the limitation, i remember that in old mixers the meters where always red even with a single track playing at a moderate volume, though i think 3db it's enough to mix the tracks properly and keep the bang on the mix, more headroom leads you to less energetic transitions imo

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos more headroom leads you to less energetic transitions imo

lol

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly lol

well maybe it's not well expressed but i believe you have to keep the energy on the transitions and if you mix at low levels it feels a bit unnatural on the dancefloor, i have observed that a lot of djs keep the eqs almost unaltered during the transition and still sounds fine, that is indicative that you can push the equipment a bit further, the change between the tracks it's too noticeable and depending on the style this is not good.

Just checked my settings there and I actually have the master out set at -5db so that when both channels are up (and low end is set to 12o'clock) the meter doesn't clip.

In regards to the headroom comment above. You set up your levels so that the signal doesn't clip. When playing in a club, the mixer's signal is sent to a DSP (sometimes) and then on to limiters and amps blah blah.. Point is you try give it as clean a signal as you can. You can red line that mixer as much as you want but the limiter will just kick in harder and harder and the signal will just end up being shite (from the mixer).

I'm waffling.

Anyway my point is, just because you have headroom doesn't mean you lose energy in the club. You can still adjust the volume with your faders and gain knobs. You don't have to be pushing the equipment.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly lol

I, too, thought that was retarded.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos more headroom leads you to less energetic transitions imo

peak or rms ?

rms - 18 dB
peak - 9 dB

there is absolutely nothing to gain by trying to get near 0 in digital. Make up for the lost gain in the analog world.

-11 here. Allows plenty of headroom if needed. Sounds great.

-3

I switched back to serato which has no headroom feature so I'm ok

I have mines at 0.
And I don't think it is good at all.

Going to try -3 then.

quote:

Originally posted by orTofønChiLd I switched back to serato which has no headroom feature so I'm ok

Is that why you're selling it now?

Wow, what the fuck are you lot up to?

A) Rodri - WTF? You're saying on older mixers the DJ's you saw were redlining with only one track playing and that was "fine"? Nope, it just means they didn't know what they were doing and it gets even worse when it's both tracks playing. Sure you could get away with the occasional redline on old formula sound, vestax, rane, bozak, even modern A&H you can get away with it to a degree but on anything else it just sounds like shit. Always has. especially on poineer mixers.

B) Don't put a limiter on the master. Turn it off. It just hides any peaks that clip with hard wall limiting. Fine, to curtail the very odd escapee peak clip, then I suppose it's better than digital clipping but it's bad practice to teach yourself you've always got a buffer if you don't watch your levels.

C) You want to get as close as possible to 0dbfs with your mix. Don't forget your noise floor is at a set level. If you print your mix at -10dbfs then gain change later to get closer to 0dbfs, your noise floor is at -10db proportionate to your signal strength which then increases with your volume change and that therefore means more noise at 0dbfs (bad).

I have to disagree with making up the gain in the analogue world; a quiet digital signal will need a lot of attentuation and the noise floor as stated above is imprinted at the given level. By having to jack it up with an amp or speakers (etc) you're raising the volume of the signal along with the inherent noise. The other problem is that anaolgue amplifiers also add their own noise with increases exponentially as you get louder so the more you have to increase the more noise is introduced.

If you're not doing offline processing after you've mixed (like radio compression etc), What you need to do is mix as close to 0dbfs as possible; so play both tracks, mid mix and set your gain staging on your mixer so that even at the busiest, loudest points (like both tracks dropping at the same time) you're still just under 0db. That means you can mix without clipping.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly Is that why you're selling it now?

nahh i was wondering if they sounded differently at all. Neither was better so i guess i didn't need one of em so i stuck with traktor. I can use the money on something that i need more like production side of things.

cheers

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Wow, what the fuck are you lot up to? B) Don't put a limiter on the master. Turn it off. It just hides any peaks that clip with hard wall limiting. Fine, to curtail the very odd escapee peak clip, then I suppose it's better than digital clipping but it's bad practice to teach yourself you've always got a buffer if you don't watch your levels.

Surely having a digital limiter on Traktor (i don't know what kind of attack it has) won't mess things up too much as compared to having an actual limiter in a club before the amplifiers??

I have it there as a precautionary measure. Still lower the master out till it isn't clipping.

My thoughts are better having it in place in case someone/thing were to go wrong and the speakers receive a nasty spike.

Rann seems to be the only one here who really knows what he's talking about. For people who don't know what he's talking about the keyword is: "signal-to-noise ratio" or short "SNR"

This topic is actually also important for people who don't use Traktor or alike. I usually have the target level of my recording suite at -6dB while the track is playing. Since I'm not perfect at EQing in transitions it usually rises to -4dB to -3dB. The rest of the headroom is dedicated to the fact that I can't always have two tracks at exactly the same gain and that over time ears get tired and I tend to play a little louder (again the gain ). After a session there's usually still some headroom left which I get rid of by normalising the recording to -0.1dB.
Of course I keep my mixer in green at all times.

This way I got the best SNR while still having the full dynamics of my transitions.

-3 here.

quote:

Originally posted by DJSoulstone Rann seems to be the only one here who really knows what he's talking about. For people who don't know what he's talking about the keyword is: "signal-to-noise ratio" or short "SNR" This topic is actually also important for people who don't use Traktor or alike. I usually have the target level of my recording suite at -6dB while the track is playing. Since I'm not perfect at EQing in transitions it usually rises to -4dB to -3dB. The rest of the headroom is dedicated to the fact that I can't always have two tracks at exactly the same gain and that over time ears get tired and I tend to play a little louder (again the gain ). After a session there's usually still some headroom left which I get rid of by normalising the recording to -0.1dB. Of course I keep my mixer in green at all times. This way I got the best SNR while still having the full dynamics of my transitions.

Great post and good advice - I wish everyone would do this. By leaving that headroom, there's no need for a limiter as your spikes won't ever cross the clip point of 0db and yet it's not so low that when you do the normalise/gain change you're hardly raising the noise relative to the overall signal.

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/0...level-settings/

thats essential for internal mixing

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos use your ears, the speakers are the limitation, i remember that in old mixers the meters where always red even with a single track playing at a moderate volume, though i think 3db it's enough to mix the tracks properly and keep the bang on the mix, more headroom leads you to less energetic transitions imo

WOW! If you were at my club and I saw you redlining, I would give you shit for it. DJ's redline gets on my nerves. They don't understand or don't care that not only it can blow up the speakers but it also distorts the sound. I've kicked out a few DJ's off my decks for doing this.

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2012, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.