How to solve the problem of bad monitors?

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-- How to solve the problem of bad monitors?

Posted by RJT on Jan-25-2005 16:49:

How to solve the problem of bad monitors?

Hey everyone-

Last night I was spinning a set at the local radio station in town and ran into a problem I hadn't expected: Severe monitor failure.

About 25 minutes into my set I started to get a lot of static, and sometimes had absolutely no way to listen other than in my headphones, so naturally I decided I had to adapt and made the decision to mix in my headphones entirely.

I know some DJ's mix in their headphones exclusively, and really have no opinion on it one way or the other as far as good/bad, but when I mix in the phones, I tend to have some pretty bad problems with volume, and my mixes definitely suffer because of this.

Has anyone else had a similar problem with headphones mixing? If not, does anyone else have any ideas on how to deal with a situation like this? In reality I guess I'm just looking for some help with honing my headphone mixing abilities in case a situation like this comes up again.

Thanks, Peace, Cheers,

RJT

Posted by Max Thomson on Jan-25-2005 16:52:

I learned to mix with both phones on my head (which is bad acutally) but whenever the monitors suck I switch to that. My mixing is always cleaner but I look like a tool with both my ears covered all the time...

Posted by Scottaculous on Jan-25-2005 16:55:

Doesn't your mixer have volume leds? Use those as your guide to judge volume.

Posted by Groovejunk on Jan-25-2005 19:31:

Re: How to solve the problem of bad monitors?

quote:
Originally posted by rturn214
Hey everyone-

Has anyone else had a similar problem with headphones mixing? If not, does anyone else have any ideas on how to deal with a situation like this? In reality I guess I'm just looking for some help with honing my headphone mixing abilities in case a situation like this comes up again.

Thanks, Peace, Cheers,

RJT

I had the same problem after buying me an Ecler Nuo5. I was used to mix on headphone using split cue. The Ecler don't have any split cue option.
So I had to learn to mix all over again.

The trick I mostly use when having bad monitors is to listen to the song wich is playing (on headphone) and then cue the other song, but turn the volume a notch so you hear the song a bit louder then the one's playing. (not needed on the ecler... I can use PFL/MIX on that one)

When done que'ing the song i just take a very good look @ the PFL volume bar and mix the song and adjusting the gainlevel back again.

It is a bit tricky, but you can def hear when one song is louder then the other one

Posted by jusware on Jan-26-2005 22:22:

I learned to mix in headphones exclusively. When I went down and spun in Phoenix I was using a DJM909 that doesn't have split que. I had problems at first, but I got used to it. I have found out that if I don't take of my headphones when I mix and listen to the master my tracks don't sound right, particularly transistions. It is more than likely due to the differences in the quality of sound reproduction from my headphones and my computer speakers. Using the level meters on the channels helps, but not enough in my opinion but that could just be the DJM600.

Posted by Nemesis44 on Jan-27-2005 13:58:

Mixing with phones isn't bad. DJ's should just know how to deal with all ways.

Nem