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.

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