haha... yeah right now i have a relatively loud home theater system. and i swear it lags a little bit because in order for my mix to be 'perfect' the beats need to sound like they are a fraction of a second ahead of the beats in the speakers

i think that with some active monitors in my relatively small dj area that should do the trick


so do you any of you guys have a link to an exact product that you highly recommend?

I dunno I wouldn't suggest using your home theatre speakers as your pa speakers just not a good idea simply because they aren't meant to be pushed hard and for long periods of time.

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I"m really confused about monitors...


how are they different to subs???

can someone explain how they work and what they do for me/?/?

Abhay, this is really basic stuff....... Monitors are "speakers" that you use to listen to the mix (in this case in the booth) and subs are just for putting out bass and generally are used for PA set ups although some studio monitoring set ups do also use separate subs.

Fr3sh make sure you either make the booth so solid that it cant shake (i.e.concrete) or have the decks on sprung sufaces otherwise any munter too near the Booth doing their Taz' impression will result in grade A needle jumpage.

Mackie speakers SRM450's may pump out decent levels but they sound so sharp and mechanical and I often find they lack atmosphere when used on their own. Home theatre systems will have some lag because they (+ amps) are not designed for monitoring and often have built in eq's for 5.1 which takes a fraction of a second to process the audio.
if you want some decent cheap monitors go for Tannoy reveals or JBL control 5's or samson resolve 65/80's or similar. For booth monitoring you dont want to spend too much and you'll need em to be tough.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Fr3sh make sure you either make the booth so solid that it cant shake (i.e.concrete) or have the decks on sprung sufaces otherwise any munter too near the Booth doing their Taz' impression will result in grade A needle jumpage.

Can you actually make a booth out of concrete?? How in the world would you work with it?

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-Jon
www.DJjoncaserta.com - - mixes and whatnot (melodic progressive house and trance)

what do you mean how would you work with it?

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quote:

Originally posted by Psiweaver what do you mean how would you work with it?

Dunno, maybe I just know nothing about concrete (which is true).

Like, with wood....you'd cut it into pieces, then screw those pieces together.

I'm assuming you wouldn't buy a concrete slab, cut it, and screw the pieces together, right? You would have to like, have a mold of a dj table or something and pour the concrete in...or something.

Basically, if you were going to make a dj table out of concrete, how would you do it, compared to doing it with wood.

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-Jon
www.DJjoncaserta.com - - mixes and whatnot (melodic progressive house and trance)

i plan on using wood even though it is obviuosly less solid than concrete... and i am glad to hear that a home audio system (that i am currently using) is not the right setup... because like i said... in order for the mix to be on point it needs to sound just a slight beat ahead of the "monitor" beats

so once i get a real dj setup, my mixing should be more "normal"

back to the dj booth.... i am wondering what kind of material i should use over the wood.. i was thinking some variety of shiny black laminate

You could use concrete block, and fill the empty space with mortar. Kind of permanent for a home installation though!

well, you can probably paint over it after it's done or whatever.

cool idea: think of maybe having a wheel setup, so you could move your booth around if need be. you'd need a brake system so you could set it in place, and make sure it's sturdy as hell.

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check out my guest mix for OndaSonora Podcast (aug.2009)

I reckon the concrete option is overkill but......You could make the deck stand/table out of concrete but the whole booth (walls and all) is a constructors job.
To make a solid platform from concrete you put the metal core in place (in to holes in the floor) then you make a frame from wood around these and pour the concrete in but you would have to do it in sections.

I would just make it out of MDF and reinforce the frame with timber then put some ballast in the base (like records...). That way if you do get vibrations or skipping needles you can always modify it and spring the decks. You can also put locking castors (wheels) on the base too!
You can then do any form of finish you want to MDF.

I would:

a) put a single 18" heavy duty (4" voice coil, 600+w handling) sub in the back center of the room
b) put a 12" + 1" 2-way PA in each corner.. four total.
c) connect both speakers on each side to the same channel.. so you can run the four mains off one stereo amp
d) connect the sub to a big amp running in bridged mode
e) install a quality crossover to handle the sub/main frequency bands

The reason for the 12" mains and a sub:
you get alot more volume off a main speaker if it doesnt have to deal with the bass. you also get alot cleaner midrange since the main speaker's woofer isnt dealing with the bass. and you get alot more bass because a sub is optimized to produce quality bass. 12" woofers also have notable cleaner midrange than 15" woofers.

personally, I'd stick a yorkville ex350 in each corner, and a yorkville elite 18" sub (maybe an sw800?) to handle the bass. a DBX223 crossover would work out really nice, and some ab international or crown ampliers would rock those speakers good. I recommend the DBX223 because its not only a good xover, but it has a built in 40hz high pass filter that protects your subs from low freq damage, and also helps them run more effficiently and prevents low frequency "boom" from the subs which complicates mixing in a small environment.

i'd buy everything used.

I recommend the yorkville gear because its a great value - really hard to beat for the money... especially on the used market!

mackie SRMs are nice, but they are very expensive. they are also powered which greatly reduces thier flexibility and complicates cabling. they do sound nice, however!