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Working the EQ's (pg. 2)
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| Zild |
| quote: | Originally posted by CiTrus
do you guys ever mixed and realized everytime you bring in a new track in the volume will get much louder or so in the waveform once its recorded.
that means crappy EQing? normally what do you guys do to the outgoing track when u bring the incoming track in to make the volume as balanced as possible, other than perfect EQing? |
Use the faders carefully. |
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| Storyteller |
| quote: | Originally posted by CiTrus
do you guys ever mixed and realized everytime you bring in a new track in the volume will get much louder or so in the waveform once its recorded.
that means crappy EQing? normally what do you guys do to the outgoing track when u bring the incoming track in to make the volume as balanced as possible, other than perfect EQing? |
I don't do anything. When you record a transition it's obvious there's a volume increase. But the increase in power is not to apparent to the average listener. The low frequencies contain the most power and I almost always have one on -inf and the other at 0dB to make sure there won't be any rediculous peaks in the recording. I also afterwards process the recording with a limiter to even those peaks out, just as they do in any proper club :). If you want to mix super clean I guess you should be a bit more careful, but I really don't care that much because it already sounds good in my ears. |
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| JD8180 |
| quote: | Originally posted by CiTrus
do you guys ever mixed and realized everytime you bring in a new track in the volume will get much louder or so in the waveform once its recorded.
that means crappy EQing? normally what do you guys do to the outgoing track when u bring the incoming track in to make the volume as balanced as possible, other than perfect EQing? |
also, use the gain knobs. every single track has differences in volume, so you use the gain knobs and lower/higher the incoming track to match it with the one currently playing. |
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| C3sharp |
| quote: | Originally posted by ZeJayMan
i reckon this is worth a sticky |
Or at least a bump. There's some good info/opinions in here. |
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| elFreak |
| quote: | Originally posted by Zild
I use mainly the channel faders with just a little bit of EQ to make sure my levels don't spike or drop out. I find most beginner to intermediate DJs abuse the EQs way too much. If you program your set properly you hardly have to touch them. When you do use them make small cuts to open up space for another song to fill without increasing the overall volume level of your mix. |
that works fine on 2 decks, but try doing this on 3 and it simply will not work. Eq is a tool that is great for creativity. |
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| PutBoy |
These are some of the things I do:
* This is what I pretty much always do. The track I mix in I generally lower the bass to about halfway to the lowest. I guess that's 9 'oclock. At an appropriate phase-shift, or rather a couple of beats before, I start to lower the base on the original track. At 4 bars before the phase-shift, I kill the bass on the track I'm mixing in. Having the bass killed allows me to set the bass to 12 o'clock on that channel. At the phase-shift, or rahter milliseconds before it, I unkill the bass. I find that not killing the base, and instead just setting the bass to 12 o'clock, you often either set it a tad too low or a tad too high, and you will spend a second resetting it properly. I find that doing this while having the bass killed instead, before I need the bass in the track, allows for more smootheness.
I call this switching the bassline, because that is really what you do. Works really well if you have a track that starts of with its baseline as a mix-in track. Or if the baselines are just running simultaniously.
* For vocals: Lower the mid on the track without vocals. This makes the vocals a bit more clear. You can also raise the mid in the track with vocals. For male vocals, you might also consider fidging with the lows. For female vocals, the same applies to the highs. This is especially usefull if the other track has a melody in it that would otherwise deafen the vocals.
* Here is what I use the hi for: before I mix in a track, I listen to both tracked mixed in the cue channel. I try to determine if the track I'm mixing in has more hihat than the other track. In that case I will lower the highs until the hihats doesn't stick out. If you ever made a mix, you know that some track will have these hihats that just sticks out too damn much. Lowering the highs really help making mixing in such tracks more seemless. I will generally reset the highs at an appropriate phase shift. Sometimes I will gradually raise it during the blend as well.
I do not recommend raising the hi's if the opposite is true (if the first track has more highs that sticks out). In that case, I just gradually lower the highs on the first track during the blend.
* "One step back-two steps forwards". You've probably heard that phrase before, and I think you can relate it to mixing. This is an idea that I have about how to use EQ's (and effects as well). Consider you have a rather uplifting track and you want to mix in a more mellowish track. If you just mix them in vanilla-style (Xfader only), what you get is just sudden drop, which doesn't sound good at all imo. This is a good situation to use the principle of "one step back-two steps forwards". What you do is you use the EQ's in such a way that you make the uplifting track sound more mellow before the acctual "track-shift". Perhaps, lowering the highs gradually some bars before a phase-shift. What you want to try and do is make the mix seem more mellow than the mellow track. If there is a strong melody in the first track, drop the mids, and so on. What this does is that you make the mix gradually take two steps backwards, and then suddenly one step forwards (in reverse of the principle, but that works as well).
Had you only mixed them vanilla, you'd have more of a "one step backwards" effect, but this way, you first take two steps backwards, enjoy, and then you're on your way again by taking one step forwards.
If you instead have a mellow track that you want to mix in with an uplifting track, instead of just going "one step forwards", you backwards, drop the highs and the mids of both of the tracks, creating a whomp-whomp part (which is "one step backwards"), then, all of a sudden, get the EQ's back, hopefully at a good phase-shift (which is "two steps forwards"), and you'll have a really nice mix. |
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| Allied Nations |
| I will add this to the Sticky |
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| jayxthekoolest |
| I just found a DJ I liked, and listened to their mixes carefully to see how they did it. It really helped me a lot, because they definitely know how to do it about as well as anyone possibly can. |
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| Zild |
| quote: | Originally posted by elFreak
that works fine on 2 decks, but try doing this on 3 and it simply will not work. Eq is a tool that is great for creativity. |
I agree with that, but everyone has their own way of doing it. I tend to use filters a lot more than I use EQs. I didn't even think we were talking about three decks because the guy said he is just getting started. |
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| elFreak |
| Oh definitely, I was just pointing out a situation where working the eq a lot was not "abuse". |
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| jpgrdnr |
Another piece of advice as a training technique someone has mentioned when starting out is: try mixing a set without touching the EQs, leave them at the 12 o'clock position.
EQing isn't meant to clean up your mistakes.
Also record your sets (practice or otherwise) to check the EQing.
That being said I think I saw Dave Clarke use the grounding wire for an interesting effect so to each his/her own. |
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| IpLaYWiTLiGhTs |
| quote: | Originally posted by jpgrdnr
That being said I think I saw Dave Clarke use the grounding wire for an interesting effect so to each his/her own. |
lol, no way? guess I shouldn't be surprised though, the man is a monster. |
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