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Traktor Headroom/Whats your take? (pg. 2)
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| orTofønChiLd |
| I switched back to serato which has no headroom feature so I'm ok |
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| SPACEMASTERS |
I have mines at 0.
And I don't think it is good at all.
Going to try -3 then. |
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| n3lly |
| 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? |
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| DJ RANN |
Wow, what the 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 . 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. |
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| orTofønChiLd |
| 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 |
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| n3lly |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Wow, what the 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.
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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. |
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| DJSoulstone |
Rann seems to be the only one here who really knows what he's talking about. :D 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. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJSoulstone
Rann seems to be the only one here who really knows what he's talking about. :D 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. |
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| UrbanNinja |
| thats essential for internal mixing |
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