making dubstep sound better (for djs)

[rickyricardo]

I miss cutting up beats as my Crossfader is broken.

Nice one Luke.

this is why i love my rane. Had it for about a year and a half, and the faders don't even have a hint of crackle...

[mattyg]

I always get thrown off my the mixers at shows. I'm so used to my own setup that sometimes I forget there's a curve on most faders. I have my fade on "cut" for scratching an mix with the channel faders, so if I forget to move the horizontal fader to the middle it screws me up...but that's what the LEDs are for!

[antilynd]

another thing to keep in mind - as far as recording/production goes - is normalization. if i have a specific sample that's being modified over the course of a sequence i normalize it to 99% after every effect added. likewise when i'm done mixing i normalize the entire track before bounce. this is by no means a 'cure all' but just one more thing you can do to keep the presence of a track.

ouch... normalization is the devil ...in the digital domain, you need lots! of headroom since the operations done by all your effects can cause clipping invisible on your peak meters. Even *subtractive* EQing (cutting certain freqs) can lead to additional peaks. Your meters won't notice them though, 'cause they're just too short. But they're there, so audio quality is likely to suffer... I always try to keep my levels somewhere between -12 and -6 dbFS to have enough headroom for all the calculations necessary. The habit of trying to always stay as close to 0 as possible btw is a relic from the analog age when a) a thing called 'noise floor' was still a force to reckon with and b) people still had lots of headroom even far beyond 0 dBFS.

check this out if you got some spare time:
http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index. ... 8/65447/0/

[bunzer0]

Luke, Dubstep sounds better with you

[Jubz]

Luke, Dubstep sounds better with you

Mental image of you two snuggled up listening to dubstep allstars LOL!

[bunzer0]

"oooouh baby, Dubstep sounds better with yoooooou baby"

;p

[Jubz]

Thats the one!

[shnyde]

Man, I've thrown a ton of parties with our sound system, and people just don't get it. When we set everything up, we set it up to sound as loud, and clear as it can. Then people get up on the decks and try to be rock stars, and want their set to be louder than the last persons. People don't even know how to use the damn levels on the mixer. Red is Bad! repeat Red is Bad! A lot of people don't respect other peoples equipment, and just try to blow the shit out of everything...that really chaps my hide and is a main reason as to why I don't like throwing parties anymore.

arghgghhhh! I hate having to spend the whole night by the decks constantly adjusting the sound! don't help that when another DJ comes on I have to show him how to use my complicated throbby but shit mixer, it's got fucked up faders and has a sticker pointing to them saying: NO!

[delsa]

yo

some things i wanna share with djs. take it, leave it, and contribute
im not a proper expert but ive been playing for 7 years and done a few systems legal and illegal, all this applies to playing at home too

if you are playing/recording dubstep on a system/setup and it sounds shit, sometimes theres a couple things that can be done.
some problems and solutions ive found:

if the volume is good but theres not enough bass for dubstep-

dubstep is sub driven, if your playing loud and theres not enough bass, please dont just turn the master and bass gains up!
it prob means the system isnt that good for bass (as long as the bass gains are in reasonable position to start with) its gonna sound alot tighter if u turn the master volume down and boost the low ends (within reason, not about having the bass or mid gains on full).

theres no point in deafening your audience if it doesnt sound any good so turning down the master is useful in many situations
it aint the natural thing for a dj to wanna do so u gotta think about it

if its really loud and u dont wanna drop the energy by turning it all down, then do it subtley over a quiet drop of a tune, or even slowly over 2 tunes

distortion-
see above. excessive low end could be doing this depending on the system

volume changes from tune to tune-

some acetate and sequencer mixdowns straight to cd can sound lower and less full than each other or compared to release pressings, usually the channel gains will sort this but the frequencies might still sound inconsistant depending on original mixdown.
in this case you'll have to be sensitive to what is lacking, but for cds its usually the low mids in my experience and sometimes highs and high mids for acetate, so boost & cut with the frequency gains

more bass, less volume- is a vague but good rule for sorting out dubstep when playing loud

any experiences or additions you lot got then please say

nice1

Luke you joker, you used to be the original red liner, good to see that you have learned something Although I swear I've seen you red lining shit recently and making it distort, i suppose needs must at inigo.

[pete_bubonic]

I used to work as a sound tech for two nightclubs when I was at uni and the very worst offender for redlining the fucking shit out of the system was Nicky Blackmarket! Now, I like Nicky BM, he's generally a nice guy and obviously BM records is nothing but a good thing, but you would have thought a breh with his experience would appreciate rig management! Nope. He caused this fucking horrible clipping due to the limiters working overtime sorting his red lining, and when I say red lining, he was pushing it so there was no dynamic range coming out of the mixer!

However it goes both ways, I've played night where the sound engineer is a fucking moron, with crossovers set wrong and militant compressors. For which as a dj you really have to battle with.

My key tips, is before dj's start crying about the needles skipping all the time (which is fucking irritating), learn the mechanics of your tools, there's at least 3 or 4 easy things to do in about 30 seconds to a deck to make the needle stop jumping from tone arm height to the frowned upon (but very effective) 5p on top of the cartridge.

[moldy]

Luke you joker, you used to be the original red liner, good to see that you have learned something Although I swear I've seen you red lining shit recently and making it distort, i suppose needs must at inigo.

Cold blooded!!

LOL

[skunk]

i hate those douchebags that redline my fucking mixer.

and btw, whoever said something about setting your fader to cut, i do the same thing. when i get on my friends mixers, or even once when i was playing out, i ALWAYS forget that there's a curve.

motherfuckin trance mixers with no curve. if only trance djs knew

[lord_qzuma]

To get ur levels right in order to record requires a few simple steps..

Gettin to the club early and testin it out for your self.
Tapeing off on the mixer where it starts soundin like ass (damn redliners).
and having a good computer.

[viceroy]

Also I'm curious if most people on here use the crossfader when they mix or just the volumes? I've always relied on the crossfader but I know people who come from a house background often don't use the crossfader at all.

i use both. sometimes i need the crossfader as it you can control the volume of both channels with one hand

Same here. When I had my Vestax SlimTricks mixer, I was all crossfader. But with the DJM-500, im not feeling the crossfader at all, so I have been adjusting to using the volume.

Plus I dj hamster style? The decks are reversed on the crossfader. When I started djing, I didnt have anyone to show me anything. So the mixer I had was set that was and I never changed it.

Now when I do tag team sets, and the crossfader is regular, it always fucks with me, so in that case I started using the channel volume too.

[digital]

2 basslines playing together sounds crap. full stop. that's what the EQ knobbles are for.

Errr.............................................No.

[ramadanman]

2 basslines playing together sounds crap. full stop. that's what the EQ knobbles are for.

Errr.............................................No.

ok yeh chopping them up works - but having them both playing at once is generally cause for a really muddy mix

[loki]

I always find it amazing how many DJs don't really seem to understand the concept of clipping and what it'll do to your tunes...

[luke.envoy]

Luke you joker, you used to be the original red liner, good to see that you have learned something Although I swear I've seen you red lining shit recently and making it distort, i suppose needs must at inigo.

Cold blooded!!

LOL

ha shabby. least i werent clangin delsa u tart

we played some mad parties in some mad different places,
shall we take a year off and do it all over again but with earplugs

[braiden]

2 basslines playing together sounds crap. full stop. that's what the EQ knobbles are for.

Errr.............................................No.

two sub bass lines playing together will usually result in an arrhythmic mess

[delsa]

Luke you joker, you used to be the original red liner, good to see that you have learned something Although I swear I've seen you red lining shit recently and making it distort, i suppose needs must at inigo.

Cold blooded!!

LOL

we played some mad parties in some mad different places,
shall we take a year off and do it all over again but with earplugs

Sounds like a plan.