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Loudness problem (again)

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  • October 15, 2012 at 3:20 pm #1013654
    Hee Won Jung
    Participant

    Take limiter and autogain OFF!!!

    Set headroom to 0db

    Adjust Master to -10dB then turn the volume on the K2 all the way up if there is one…and then play with your gain on the Mixer.

    If the above doesnt work then just use your Audio2DJ for routing and use the K2 for everything else.

    October 15, 2012 at 3:53 pm #1013656
    Rob Francis
    Member

    Ok don’t shout! 😉

    K2 doesn’t have volume controls, not even through any kind of software interface – but I will have another look tonight.

    Autogain is essential because the meters in Traktor are crap! The channel fader covers up the “LEDs” (not real LEDs, I mean the little blue flashy lights underneath the channel fader on the Traktor interface).

    I don’t see how you can accurately set levels in Traktor without Autogain. For instance if the channel fader is all the way up, I can’t see the top two or three “LEDs” so how do I know if the levels are right?

    Limiter – fair play I will turn off. To be fair it made not difference when I toggled the Limiter anyway so I don’t think I was hitting the threshold.

    October 15, 2012 at 5:20 pm #1013663
    Rob Francis
    Member

    Interesting that NI give the exact opposite advice: http://www.native-instruments.com/knowledge/questions/913/Internal+Mixing+and+Sound+Quality+-+Handling+of+Digital+Levels+in+TRAKTOR

    October 15, 2012 at 7:09 pm #1013670
    Hee Won Jung
    Participant

    What they want is when you are going straight from the Controller to the Speakers…when you have to deal with another mixer (dj mixer djm800 etc.) you will need to mix into someone elses set.

    Yeah they do…because they are wanting the software to do what you should be able to do yourself.

    Autogain is not perfect…and you will get fluctuating levels from each song to song….how do you set your volume levels?
    Use your heaphones…yes the volume meter isnt the greatest…but use your headphones…they do more than just line up the beats.

    The one thing that NI doesnt tell you is: Limiter, Autogain, Keylock all compress your sound and do not get a true reproduction of the song you bought.

    October 15, 2012 at 10:23 pm #1013686
    softcore
    Member

    Set any digital gain stage to 0 – that includes Traktor’s Master out. Leave traktor’s limiter on if you want but definitely switch auto-gain off. Now whatever you plug into, you SHOULD have decent loudness – if not, check to see if there is some sort of volume lowered in your system settings (audio output settings).

    October 16, 2012 at 8:50 am #1013718
    Rob Francis
    Member

    I’m not comfortable with setting gain manually in Traktor as its impossible to get it right. When I used CDJs it was fine as most mixers have decent level meters.

    Traktor could do with moving the meters away from the fader, its such a stupid design. For instance, there is no red or orange light to tell you when you are clipping. When a bass drum “kicks in” you can’t see if it just reaches 0 or if its actuall going way past 0 and causing clipping. Sure I could listen to it, but clubs are too loud to accurately do this.

    I could do with a plugin (like in Ableton Live) with a decent volume meter.

    October 16, 2012 at 2:37 pm #1013753
    Hee Won Jung
    Participant

    It is possible to get it right because thats what i do everytime i have a show…Between the monitors, and my headphones i dont even need a VU meter…Using an S4 the meters suck balls…they are not even close to being accurate…so i rely on my trusty headphones to match loudness between tracks and I have never had a problem with songs coming in too quite or coming in too loud.

    I cannot stress enough how important it is to disable autogain and limiter…If its just you playing for 2 hours or the entire night then it wont matter…but it was a rude awakening when i was doing a tag battle with a good friend of mine and everytime he brought in a track it just sounded better than off my S4…It was driving me nuts…and so i did some testing…The Limiter when you go clip will flatten the sound to not cause distortion…often the BASS is what will cause clipping and so Traktors auto limiter will bring it down…causing a flat sound.

    By disabling the autogain and the limiter the sound reproduction is identical to on CDJs.

    Sure you could listen to it IS EXACTLY what you should do…

    October 16, 2012 at 3:01 pm #1013768
    Rob Francis
    Member

    Thanks for your reply Hee Won Jung. I’ve been reading around a lot recently about this topic. Many agree with what you are saying about turning off Auto Gain so I think I will do this. In my experience Auto Gain has done ok 90% of the time, a few other times it has made tracks too loud or too quiet.

    I’m going to keep the Limiter on – just as a fail safe. I’ll keep the Master Gain low enough that the Limiter won’t kick in. Headroom is now at 0db too. This means the onus is on me to get the levels right (as I should do anyway) but gives me the Limiter just in case some FX or something else causes a volume spike.

    I still dislike the VU meters in Traktor though – I think I will set the levels so that the top LED is never illuminated. That will be my equivalent of the red LED you would get on a real mixer.

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