Sensations on a midi controller ? Internal mixer and sound ?

Not sure what you are saying. I have had several (serious) controllers and the mixing on a controller (with built-in soundcard and not using a seperate analogue mixer) to me is equal in “sensation” to having an analogue mixer with two cdjs.

Not sure what your exact setup now is, but it does sound cumbersome if you mix on the mixer and control the decks on the controller.

Even so, many people use a modular setup where the controller is indeed only for controlling decks and where they use a regular analogue or usb/midi mixer for the mixing.

I agree this was often the case with older controllers Todd, like the Twitch etc.
However the latest generation of controllers (MC 6000 MK II, SX2, TM8,…) I can no longer say that I see any less headroom from the output given. In some cases you even have to tune it down deliberately as it is getting into the red quickly. Fader length is on par with analogue stuff now too, so you have the same travel and adjustability and in some cases even better sensitivity on the channel faders than with analogue gear.

A mixer should NOT add anything to the sound quality! Period. It’s supposed to be sound neutral (all EQs at 12 o’clock). If your mixer is coloring your sound, it’s not a good mixer imho.

You can and should hear a difference in sound between vinyl and digital tracks.

Most of the mid-range controllers are (at least partially) stand-alone mixers too. At the very least they will have an aux input that you can hook up to an iPhone/iPod/iPad/MP3player or whatever. In the unlikely, but indeed possible, event of a laptop failure, hit play on the device, set the volume and start fixing your laptop (99% of the time a reboot will help).

If you have one small mixer that goes belly-up (and I have had that happen too), you are still out of sound in your setup.

Not easy to put together the right setup.

Honestly, every more gain control in the queue which is more than you need to stay away from clipping, just adds one more layer that can go wrong.

Also the headroom until the stage mixer clips is not really getting any higher… you just now have to take care of 2 gain stages to stay away from clipping it out.

lol – any layer where something can go wrong is also a layer where you have the power to make something go right. 😀

Or maybe I’m just totally neurotic. That is a distinct possibility too. haha

I totally agree with Vintage. I have to say I am 100% that today I sound better than 20 years ago, 10 years ago or 5 years ago.

Again, if it works for you, that is the only thing that is important. I am a certified studio/live sound engineer as well and I have long ago given up on worrying about the sound at gigs. Usually the PA is what it is anyway and fiddling with it is not appreciated. I bought a good PA with a sound that I like when playing my tracks through my gear so I can be sure that I bring a good sound to the rooms I play in (obviously accepting whatever deterioration comes from the room itself).

What I DO take care of, is getting the best sounding source tracks and doing all pre-DJ preparations and such on the WAV file. Only when I am totally done with it will I do a one-time conversion to highest level, full stereo, fixed bitrate MP3 or AAC.

I do use things like expansion and such to bring back some of the dynamic range. I even use Platinum Notes to bring back some warmth in modern tracks. But this is to compensate for poor mastering not for poor quality playback gear.

That leads to another thing that has to have a place in these considerations, which is the loudness war. When you compress stuff to have something like 2 dB dynamic range left, there is no way in the world (regardless of gear used) that you can make it sound ‘warm and sweet”. This unfortunately also defeats the presence of “lots of headroom”. With 2 dB dynamic range, 3 dB headroom is already enough. To make maximum use of high headroom systems, you need music with lots of dynamic range. Rare these days in dance music.

As a sound engineer, something sounding sweet and warm is proof of coloration by something (either in the recording, mixing and mastering process or in the sound chain when being played back). I have seen too much proof of fully digital projects, being played back on modern digital gear with class-D amps that sound absolutely and totally awesome to know that the gear is not at fault. Clearly “warmth” is an often-discussed and hardly ever agreed-upon issue in circles of music lovers, engineers, DJs and audiophiles 😀 .

I know people that feel vinyl has a warmth that CDs lack and while that may be true to the subjective mind/ear, simple truth is that CD will sound closer to the real thing than a record, because the vinyl registration and playback method suffers from some technical imperfections. If you listened to vinyl your whole life, the psycho-acoustics and your experience will have set a “baseline” of how music should sound. If you then switch to CD you may think that it sounds cold and everything, while in reality it sound way closer to what was recorded. BTW, I’ll concede that it took the industry some time to get mixing/mastering done in such a way that recordings on CD sound as good as they can nowadays. Some of the earlier CDs where mixed with vinyl rules and best practices in mind and sounded “off”. Engineers had to re-learn and adapt to the new medium.

This situation repeated itself (in lesser form though) when moving from AAD through ADD tp DDD recording technology.

It’s not a discussion I want to win, just stating my look at these things. And I encourage every one of our readers to pursue what works best for them. Because at the end of the day YOU have to be happy with what comes out of your speakers. And if for you that means using analogue gear, by all means use it.

Nothing beats the feeling of self-confidence that being happy with your gear and sound gives. We have enough to worry about making a party rock not to have that “I don’t sound good” ghost hanging around our shoulders 😛 .