Yes.I typically use decks, cdjs, and my laptop, when out live, An old 33 album can be up to 18db quieter than a brand new MP3. As volume is a logarithmic scale thats a huge difference in volumes. The best advice is to fix it when you Record by looking closely and i mean like the prodigy say “pay close attention” close to those lovely L.E.D level meters. Make sure everything is on the same green light, not one higher, or one lower, the exact same light. And it helps if the track your bringing IN is turned down a bit each time. Its easy to push a track up during a mix but its impossible to fix a new track that comes in way too loud. Most DJ software comes with a built in limiter check yours is on, it will help flatten the tracks a bit and again make sure each tracks level meter is Exactly the same.The good thing with software DJing is you can see the waveform and see how loud it is before you even play a track. Once you have your recording you can stick it in an audio editor. There are competent free ones for all platforms, then you can compress and limit it, and, as long as your only doing about 2db of gain reduction on the compressor and 2db of reduction on your limiter you wont have any artifacts to mess up the recorded music. Attack should be 20ms (punchy drums) and decay about 150ms(quick enough to catch the next beat) for dance music mixes, better still use autorelease if the comp/limter has that as an option. A ratio of 1:4 should hold everything nice with ought showing its self. However Ozone do amazing mastering plug ins that are well easy to use, you can literally click on genre specific settings, and though they might not be perfectly set up for that music, its going to be pretty close, just “dont cook the gain reduction” (thats your mantra when squashing audio) and it will be fine. If you’re not sure just go on youtube and type “mastering a dj mix” i bet there are loads of skilled people showing how to do this step by step. I was part of the crew that put the Dope on plastic 8 mix CD together, I was back to back with the other Dj’s on 1210s and playing Su10 samplers through a effects unit, that was a live performance with some tracks off 45’s and some off 33’s and a few acetate dub plates so there were some slight discrepancies in the volumes from the very nature of the set up. The label React sent it to Heathmans to be mastered. Thats industry standard for all commercial Mixes for the last 15 years. You wont buy a mix tape that hasnt been polished. Today there are really good instant mastering services online that dont cost much, again just do a search. Hope this all helps, keep practicing and keep learning and having fun.Just wot the doctor ordered.
