A few months ago, PARTYCHRIS and I went clubbing on night in Oxford. We found a dive called Park something, which had the usual sticky carpet etc... The DJ was playing the right tunes, and we thought for a minute that the sound would be OK as they had once invested in some nice JBL speaker system. Unfortunately the muppet behind the dex did not seem to understand levels as everything on his mixer was running in the red .


I hope that everyone here understands how to set levels correctly when they cue the next tune. If not, it really is dead easy, and ensures you are playing at a consistent volume, and you are not creating distortion further down the line which could damage equipment and hearing, and therefore ultimately your custom.

Take the average meter on a mixer:

When you are cueing up the next track you are about to play, forward to the loud part of the music, and set the gain so the song peaks around +3dB and the overall level doesn't rise beyond 0dB. If you go into the red, hello distortion!

Do this for every track you will play.

Easy!

What's cueing ?

Top advice and good to address the basics - there could be someone here that's unaware of this......................Andy??????



Vinnie

Its what you do on a friday night when the pubs shuts, in the local chippy

Jokin apart my pfl never goes above +3 wonderfull thing gain pots.

Master volume not often above half

Amp volume set at 2 oclock on each channel

The sound i get is rich and sweet in my opinion and quite a few other peoples aswell

Most of my gigs dont have more than 200 people,the mixer i use is a kam gmx-5-pro (ok its old but still works great) amp warrior is-1000 and a pair of hy-sys-2's

It may not be the best setup but it works for me

I feel we're going to hit the old 'amp not running at full' chestnut......

Brian I personally believe its best to set the gain (input volume) at 0db and 3db peak, run the amps on full and keep the master volume down. That's the best way to stop clipping and distortion.

Park End - a terrible place - we usually go about once a year in freshers week!!

I usually set my system so that no mattter how hard i drive the mixer the amp never clips....well when the top red light on the mixer flashes the ACL on the amp just kicks in. Then keep the mixer levels at the appropriate volume (usually pretty low!).

Hi

And if that seems a little too advanced for you, use your bloody ears, lol.

Seriously though, part of my take on it comes down to, if you find your coming home from the vast majority of gigs with your ears ringing, you've been far too loud.

Obviously sometimes the environment we're working in dictates that we're much closer to our speakers than we'd like to be, but on the whole, we should be coming home, and so should the customer and their guests, with their hearing pretty much fully intact.

Darren

Wow a dj playing all the right tunes and still gets called a muppet ! Nothing like putting down other djs is there

My output rarely passes -7db. Feed that staright to the active rig and I have more than enough sound.

Absolutely the right place to discuss it and of course you are right we do discuss topics to improve things and its a good illustration and a useful post. I just try not to make derogatory (sp ?) remarks about other djs as i aint that sure that i am that hot myself. Please continue the useful part of the thread and ignore my comment.

I always thought the red was a target

hello brothers and sisters i would like to ask on this topic a technical question?

i have a old but very faithful and reliable mcgregor 500w amp mcgregor, sd12 mixer, 1 pair of mcgregor 250w per side,and a pair of omnitronic 400w speakers.
i run my mcgregor speakors off the amp and link via speaker cables to my omnitronics if a big venue. i mostly peak around +3 to +5 occaisionally don't seem to think i get much distortion,but would you reccomend i get a bigger amp or do i look at another option if anyone can help and advise me i would be grateful as i don't completely understand the true workings of certain things.

thanks

Should sound pretty good usin what you have

Dont worry unless you want to fill the albert hall! its plenty

Maybe spend a little more time settin up to get a good balanced sound.

thanks steve for having alook and letting me know

cheers mate

Foggy

My rigs small i run a warrior is 1000 into a pair of hy sys2's and it sounds great .
So we use about the same

I can fill the local school hall with 250 plus people, kids n all and still shake the place and its big ie it seats the 350 kids that go there with ease.

You have plenty power just use it wisely.We may not be super powred but its enough when a lot us on dju started we only had 100 watts to play with.

Your stuff may be old but so is mine but it wont let you down dont upgrade to the high power cheap stuff it wont do what you can now!

Stevie

i've had my sd12 and sd500 amp for about 8 years and it's let me down once (when my roadie dropped it once when packing away and never told me,so next gig it wouldn't work at all) but still going strong.i get it serviced and checked about every 3-4 months at my mates shop

I run my amps wide open if neccessary. The system configured however so that the signal will be limited 0.5db before clipping of the amps. This way if anybody else is using my system they can't clip my amps and damage the system. They could still be sending a heavily compressed signal to the speakers however which wouldn't sound great. A swift clip round the ear would then be delivered and levels attenuated until they got the message!