advantages of external mixer over s4?

[Rukks]

I'm just glad nobody brought up the DJM-800 because the sound quality/coloring on that thing is the only mixer EVER to have me question what the hell was making songs that I've heard before sound like garbage.

And for the hearing/seeing argument....this occurred only once at a club with a brand new high end audio system and I heard it well before I looked in the booth.

[keeb]

As far as sound quality goes, once again a non-issue. Unless your a Vinyl DJ purist, sound quality shouldn't be an issue. Everything is digital now and unless you have really nice (And really expensive) speakers, your not going to be able to tell the difference anyways.

I'll agree that there's plenty of "audiophile voodoo" circulating the internet, even on these very boards. However, I vehemently disagree with applying that logic to this particular debate. No one's saying the S4 isn't a great piece of kit - just that internal mixing doesn't sound as good as external mixing. It may be an acceptable difference to your ears, especially given the difference in price, but there's still a difference nonetheless. I'm far from a "vinyl purist" - in fact, most of my files are 320kbps mp3s. I'm not saying you should do anything and everything to increase sound quality; I could switch over to wav's for instance, but I'm unwilling to sacrifice the additional money, hard drive space (my primary is a 256gb SSD and I like to avoid externals when possible), and availability (wavs are too often difficult or impossible to find for particular tracks) for what I see as an absolutely marginal difference in sound quality, especially after being put through a club system. I've blind tested the difference between MP3 and Wav and while I could tell a difference, it was not worth the price of admission.

What I'm telling you is that external mixing is in a different ballpark. I don't think you could just get some generic entry level mixer and do better SQ-wise than Traktor, but I can tell you with certainty that the difference between my DJM900 and my S4 is easily ten times the difference between 320kbps mp3 and WAV. It's much closer to the difference between say, a 320kbps MP3 and a 192 or even a 128 (though that might be a bit extreme). The 192 gets the job done, but there's something distinctly lacking to a trained ear compared to the 320. It's still the same song, but it just feels a bit lifeless in comparison. That's the best I can do for a comparison for you short of inviting you to my house to do an A/B test directly in front of you. Trust me, there is a difference; your wallet just wants you to convince yourself otherwise.

As for the 800... yeah... They're not known for being amazing mixers SQ-wise, and that's exacerbated by most of their users pushing the meters past peaking.

Quite simply, if internal mixing was up to snuff you would see a lot more professional DJs using it. Sure there's the "they're not used to it" argument; but from my eyes and a practicality standpoint, I'd far rather bring an S4 to a club and know that it's in good condition compared to using whatever they have installed and hoping for the best. The problem is, I'd rather mix on a DJM 800 even than an S4. And that's without even going into post-fader effects, something that Traktor needs desperately.

[fullenglishpint]

This blog article from a while back might answer some people's questions.

http://www.djtechtools.com/2009/12/0...ich-is-better/

[keeb]

This blog article from a while back might answer some people's questions.

http://www.djtechtools.com/2009/12/0...ich-is-better/

First of all, talking about how sound quality in terms of how well the different mixing media handle clipping is a bit silly and misleading; if one's concerned about sound quality one should not be clipping one's outputs anyway. What difference does clipping-handling make if you're not clipping?

The biggest issue I find with that article is, "too much theory, not enough practice." I mean, it should be fairly simple to approach this question scientifically, right? Plug an Audio 8 into say a Xone:92 and mix externally, then plug it directly into the next stage in the sound chain and mix internally. Then take measurements of specific sound output under varying conditions and do double-blind tests of the sound output. This way you don't have any issues with extra A/D conversions and you can approach the issue in a more practical manner. Also the conclusion, "It’s safe to say that there is no real audio quality benefit to mixing with analog mixers instead of in the computer," was not really supported by the article. The article blamed poor quality DACs and cited the advantages of in-the-box mixing as far as clipping was concerned. It actually didn't address sound quality much at all; only with the NI and Serato blurbs was sound quality directly addressed, and those I wouldn't trust much considering the sources (i.e. employees who'd better be supportive of their internal mixers). And the Serato section talking about how some DJs want a, "crunchier sound," thereby implying that some people actually enjoy hitting the in-the-box limiter was baffling.

Just to highlight since it's a fairly long article:

STRAIGHT TALK
...
“Experience has indicated that analog summing is superior in creating separation and a better stereo image,” says Paul W. Hughes, a national manager at the SAE Institute chain of multimedia schools. “Tracks that have ‘a lot going on’ tend to lose definition when summing digitally in the box,” he continues. “Fundamentally, your [software] uses math and algorithms to blend the signals. That’s not how your ears process sound, so the more it has to sum, the more the sound will ‘feel’ as though it’s tanking out, losing punch, drive and energy. Pushing it louder will only result in distortion.”


This is what I'm talking about. Lack of clarity and attempts to fix the problem will only result in distortion. Simply put, bass from the S4 lacks a bit of detail, warmth, and punch; turning up the bass will only make your clipping problems in Traktor worse. This sound quality problem occurs even when you're not clipping, so the metering/autogain argument is a bit dubious.

Finally, for the article, consider the source. DJTT is great and all, but they're a company selling midi controllers at the end of the day; if there's going to be bias in the blog, it's going to be against external mixing. Considering the questionable conclusion at the end of that article, I don't think I'm very off-base here. And I know that article came out before the widespread commercialization of DJTT. However, DJTT at the time were still in strong support of the VCI-100, including the Ean Golden edition. Why would they put an article out that would bash on the very products they support? Internal mixers are great - (quality) real mixers are better. That's all there is to it to me.