Volume levels are making my shit sound like shit!

[mostapha]

when would you ever be mixing but not have access to your eq's?

Like I said…there's no reason to think you won't have access to EQs, especially if you're mixing on a computer.

if you're actually planning on sounding proficient, eqing is a must.

Bullsh!+. You know that whole "making space" thing? You can do that entirely with gain staging.

http://www.mixcloud.com/josephsimoneau/breaks-2007/

No EQs.
No effects.
No volume faders.

Just gain staging and pressing play at the right time. Just for the heck of it.

Yeah…a record from the 70s won't sound like one from today. Whatever. That's not the point.

And while that example is a bit extreme, I firmly believe that if you can't mix without EQs, you can't mix with them either…you just don't think about things the same way.

In the real world…I can't think of anything that would make me give up at least a basic EQ (meaning the hi-mid EQ from a xone + any reasonable low EQ)…and part of it has to do with making space in different ways…not making it possible to mix.

[wrong chris]

Bullsh!+. You know that whole "making space" thing? You can do that entirely with gain staging.

that's true to an extent, but for the most smooth/subtle effect possible eqing combined with gain staging is more often than not the best solution.

once in awhile you get tunes that don't sound right if you apply eqing to them for a transition, but it's pretty rare in comparison to how often a transition benefits from some eqing.

[DJ Nada]

If you can't mix without an EQ, you are a crappy DJ. Period, end of story.

An EQ trick/tweak can save a bad transition though, I'll admit to doing it occasionally.

[DJ Shifty Sheep]

Bollocks! Learn to EQ & make room as (not just on the lows) if a certain frequency is to overloaded you get distortion as the overall dynamics are effected (most common is a muddy low end), All good DJ's constantly keep adjusting the volume & frequencies (EQ), All EQ is, is adjusting the volume (gain) of a certain band of frequencies (hi, mid, low).

Learn it, master it, thats what its there for!

[josh@firestorm]

learning to EQ is a must... you'll always bump into the odd song that has similar frequencies as the track you are mixing into, and when similar frequencies layer each other you get some slight phase cancellation going on which will subtract from your sound ie there will be no definition in either your lows mids or highs (or all), your mix will sound muddy, you'll get a sound like you are running a phaser or flange effect.

to see what i mean load up 2 copies of the one song and play them on top of each other.

even the slightest bit of EQ adjustment and/or running the filter a tiny bit can help with this.

personally i only use the gain to give a bit more boost in volume if its a poorly mastered track, or im playing an old vinyl or vinyl ripped mp3 that hasn't been normalised.

[mostapha]

Bollocks! Learn to EQ & make room as (not just on the lows) if a certain frequency is to overloaded you get distortion as the overall dynamics are effected (most common is a muddy low end), All good DJ's constantly keep adjusting the volume & frequencies (EQ), All EQ is, is adjusting the volume (gain) of a certain band of frequencies (hi, mid, low).

Learn it, master it, thats what its there for!

I actually agree with you whole–heartedly. But it is my opinion that you don't learn how to do that properly until you've learned how to do it using just volume.

I didn't believe it either until on a forum a few years ago, someone responded to me making that exact argument by posting a deep, soulful house mix made on a 1620.

I realized he was right and started learning. I turned the EQs off on my mixer (it had a switch that took them out of the circuit) and learned to mix that way…later, I made that mix linked above without even using volume faders…mostly to see if I could do it.

I use EQs all the time now, and I'm fully aware of what they can do for a mix. My X1s are set up so that I won't heave to be without a xone EQ even on the Pioneers I've always played out on because I find that hi-mid just that useful. But, I learned a lot more about both how to mix and how to EQ transitions by not using them for a while, and I've talked to enough people to know that I'm not the only one.

[djproben]

Am I the only one who learned to mix first on the volume faders? I pretty much didn't touch eqs until I had been mixing a few years; I always felt mixing with eqs was more advanced and more difficult, not the other way around. The statement that you aren't really mixing if you don't know how to mix just on the volume doesn't even make sense to me; eqs are just volume knobs anyway, right? I'm not sure of any situation where you could know how to mix on EQs but wouldn't be able to do it just on volume faders -- you'd just be mixing with less control over the sound. That would make some mixes impossible -- if you have conflicting bassline rhythms and you can't turn down one, you probably should select different songs -- but it wouldn't change the skillset necessary to carry out the mix. Am I missing something here?

[sobi]

Ya the mixing is 80% there but in order for them to sound good I have to kill a few eq's putting the faders 50% etc... all in all more stuff to do just to get the volume right and not making it sound like a jet plane with diarrhea.

Get your mixing to 100% without touching anything. Learn to blend as if there is nothing but two decks and a cross fader, and when you've mastered that, you'll see that EQ trimming isn't ever needed, but only accents what you're already doing well. Also, keeping your levels out of the red is key.