The Art Of Knob Twisting?

[dj max bradley]

Technically, it is distortion and noise. But just low level pleasing lovely smeary distortion and noise.

huh? do you mean you like your mixer to fizz a bit?

[ImNoDJ]

huh? do you mean you like your mixer to fizz a bit?

As usual mate, you have no idea what you are talking about.

Read and learn for a change.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb1...oguewarmth.htm

[mostapha]

For what it's worth, I never bought it before. I mean, I did with high end mastering compressors and guitar amps....but not dj mixers. If that's what it is, xones don't do it right.

[ImNoDJ]

For what it's worth, I never bought it before. I mean, I did with high end mastering compressors and guitar amps....but not dj mixers. If that's what it is, xones don't do it right.

Its irrelevant if you buy it or not.

Harmonic distortion is a scientific concept and a measureable thing. Analogue summing mixers have it.

[dj max bradley]

Its irrelevant if you buy it or not.

Harmonic distortion is a scientific concept and a measureable thing. Analogue summing mixers have it.

I just took a shot in the dark. what are you guys talking about?

[mostapha]

Its irrelevant if you buy it or not.

Harmonic distortion is a scientific concept and a measureable thing. Analogue summing mixers have it.

Correction. I never bought that it was better, not that it existed.

[ImNoDJ]

Correction. I never bought that it was better, not that it existed.

Well thats a completely different and subjective argument.

Its a fact that humans find white noise pleasing in certain circumstances. Which contains a bunch of harmonic distortion.

Im not pretending to say one is better, I just know what I like the sound of.

[mostapha]

Yeah...that's the weird thing. I've ABX'd ITB summing vs. a half million dollar console, could tell the difference reliably, and preferred the clinical digital sound.

Then again, there are people who complain about the rane sounding too clinical compared to Urei or Bozak, so maybe I just made the right choice.

Right now, I choose to believe it's new toy placebo and don't really care one way or another because the recordings have come out good.

[ImNoDJ]

Yeah...that's the weird thing. I've ABX'd ITB summing vs. a half million dollar console, could tell the difference reliably, and preferred the clinical digital sound.

Then again, there are people who complain about the rane sounding too clinical compared to Urei or Bozak, so maybe I just made the right choice.

Right now, I choose to believe it's new toy placebo and don't really care one way or another because the recordings have come out good.

for sure. Theres not really anything to be gained by the analogue/digital conversation outside of preference these days.

And this highlights something hilarious about current DJ culture. The kids dont understand that there were very good reasons to run an Analogue mixer and PA into the red. You get saturation, distortion and smearing and it sounds great.

With digital there isnt one good reason to run into the red, but these idiots do it anyway and say it sounds better.

[mostapha]

No, running an analog mixer too hot was kind of always a bad idea. Some of them, you could kinda get away with it. I'm not convinced that ever made it sound better. But it does depend on the mixer a bit. Still....the right signal is still better. It's not like I'm running my rane near the red....it just looks like I do in pictures because I have my external meter's sensitivity all the way up. And I only have it set like that because it's too much of a pain to actually balance the left and right sides the way I want.....plus it's ballistics aren't what I'm used to, and I'm pretty sure it's actually sampling really slowly for the music I play anyway, so it only reads peaks correctly about once a measure. It's just a light show.

A neve or API or SSL console run too hot still sounds bad, and no DJ mixer has ever been made with that precision or care.

The real reason to run some DJ mixers into the red is that the makers know DJs are going to do it anyway and the meters often don't mean what they say.

0dBFS is 0dBFS....unless the mixer says -10 is "Peak!" and -25ish is 0 because they know how DJs work....which is one more reason to use the digital IO on digital mixers if you're going into an amp or DSP or FOH Desk that can communicate that way. Peaking at -10 or -20 doesn't matter at all when the noise floor is inaudible.

Back when I had a Xone, it sounded better when the meters read hot....because they too were flat out lying.

It's sad that the last generation's bad habits mean we have to deal with meters that don't mean anything.

There are some places that I think what you're talking about is appropriate. Guitar amps come to mind. I will never buy another solid state guitar amp, let alone a digital one. Tubes all the way. I don't have the room or microphones to do a real amp justice, so at home, my guitar goes into a single analog gain stage with the right input impedance and then straight to the computer, where things happen that wouldn't be viable for an amateur....so, a model of an amp that I can't afford in a room I can't afford, then through an emulated mic pre that I can't afford and into a model of a compressor that costs more than my computer.

I've heard guitars like that IRL...strat to dumble to mics running through vintage api pres into a 33609 and a distressor and mixed on the only SSL 4000g in Georgia and played on a $150,000 set of main monitors custom made for the room they're in.

The ITB stuff is 99% of the way there and doesn't cost $5/minute.

But I'll admit that rane's analog distortion, to me, at least when recorded and played back on good speakers, sounds better than pioneer's digital mixing or Traktor's internal mixer.