i’m pretty sure the next piece of gear i’m going to buy is a presonus firebox (open to suggestions, though). right now, i’m just routing through my bcd 3000 and i’m assuming the firebox will improve my sound quality.
anyway, my question is: would i be able to plug PA speakers directly into the firebox? if so, how would it sound? would i be better off routing from the firebox to a separate PA mixer first?
i’m sure this is basic stuff for most of you, but i’m still learning as i go. next step is to start piecing together my own PA (house parties!). unfortunately, i’m broke as a joke, so i’m looking for ways to save money. my idea (as a beginning setup) is to get the firebox, then just plug a couple speakers into it (maybe something like this: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/msg/1548568168.html ).
Sound quality is decided by the least quality component of your routing. No mixer,amp, or anything will improve sound quality. There are devices that lower quality (basically all devices) so you want to stay away from many devices before the sound is pumped through your speakers. Hope this helps.
The firebox will definitely improve the sound over the bcd3000.
As someone said, if you get active speakers you just plug from the firebox to the PA.
A PA mixer usually is not required for DJs. Engineers use it to EQ the tracks for musicians and so. A graphic EQ instead could be very handy to compensate the room deficiencies, in bass mostly, if you know how to use it and have good ears.
Also a compressor could be cool in your PA rack. All serious PAs have one graphic EQ and a compressor too, at least.
If you buy any stuff remember what someone said: Your quality will be measured by the worst equipment you have.
Yeah so basically you’re looking for active (powered) speakers. I think that, the firebox and the right cables will get you quite far..
If you then want more control still, you could go for a mixing deck, effect boxes or eq boxes..
Anyone agree?
I don’t agree. A PA mixer is not necessary for a DJ setup.
Why would you want a mixer for a 2 track stereo setup?
It’s better to buy a graphic EQ to flatten the response of the acoustic environment. If the room has too much bass, or some nasty flutter on certain freq. you can tweak your EQ to minimize this effect. The EQ on a mixer is simply not enough precise to do that. I can’t imagine any other use for a PA mixer in a dj setup.
FX boxes (reverbs, delays, flangers, etc) are also not necessary. Traktor handles that anyway. Engineers use those for a live band. To add more space to a voice/guitar and so. But for a dj (and even more a digital dj) it doesn’t make sense imo.
More important is to have a good compressor to have a better sound, and also to protect your PA from nasty peaks.
yeah as people have said it is possible to go straight from the sound card to the speakers as long as they are active (i.e. have the amps built in). If they are passive then you would go from soundcard to amp to speakers.
There are other things you may want to do and other boxes you may want to add in the chain, the most obvious being eq and then compression/limiting. While you can eq each track individually within traktor, it is usually worthwhile running the main output through an overall eq so that you can tailor the system as a whole to the room your in as the acoustics of a room will change how your speakers sound.
This could either be done with a stand alone graphic eq for maximum control as you will be able to adjust each 1/3 octave, or by putting the output through a small mixer for maximum flexibility as, as well as parametric eqing, this will also allow you to add other devices into the speakers such as some MC mic’s or a backup CD player in case of a laptop crash.
then you may want to add a compressor/limiter which once set up properly will help control the sound as you get loud and stop you pushing your speakers too far and damaging them. Again this could just be a stand alone box in the chain or it could be an insert on the mixer if using one either just on the laptop audio or on the overall mixer output (covering the laptop audio and any other devices going to the speakers).