Headphone mix : 50% (Cue vs Master) and both ears listening to headphones
Headphone mix : 100% (Cue) on 1 ear using headphones, other ear on live monitors/ speakers
I’m on IEMs right now, and i find method 1 to be more accurate to hear whether my track is going off beat.
How bout for bringing in the track? Do you go
Headphone mix 100% (Master) with both ears on headphones or
Not use headphones at all and just listen to the house speakers
I’m sure theres no proper way but just wanted to get some opinions. Feel i’ve been using iems and 50% headphone cue too much (1 and 3), and am personally too used to it.
50/50 for beatmatching (usually 70/30 in the non playing tracks favour), and use the monitors to bring the track in, whilst checking in headphones now and again to make sure mix is good.
100% mix when getting the levels right, when beatmatching, usually say 80% but that varies a lot,
my mixer has a crossfader to fade between channel 1/2 when cueing so i flick it a lot.
same thing playing out, but generally i find that telling that stuff is not on time when having both tracks in the monitors as opposed to headphones
All in the headphones, mix of 1 and 3, with the occasional lifting of an earpad to check whether to compensate for the PA’s EQ.
On my ex behringer mixer, the cue/master is the most worn out - it is the main knob I look for when facing an unknown mixer for the first time (or whatever buttons make up for it, think DJM 300 and the like. Yuck).
Cue/master preview for beatmatching and adjusting the eq before bringing it in. Once that’s started, I jump betwen cue/master and just the master - I need it to ride the pitch.
At home, I just can’t turn the speakers up too much, and the habits developed by defaulting to the headphones have served me well so far, because it turns out you can’t depend on a monitor a lot of the time.
At gigs, it may be too far or facing the wrong direction because the house limiter/main PA is so full of shit/turned down you can only use the monitor to push music to the room. Or maybe there just isn’t one and all you have is the room’s more or less messy/delayed/muffled sound to go by.
You can’t always have a usable monitor, but you should always have headphones. Of course if you end up on a mixer with a fucked up cue section, you’re screwed. But so is anyone.
I use sync, but on the rare occasion I need to beat match it’s 50/50. 100% mixing in headphones because that’s the only thing you have consistent control over.
Ive always found it difficult to figure out what I prefer, if I’m practicing manual beatmatching I often find myself going for the “one ear in, one ear out” method, and checking using the headphone cue if I’m really not sure. I admit I’d prefer to use the headphone cue but sometimes I find it just confuses me even more, which is a bit strange.
I always bring the mix in “live” i.e. on the speakers, so I know what it actually sounds like! Though I’ve found it can work both ways - something that sounds like crap over the speakers can sound fine in headphones, and something that sounds like a trainwreck in the headphones can actually sound alright or even quite good when it comes out of the speakers.
You should always use headphones to beatmatch/eq/get levels because as mentioned you can’t always trust the monitor and there will be a delay to the house speakers.
50/50 for betmatching but i find my ddi S1 very bad on 50/50 to EQ, seems like the Master track is much louder than the one down, never understood why anyway…
Master and Cue mix channels should be equal if the Master and Channel VU meters are level. If one is louder you can simply use a different ratio like 40/60.
It depends on the monitoring setup for me but most of the time and always at home, I’m 100% cue, setting levels, EQ and tempo with headphones on both ears and cueing between the track that’s playing and my upcoming track. After that’s set I go one ear with the incoming track cued in headphones, drop the track to make sure it’s in sync, remove headphone and mix using the monitors occasionally rechecking in headphones the incoming track or out going track depending on where I am in the mix. I tend to mix tracks for 2 to 4 minutes, sometimes more depending on music type and “mental state”.
Why you using headphones? you didn’t get the memo? all the cool kids are going natural lol jk…
I use 2 and 4 when playing live. I always have or request a really good monitor in the booth. With Traktor, Serato, CDJ you get a pretty good bpm reading you can set and just drop on a cue point in time or have music with correct intro’s and outro’s so you don’t really need headphones unless jumping genre’s or playing new tracks you don’t know to check for key and clashing rhythms.
at home i use no headphones or the equivalent to 100% mix
