I’ve recently decided that i don’t have enough hands. So i just had this idea last night. Let’s call it auto-summing. Essentially the plan is to set up the controller so that when you bring a tracks volume to full, it slightly lowers the volume of the other tracks.
I was wondering what you all think about this???
Is it “cheating”?
I’m going to mess around setting it up a little later today. If you have any ideas to add, just speak up and i’ll see if i can implement them.
You might be able to set it so when one volume slider is at max, it auto repeats ‘dec’ volume on the other decks until you take the volume slider a little off max. Might require some finesse to use in a club, but it would probably work.
More hardcore: Moldover wrote custom software that does things like lower the Bass on the EQ of other tracks when a new one is added.
uhhhh…im not to sure about the cheating aspect
but there better be an on/off because personally i dont need to turn down the other track once the other is up
I think this might work. You’ll want a temporary shift button for this feature. You hold this button (making M1=1 as long as button is held), and raise the volume fader for Deck A (normal mapping, no M1). You also have a control set to the same fader, but Controller Type as Button rather than Fader/Knob, Interaction mode set to Dec, Resolution Min, Set to Deck B, Auto-Repeat, and most importantly M1=1.
Then the volume fader for Deck A works normally, but when you hold the button, moving the fader up (or down) lowers Deck B’s volume a little.
I think you could code this in Bomes with global modifiers.
But why not just use autogain and your ears? The thing is that the level of the volume fader isn’t going to be as universal as you want and something like this could easily decrease a track too much.
Because he would need two hands and two ears to do that…
With this Super Fader he would only need 1 hand, that’s the main scope, right Str8upDrew? use only one hand to do the volume faders changes?
Better then use one full hand to do your thing with a fader is to use a touch strip (SCS.3m) or a touch osc interface (for ipad or whatever) to use only one finger to do it…
I’m trying to understand this, do you mean auto-gain? Or are you talking about something that has to do when you are fading in a new song that decreases the other one automatically (ex. like a crossfader that removes the original track as soon as you begin to move it to the other side).
Yeah I think that’s what he means. In the analog mixer world it would be the same as a VCF(Voltage control fader), so you don’t get a jump in volume as you add another track. Makes for smoother mixing. I definitely don’t see it as cheating and would be quite interested in your results.
Yeah, the idea is really similar to Bento’s smart mixing. Just instead of adjusting the eq in the range, it’s going to adjust the accompanying tracks volume levels. I’ve been doing a lot of 4 deck mixing and it’s really easy to blast the walls off with all 4 decks cranked; but then when you drop down to a single deck, even if the part you drop to is banging, there is a significant difference in volume from when all 4 decks were on. So this is simply to stop me from cranking it up too much, and to stop me from having to constantly make gain adjustments.
I’m done with today’s errands, so now it’s time to get to work.
Right, but the issue he’s going to run into is that volume changes aren’t universal. Unless he has already equalized all tracks to be identical, this solution will not work 100% of the time.
Now, if he’s willing to take the time to code it based off of db output or something that MIGHT be an option but that would be a massive pain in the ass. The smart mixer would be a MUCH better solution for what he wants to do, and that can only be done in Ableton.
The other solution is to optimize your X-fader curve. Which does almost exactly what he’s talking about.
X-fader isn’t really useful for 4 decks.
I run all of my tracks through MP3Gain, so they are at least close when it comes to peak db’s, then its just some slight gain adjustments.
And really i would need like 4 hands for the volume faders, then atleast another hand for pretty much constant eq’ing.
I mean, you could code something like this in Bomes, but it won’t be perfect 100% of the time. Something like when Deck A reaches 80% all other volumes start going down. It wouldn’t be terribly easy and there would be a LOT of redundant commands. It would be a TON easier to implement Ableton and a smart mixer into your set up. Like, a LOT easier.
but even with an all Traktor solution you’re still going to run into gain issues. I think this is one of those downsides to 4 deck mixing on Traktor. It’s REALLY difficult to implement a solution like this in a manner that will work almost 100% of the time.
It is turning out to be a pain in the ass. But i’ve found about 500 ways that this won’t work, so i’ve got to be close to one that will.
I’ve been trying different ways in Reaktor and Bomes; and thinking about trying Max.
It’s not really a problem to setup the basic functions, the harder part is getting to calculate each channel into the mix as a whole, then adjusting each channel according to it’s percentage of the mix.
The other problem is the lack of visual feedback on my controller. So it really only be efficient on a controller with a led strip for each fader. Maybe something like the scs.3m, or a touch screen, but i prefer actual faders.
I’m thinkin’ you could do this with a single well tuned rms compressor on your master channel. It wouldn’t be actually moving your sliders around, but would essentially be programmed to keep the volume compressed under your limit when more tracks are added, and to bring it up when you have less. Assuming you’re keeping your individual channels in check before hitting the master, you shouldn’t need to apply that much compression (or expansion).
There’s no foolproof way to this problem unless you get a really smart algorithm (which I assume will be rather CPU intensive) working real hard calculating in realtime the volume differences. Even the smart ones seem to get confused when the transient intervals get real short.
All my 25,000+ mp3s have gone through a visual and brief quality check (previewed for few seconds) in Adobe Audition and that has lessened their volume differences but at the end of the day, the question is whether you want nice lively sound or a heavily compressed one?
I see a lot of DJs who run their mixers in the upper reds, both channels and masters and then complain about flat sound.
As if having Sync’s not good enough, now you want auto gain control?