hi guys
I’ve only looked at my post once since yesterday and completely bowled over at the responses.
Huge thanks for taking interest.
I think everyone’s got some interesting solutions here and I reckon that the gain on my controller and that with the pioneer mixer might not be optimised.
I do remember the guys plugging my leads into the ‘Cd line’ of one of the channels, not the phono’s.
I will buy a better set of leads to count all else out to.
What this all tells me is that I really more time setting up, including more time doing a proper sound check.
Nothing has disappointed me more than hearing the next dj after me with a better sound!
Thanks For the awesome response again
Nobody ruled out that that the clubs speakers could be old/worn/abused/blown?
Unlikely given that the CDJs sound ok.
I’d definitely agree with everyone about the gain staging. There’s a really good article somewhere on the web about setting up Traktor’s output levels correctly for your soundcard and then boosting on the external mixers gain, I’ve found far less of a problem balancing my setup with the CDJs since reading it.
Hoodless:
On my first gig at this club four months ago, the guys at the club clearly had a major issue with the speakers.
There was an almighty pop during my set. It was a complete nightmare. Guys with screw drivers and torches running around.
All said, I know that what I got last week was poor but the quality of the audio from the clubs own set up was better than mine by far. To the extent that the do who came on after me, came to booth during my set to see if the mixer was working properly.
The difference between the set ups was really perceivable.
For everyone’s benefit in this post thread, when I meant wooly, the mid’s sounded distant, lacking presence or stereo, the high ends were crashy. It’s was like playing the sound of glass bell through a bad car stereo. No matter what I did with the eq’s on either my own controller or the club’s mixer I couldn’t improve the sound.
And it sounds fine on the headphones? Did you try other mixer ins?
jack, yeah completely fine on the headphones…
Might be worth seeing what it sounds like off your computers internal soundcard.
Try turning traktor’s master WAY down. The songs are limited hard and probably already causing clipping…then, because NI doesn’t understand digital levels, they increase the gain for a lot of tracks if you have auto-gain on. So, you’re already clipping except that traktor’s internal representation has a crap ton of headroom.
Then, it smashes into a really crappy sounding limiter and probably still clips the DAC.
Turn off the limiter, use auto-gain, and turn traktor’s master down to like -10. If it’s master meter ever hits red, you’re WAY hotter than you need to be.
Try that first. And, you know, make sure there’s not an effect that you forgot about turned on or anything.
Surely, if your sound system is not the same magnitude as the club’s sound system your quality will be lower.
[quote]
I’m running Traktor + Audio 4DJ (routed into one of the pioneer mixer’s channels) + VCI100 + mixing with WAV files.
Some people have said that you need to invest in high end USB and audio cables. Can this be true or is there something I’ve missed? No matter what I do with the club’s pioneer mixer and it’s eq’s I get a wooly sound.
Such to the point that I might ditch my kit and focus on the CDJ set up.[/QUOTE]
What you need to do is invest in a larger sound system.
From what I read.. we don’t really know a lot about your setup nor do we know a bit about the club’s installation.
What mixer do they have, what CDJ’s do they have?
Please tell us about you Traktor settings and your digital setup.
For example:
OS (Windows/OSX)
Sample rate?
Buffer?
Auto gain on/off?
Limiter on/off?
Is your software master @ 100? (turn it down to 70% for some overhead. The DAC’s inside your A4DJ produce plenty output anyway)
Are you using shielded cables? Please do so, it can avoid a lot of trouble
What equipment does the club have?
What DJM?
Which CDJ’s?
Do you use their RCA cables?
Which input do you “get/take” on the DJM?
I’m the sound engineer at a venue where we rock an awesome Meyer PA (6x MSL4, 6x 700-HP) and work a lot with DJ’s who come with Traktor, Serato or who just plug a USB in the CDJ2000’s and party hard.
The sound difference between the three is still mostly based on the crappy DAC’s in the DJM800 that we have but the very subtle differences are there.
The most noticeable difference is that the analogue inputs on the DJM800 sound way warmer than the digital inputs. But that’s A) expected and B) due to 6 year old shitty DAC’s
But really, for the average Joe, there really isn’t any audible difference.
Please get back to me with the details I asked and we can help you with the problem 
if it sounds fine in the headphones then its most likely either an output problem from the A4 or a problem with that line in the mixer. The sound being described does sound like something is out of phase but how that would happen is beyond me unless all the club equipment is synced together and technically out of phase but in phase with each other. It also sounds like you have a filter on.
Please don’t jump to conclusions like that. Any competent DJ technician would try at least two or three inputs before blaming the guy’s equipment.