Yeah, that’s how you run them. I run my 2016 like that with the channel gains pegged to 10/10 and just send a quiet signal out of traktor. There’s already enough dynamic range in digital audio that this doesn’t lose anything…and if you do it at traktor’s channel gains (which are still active on external mixing and with the mixer hidden from view) it actually makes traktor’s effects sound better. My stuff is set up so all of traktor’s channel gains are at -16, traktor’s output is at 0, rane’s input gains are 10/10, and the songs I play usually wind up at 7-9/10 depending on how loud each song is. Rane’s master & booth outputs vary based on how loud I’m playing, but I’ve never needed to turn either control up to where it’s boosting (unity is at 8/10 like on the channel gains; same pot, just a noisier circuit). And, really, I only do that if I need to boost/cut an entire mix (e.g., 3 songs playing, need the whole thing quieter but want the same relative levels) or as a shortcut to crawling behind my monitors to adjust their gain controls.
The 2015 is digital and using 32-bit float internal math. This means that it will not have any meaningful dynamic range limitations. 16-bit digtial audio (after dithering) already represents enough dynamic range that turning your speakers up enough to hear the digital noise floor over the speaker’s noise floor would make 0dBFS peaks cause instant hearing damage, at least. 24-bit audio played the same way will cause physical injury or death.
So, as long as they chose a good final output DAC, the mixer won’t have any dynamic range considerations unless you’re specifically trying to screw it up (or if you actually turn everything up enough to distort, at which point someone should take the mixer away from you and never let you DJ again).
It has gains so that you can hit the EQs & Filters with the right level for them to sound as the designers intended. That’s at least functional (on the 2016, they’re literally useless if you’re using modern sources and equipment that’s not broken).
My question is how that will interact with the sensitivity of the channel levels. Rane has said before that they want people to mix all the way to 10/10 like the 2016 was a line fader mixer, which I think is stupid.
Fortunately, again, the 2015 will have functionally limitless dynamic range. So you’ll be able to use the channel levels however you want, assuming the curve is good enough, which is probably is. The EQs and Filters need a signal at about the level they were designed for. The mix bus won’t care if all your tracks are at -5 or -100 until it gets to the pre-DAC output gain control, which is probably what the master/booth pots are (they might be post-DAC, at which point that changes…a little).
I think that for a mixer that’s obviously designed to attack both A&H & Pioneer, it’s a good choice to make it this way. The sixty-eight obviously didn’t win. It’s kind of an “also ran” more than a real contender. This…seems like it could be a real contender. And if you wanted to, you could run it like a pioneer (mixing to 10/10) or like an oldschool rotary (mixing to 8/10) with no real difference in sound quality.
I don’t like that it has channel EQs and filters; I kind of prefer not having them. But…they’re there. And most of the DJ world disagrees with me, so it’s the right way to go.
It’ll be a while until I get around to buying one. And I’m probably never going to get rid of my 2016s. But I really can’t find a fault unless Rane made a really dumb mistake (like a bad curve on the channel levels).
Looks cool though, wood!