Should you push volume through the mixer or speaker?
Hi all I’m running a traktor kontrol s4 with one Yamaha MSR250 Active Speaker (250W 10". I’m wondering if I should be pushing volume through my mixer (1): ie. have my speaker level set to something like 3/10 and then have channel meters up/use gains from there to push volume. OR push the volume through my speaker (2): ie. set my speaker level to something higher like 5/10 have my channel volume faders below the halfway mark and mix from there. Currently I use method (2) but my MSR has a limiter light on the back that keeps lighting up from hard bass kicks and I’m wondering if i’m messing it up!
Whether you turn it up on mixer or speaker, it will not affect whether your speaker clips or not. The gain knob on speakers/amplifiers usually just attenuates the input signal. Clipping happens after all the gain knob stages when the signal is too strong.
Put channel faders and S4 master to max, and turn the Master down a few dB below clipping on the speaker to give some headroom.
The channel faders are not used to set the system volume. The channel faders are used to adjust the specific volume of the individual tracks.
Using the method I described above, the speakers can be a little “too loud.” The master is set to allow the maximum signal pass without clipping the mixer.
Setting the channel BELOW their maximum allows for minor adjustments in the overall system volume using a control that you will be touching anyway. For a “loud” song, I have the channel fader on about “7” (in the case of my mixer, this is about -3dB)…and that makes the SPL in the room “loud enough, but not too loud.”
For quiet songs, I can turn the channel level up to “10” (on my mixer this is about +6dB). This gives me about 9-10dB of “fudge” without touching the channel gain. That much headroom is enough for (almost) all the songs I will play in a typical set. This, combined with the “auto gain” setting in Traktor allows me reasonable control of the overall sound levels without a lot of thought.
This is true. The input gain on an amplifier is a “sensitivity” control, and not a “power” control. The only sure protection against clipping is a hard limiter. However, setting the gain structure of your PA system properly will get “everything” in the signal chain to “clip” all at the same time.
I never understood why people did this (Have their volume fader below the max). Surely that’s what the gain knobs are for?? Set the max volume using the gains, and then you have the full length of the fader to control the volume. Personal preference I guess, as long as you know the volume coming out is acceptable for you then that’s fine, but I’d hate to have to make sure my volume fader was on 7 instead of 8 or 6. In the heat of the moment, I want to push it to the top and know that the volume coming out is the max volume. If it’s slightly too low, increase the gain slightly.
I like to pull the volume out and back in. Could never get the same spot each time unless I held one finger there as a indicator.
Too much effort for when you ‘in the mix’.
I have never gotten into the habit of adjusting the gain on every new track. On one of my first mixers, the gain knob was switchable to a filter…and I did that. I found that the filter was worth more to me than the gain.
But, fair enough. If you are going to use the gain then follow these steps:
Play your quietest song you might actually play through the system.
Turn the channel all the way up.
Turn the gain up until just before the channel clips (it may go all the way up without clipping).
Turn the master up until the mixer just barely clips.
Turn the amp up until the system is “too loud.”
Back the gain off until the system is “about right.”
That will give you the maximum signal/noise through the signal path, and should allow every other song that is “louder” to just dial down the gain.
I tend not to “slam” the faders when mixing…so hitting a “middle” point is not an issue…listening and using the meters to confirm the overall mix works for me. I am not aiming for a particular setting on the fader, I am aiming for an amount of sound in the room.
In the rare cases where I want and aggressive in/out of the channel…I use the crossfader with an aggressive roll off curve selected.
set up your ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM levels during your soundcheck, i can attest to this after we blew 2 speakers and an amp at one of our first gigs … needless to say we didn’t get paid for that one … speaking for myself it is best to set up your mixer for maximum crankage (drunk dj= inevitable redlining!) and make your adjustments through the mixing desk and PA, our sound guy even slapped some tape over the master gain fader to stop us idiots pushing it too much .. we hardly push our wharfedales above 30-40% power.
Variations in gain staging do not change how much “work” the amplifier does (assuming final output volume is the same).
The amplifier always amplifies by a constant ratio, and the output level is merely determined by how strong the input is. There is no “power” control on an amplifier.
The ONLY reliable way to protect speakers from overpowering is to have a hard limiter in the signal chain, typically just before the amp. ALL other methods for controlling the maximum signal sent to the cabinets are not reliable. If you own the PA, you would be a fool to let anyone else play through it without a hard limiter.
I have one hard limiter in every PA system I own. I have two hard limiters in rental systems…just in case they find one of them and decide to turn it up to “11.”
.. we hardly push our wharfedales above 30-40% power.