Hey, does anyone know how to my increase the volume of a traktor mix? I have just recorded for the first time and it came out clear but the volume is pretty low. Still very audible but you need to turn up your playback system e.g. car stereo etc. to the max and even then its still not quite loud enough.
I have the gain on the traktor mix section up to full so not sure what else can be done. The recorded mix would be considerably lower than playing a normal non-recorded track etc.
Is the traktor recording known very being quite low or is there perhaps something I can do to increase the volume?
No, all of NI’s stuff defaults to playing and recording too loud for my taste…it’s way too easy to distort. So, congrats on not doing that.
The answer to the question is to download Audacity, load the recording, and “normalize” it, preferably with a little (1dB should be enough) headroom left.
I use it so that when the DJ mix is as loud as it’s going to get, traktor’s record meter is peaking a little past half way. Then, you just normalize it in audacity or whatever.
If I recorded with audacity (which I’ve also done), you still have to normalize it, since recording louder makes it easier to clip…which is bad.
I agree with the others recording on Traktor is fine, not to tell you to do it again but check the gain on your mixer then on Traktor. Those are the only 2 places I can think of to check recording levels on good luck and let us know what the problem was.
Thanks guys. I downloaded audacity, first I amplified it, then I normalized it and it seems to have done the trick. Still not quite sure why Traktor is that little bit too low, but audacity is a handy solution. Thanks a million.
are you using a A6? does your dj mixer have a booth output? if it does run your RCA’s from it into the recording input on your traktor interface. that should give you more volume. if your mixer only has a record output play your music with the gains turned up. I am actually really impressed with record option on my interface. if you can see that the levels in traktor for your recording channel are up near the top the recording will be loud enough and sound good.
Id guess this is a problem with your overall understanding of gain structure. You might want to spend time with these links to get your gains and volumes sorted out. Your signal isnt anywhere near hot enough before it hits the recorder, regardless of what the recording gain is set to.
The recording signal does not need to be near the top of that meter. Not even close. Peaking about halfway up to 2/3 of the way up is plenty. It also tends to work better if you leave your audio interface at 24-bits so the noise floor of your tracks is the noisest noise that you’ll get when you finally normalize and render a 16/44.1 file.
All recording louder does is risk clipping. If those little red lights on the right end ever light up, the whole recording is ruined. There’s no way to fix it.
If you’re recording and that meter doesn’t turn on at all, then it depends on which output you’re using to record and whether the A8 has an input gain adjustment. This is one part where DJ gear gets weird, since none of the meters actually mean the same thing as each other.
But it’s probably not the right solution to run your channel gains louder. It’s definitely not if you’re like the vast majority of DJs and flirt with the red lights all the time…which is actually really easy to do since we (as a community) are in a huge feedback loop of meters kind of not meaning anything because DJs don’t pay attention to them anyway…so mixer manufacturers change what they mean to try and trick DJs into leaving headroom…so DJs play even louder…so mixers lie more…so DJs run meters hotter…etc..
So…what were your meters doing when you were recording?
Yep, keep this to around 2/3 - 3/4 level and you should be fine. Also i would suggest turning off the limiter as this will also encourage you to keep the levels down. As i mentioned earlier, it is a lot less hassle to boost up the mix later (about a 30 second process in audition) than having to re-record your mix because it has been overdriven like crazy.
I actually recorded a mix yesterday where it never hit 50% on that meter, and it was still peaking at about -12dBFS. With a 24bit audio interface, that’s more than fine. A couple minutes in audacity to strip silence and normalize, and it sounds like it should.
I have the traktor master gain at around 2/3. I have the record gain at full. Master Gain meter doesn’t pass half way mark. Record meter only goes about 1/3 up, despite being turned up full.
Audacity helps when I amplify it but still not enough. I would still need to have my volume on full on whatever I was listening to the mix on. I really need to manually adjust the amplify settings past the recommended in audacity, in which case it obviously starts to distort.
So its hard to know whats the best way around it. Thanks again.