Was playing at a party on the weekend, not a booking but some mates just had decks at their joint. Anyway, one of their other mates started playing (and was pretty shit but was just starting out I think) and he had all of the freq gains like just a shade past 12 o’clock.. Like literally just out of the center lock
I couldn’t understand it, and considering he’s a noob, can’t imagine where he’s picked it up.. If you want it a bit louder over all frequencies why not just pump the trim?
Does anyone do this and have an explanation? Really just out of interest as I see no real advantage..
Probably he use his left ear for his headphone, so his head must bend a little bit on the left side, so this way all pot likes to be in 12o’clock position !
if you werent meant to take the eq’s over 12 o’clock. then they’d stop there right
some tracks do need a bit more “oomph” maybe in the midrange or bass but not usually in the highs.
if you know what you are doing it can work nicely .. esp for example if you shock horror were playing a low quality mp3 you may want to beef up the mids a little bit as most lo q mp3’s will sound a bit “thin” but in your buddies case .. well ..
Many times I leave all the EQ knobs for a channel turned down a tad on the track coming in, so I can do fader cuts and not worry about the incoming tracking being too loud…
And I will generally use all three EQ knobs as a collective gain knob at times, because I usually set my channel gain pots at one spot, and leave them there once set, using the master volume to set how hot I send the signal to the speaker amps (usually leave about 3db before hitting the clip). And then adjust how “loud” I want the overall performance at the speaker amp. When you want it louder later in the night, overall, as the venue/area fills, do it at the amp…
…so after setting the channel/master gains to avoid clipping the mixer, the EQ’s and channel faders are used to keep the tracks running at the same volume relative each other. And If I want to use the channel fader as big on/off sliders, it is wise to “twist” a bit of a volume buffer across all the EQ’s. Weather that be up for the main track, or down for the incoming really does not matter, they are opposite applications of the same concept.
Do the same EQ GAIN ‘rules’ apply to broacasting as they do to recording? The studio g33ks seem to regard gain with a bit of disdain - i.e. a ‘tool’ for compensating what was lacking in the original mix.
I can’t think WHY he would do it on all knobs - but it WON’T be the same as turning up the gain.
Each EQ is split into bands, and, depending on how those bands are split, there will be some overlap. So turning up the Hi and Mid, will turn up certain frequencies within those bands on BOTH knobs.
It’s easy to describe with diagrams - I’m sure theres a post over at ableton.com from YEARS ago that describes this pretty well…
Maybe it just sounds better to his ears like that? Dunno.
I almost never move my Gains once I have them set. Depending on the age of the song they may have to change, but realistically it should move very little track by track.
Any boosting should be done with EQ. And even then it should be done minimally, within reason. A track with a low bass output will definitely need a boost in the low end, but if you crank the Gain you can end up with some really awful sounds as that cranks EVERYTHING coming into the EQ.
Think about it this way. Use the Gain to make sure everything coming into the mixer is the same level. Carve those sounds with the EQ to get them fine tuned to your liking. Boost the volume to give it that extra oomph.
If you crank the gain beyond a certain point (and dance in the red) you risk really bad clipping and distortion, not to mention added risk of damage to any equipment that sound is running into.
I was at friend of a friend’s place the other week and he’d just picked up a CDJ-800, a nanopad and a numark mixer that he was using with serato to mix reggae dancehall. He’d DJ’d quite a lot before but he’s only just moved to barcelona and had none of his own gear.
The whole time he was mixing, he was running all the EQs at full and only bringing them down a bit one by one for mixes, then straight back up again.
I didn’t want to say anything, cos it was his place and he only speaks french, and I don’t know why it annoyed me so much, but it did!
Later on I was playing some of my electro and dubstep stuff on his gear and every now and again he’d hear a song that he liked and come over and crank up the bass, I wouldn’t have been surprised if steam had started coming out of my ears!
To be fair, he only speaks french, so my language arsenal of english, spanish and german didn’t help.
Still, there are only 2 people other than me who could get away with touching my EQs/settings. My best mate Dave who I DJ b2b with all the time, and my mate Mat who’s much more experienced than I am and a great DJ. Everyone else, hands-the-fuck-off.
Still… courtesy… use hand signals. Touch the bass knob and give a thumbs up or something
Yeah, I have specific friends I let correct me, and they let me correct them. Beyond that, hands off. Usually I’m running the DJ booth so I have carte blanche, but I still always make it known before I touch anything.
This would drive me fuckin’ insane. I haven’t played out for nearly 10years (my god I’m old…), and I suppose I’m fortunate that it never happened to me.
If it did happen to me - I’m pretty sure I’d just hit stop and point at the c*nt. The crowd would soon get the picture. After all, he’s the knob reaching into the booth, right?
Might just be enough to embarrass him into stopping!!!
