What mixers are available with built in limiters/compressors
Besides the djm800/900, what else out there has this built in feature?
honestly, i dont really see why it matters… just keep your levels appropriate!
Since when do Pioneer mixers have limiters?
They have attenuators if that’s what you mean……I think some Denons have those too.
Either way, you shouldn’t mix into a limiter……all it’ll do is teach you horrible habits and ruin your sound.
This isn’t for me, I’m doing research for a local club. They want a mixer with a built in limiter incase some idiot dj redlines the mixer. They want to protect their sound system from clips.
Also, the Pioneer site says that the mixers have “look ahead limiters.”
Well if it’s a club, just send the audio from the mixer to a limiter (like it should properly be wired in a club environment).
You need to tell them to actually look into getting some external rack gear if they actually wan to protect their system and get it to perform right.
Graphic EQ, Compressor, limiter, possibly some sort of rack unit to compensate for time delays between the high and the lows (depending on the size of the club) and so on.
Basically, tell them to stop being a bunch of tight asses and spend some money to do it proper
^this
That’s what I have told them, but management doesn’t care for anything even slightly complicated.
That’s why you hire an actual engineer to come in and set everything up. This isn’t that hard, this is what you have to do if you don’t want your system to go belly up.
Setting it up isn’t really that complicated, but getting it all dialed in is another story, hence the actual audio engineer
To be honest, I wouldn’t want management anywhere NEAR the rack once it is dialed in
Ecler Evo 5 has built in one
Wow…
I’m really not sure what to say about this. Companies really don’t have any respect for DJs at all, do they? Then again…DJs prove time and again that they don’t know how to run a mixer, so I guess it fits.
Also, if you’re doing a club install…just get Pioneer. I don’t like them, but my preferences aren’t what the vast majority of DJs would like to see.
DJM 800 has a limiter? Is it defeatable like on the 900 and 2000? I know the SPDIF out is something like -4.4dB down, which is a little strange.
Compressor/limiters belong in studios (as a production tool) and at the internal output stages of power amplifiers to prevent extreme distortion harmonics that are a problem in amps that clip their outs (which can be catastrophic to tweeters just from a brief amp output clip without them), but are NOT appropriate on the output stage of a DJ mixer.
Both clipping into 0dBFS or pushing into a peak limiter will crush dynamics, increase RMS, and potentially eventually cook driver coils. Since having no output limiter on a digital mixer sounds worse, the limiter should be kept OFF/defeated on the master outs to reduce incentive to crush the signal dynamics and endanger the sound system. You want doing something bad to actually sound bad, not better.
This leads me to point out the stupid Pioneer input metering system for analog signals into their digital DJMs and the even more stupid output master/booth boost on the variable resistance knobs past unity. With an analog signal, the input meter should show what’s actually going into the mixer, not what the DSP is running at internally in the floating point domain. Tascam did that appropriately, Pioneer did not. And the outputs’ max on the knobs should be 0/unity: +1 for Denon, demerit for Pioneer.
Sounds like the club needs to be more selective about the dj’s. There is no need to have a compressor or limiter post mix and pre-gain between a DJ Mixer and house mixer.
0DB is a pretty easy target to hit as long as the venue is providing an adequate booth for the Deejays. teach the deejays to turn up their booth instead of their gains. Also teach the deejays how to subtractive eq to avoid adding noise to the mix.
Yeah, a properly set up sound system, with the ATT set appropriately to the downstream gear, no compressor/limiter, and the DJM master out fixed at unity (cover and tape it on the Pioneers), the DJ should be able to do whatever they want with the proviso that if they push it super hard they’re just going to sound like shit but not hurt anything down stream except their reputation.
Strict subtractive EQ is not necessary on digital mixers, and wasn’t particularly necessary on analog ones, though it did potentially reduce added noise on the treble knob. Subtractive EQ has the added disadvantage (pun unintended but welcome!) on digital Pioneer DJMs at giving false input metering with analog input signals.
FYI: Pioneer added the input clip lights on their latest DJMs to offset their weird input metering.
Formula sound AVC2D in line after the mixer comes set at 0db and will increase the limiting as the sound goes up. This is not ideal as djs who are over driving the system are effectively creating square wave which will impact on speaker life. Insist djs keep input trims in the green or they will be responsible for any damage
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0dB what? 0dBVu is not the max peak but the target average peak.
I agree with your general sentiment about compressor/limiters on mixers and many sound systems, but square waves are not inherently dangerous other than their RMS. Using a compressor/limiter crushes RMS in a more pleasing way than a clip into digital full scale will do. Hard clipping into 0dBFS cuts off the top of waveforms, being more square-wave like and sounding shitty, but it’s only dangerous to the sound system for its increased RMS. The sounding shitty part is the good part of not having a compressor/limiter – it dissuades over driving the mixer.
The AVC2D is essentially a quick-reaction, long release gain attenuator that does not reduce RMS or contribute to cutting off waveform tops. With a properly set up digital mixer and a sufficiently-sized sound system for the purpose, it shouldn’t be necessary. Running analog stuff and/or live bands into a modest system being driven close to its limits would benefit from it, though, but it’d need a babysitter at the board all night.
We used to throw a Behringer Ultracurve into just about every installed system. And into the amp rack of pretty much every hired system for this reason (Idiot DJ’s).
- Theres a Password lockout on it.
- It was irrelevant what mixer / source was used (many used their own or mix and mash of gear).
- Bypassed the need for a separate EQ / Processor or Permanent engineer in the majority of venues
- Reliable as all hell, despite being Behringer. I never saw one fail in over 10 years.
For sure 
plenty of DJ’s don’t know / want to know crap about audio technology EXCEPT when it comes to bypassing mixer limiters and changing the pitch range on a pair of 1210’s. Then they are all finger, screwdrivers and beer. 
!
[QUOTE]That’s why you hire an actual engineer to come in and set everything up. This isn’t that hard, this is what you have to do if you don’t want your system to go belly up.
Setting it up isn’t really that complicated, but getting it all dialed in is another story, hence the actual audio engineer[/QUOTE]
+1 Personally I’d be putting any limiter / protection as far out of reach of any Dj (or staff) as possible - it’ll take someone who knows what they are doing to set it everything up properly initially. Blanking plates, passwords and security screws FTW.