WHY A DJ MUST LEARN TO MIX WITHOUT SPEAKERS

WHY WITHOUT SPEAKERS

Any deejay with good career experience has experienced at least one of these inconveniences:

1. I had to mix in a room where the monitor speakers were so rotten that the sound of the dancefloor covered the dj booth with an unbearable delay making mixing almost impossible.
2. I had to mix in a room where there was not even a monitor speaker, I had to mix with the sound of the Dancefloor and adapt to a delay of the sound and unsettling reverberations.
3. The sound of the deejay booth was so loud and powerful in the treble that I tended to reduce them while the sound of the hall was well tuned, which resulted in a set that was too low and muffled.
4. Ditto, but with return speakers with too much bass, the result was a flood of treble and poor bass, the total bad trip for the audience.
5. The deejay booth was so well insulated with great sound, that I didn’t even realize that at one point the sound of the room was almost nonexistent because of a false manipulation by a guy who had passed into the room. cabin.
6. BRIEF SO MANY REASONS FOR PREPARING FOR THIS KIND OF ADVENTURE FOR THIS THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION: LEARN TO MIX ONLY WITH YOUR HELMET! BUT BEFORE, LET’S EXPLAIN THE REASONS FOR THIS SO OFTEN ENCOUNTERED DELAY. WHY IS THERE A DELAY BETWEEN THE SOUND OF THE ROOM

AND THE SOUND OF MY DEEJAY HEADPHONES?

The reason is simple, for any good serious installation of a concert hall or discotheque, the sound of the hall goes through a series of audio processing devices, in particular, a “compressor” and in its extreme version a “limiter” , which allows you to compress the sound to prevent the speakers from receiving an audio signal that is too high in frequencies that could damage them, for example during a scratch session or poorly dosed dj effects and especially to standardize the sound level of the room. The compressor standardizes the sound volume of the room and the limiter, which is nothing more than a compressor with extreme settings, can be used to protect the ears of the public, but also those of neighbors and thus avoid a fine for excess. sound,
The problem is that these compression devices act on the sound with more or less delay and thus create a delay between their audio source and their output connected to the amplifiers of the speakers in the room.

Although they are not the only ones responsible for sound delays, they are nonetheless responsible for more than 90% in a classic installation.
The length of the cables and the processing of the amplifiers are also a cause of delays but remain anecdotal compared to compressors and limiters Therefore, monitor speakers are not and should not be connected to a compressor and limiter.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES TO MIX ONLY
WITH YOUR DJ HEADPHONES?

1. The main reason is that no matter where you mix you will feel like you are in the same sound conditions as the place you are rehearsing, you can do without monitoring speakers and mix in the crappy booths of the world. a world without it bothering you.
2. No more delay problems, since you only mix with your headphones.
3. You can adjust your equalizers knowing your equipment, your DJ headphones become your second pair of ears and therefore, you can rely on it for the settings of your music, rather than a stage monitor that you do not know.
4. You can mix at home in your room without disturbing your neighbors and those who live with you, techno and hardcore will no longer disturb your neighbor.
5. You will no longer have stiff necks because you will no longer need to free your second ears from your headphones to refer to a stage monitor.
6. You will finally be able to buy yourself a good studio headset rather than a DJ headset designed to be wedged with his shoulder. The studio headphones will stay upright on your head, which is still much more comfortable.

HOW TO MIX ONLY WITH YOUR HELMET?

Since the 2000s, deejay mixers have continued to become more and more sophisticated. Ranging from 100% analog to 100% digital without forgetting 100% digital and analog hybrids, yes deejay mixers are more and more complete and compatible with all kinds of mixing. All this to say that since the 2000s almost all deejay mixers now have a headphone function called “Cue / Mix” in the form of a potentiometer or a fader, on some mixers this function is called ” Cue / Master “,” PFL / Main “or” PFL / Master “or” PFL / PGM “. This “Cue mix” function allows you to switch the sound of the deejay headphones from the selected audio source called “cue” or “Pfl”

Also, this function was thought and created in order to propose a solution to all the problems mentioned at the beginning of this article. So why without depriving? There is no reason. That’s why when you mix at home when you practice, mute your monitor speakers and use this function. Not only will you be much more comfortable when you mix in the evening, but you will also be ready to face the worst mixing conditions.

Should we still not forget his helmet lol but that’s another story ..

HOW SHOULD THE CUE / MASTER PFL / MAIN FUNCTION BE USED?

At first, it can be a bit unsettling if you’ve learned to mix only with monitor speakers and DJ headphones taped to one ear, but that’s only at the very beginning after 2 to 3 hours. training, you get used to it very quickly.

Concretely, it’s very simple:

1. We position the potentiometer (or fader) at the end of the race on “Master” (“Mix” or “Main” for certain tables), so we listen to the sound broadcast on the dance floor.
2. When you want to listen to another music without the public hearing it, you must obviously first activate the “Cue” (“Pfl”) button of the track (s) you want to listen to, then switch the “Cue / Mix” potentiometer (“Pfl / Main” or “Cue / Master” or “PFL / PGM”) to the “Cue” (“Pfl”) position. Thus, the closer you get to the “Cue” (“Pfl”) end position, the louder the volume of the tracks you want to preview and the higher the volume of the return sound from the dance floor. weak (only with headphones).
3. When you have prepared the music you want to launch on the dancefloor, you just have to switch again at your convenience the “Cue / Mix” potentiometer (“Pfl / Main” or “Cue / Master” or “Pfl / Pgm”) to the “Master” (“Mix” or “Pgm”) position to hear the sound that the audience hears.

As I said, after 2 to 3 hours of training you will reflex to switch this potentiometer, and you will feel less and less the need to listen to the return speakers until you no longer have any. need Subsequently, you can choose a good studio-quality headset rather than a DJ headset where the modular frame is often a more important criterion than the quality of sound reproduction itself and which greatly affects its price Rest assured a good studio headset from “Beyer Dynamics” or “AKG” is worth all the top-of-the-range Dj headphones on the market in terms of listening quality and comfort. In addition the robustness and very often at the rendezvous, unlike some high-end dj brands that I will not mention.