different mixers - different clubs

[patrick bateman]

Ask the DJ to behave!

u think that works?

Try with something like 'no fee if red'

[mmm]

On most pro DJ mixers you can go well into the red before the signal actually clips. Of course the amplitude of the signal will be greater than whatever voltage gets translated to -0dB full-scale - but the top and bottom won't be cut off, so as long as you attenuate the signal before it hits your sound card then you can avoid a clipped recording.

thanks a lot, how would I go about doing this? My interface's input gain is nearly off.

[Combe]

On most pro DJ mixers you can go well into the red before the signal actually clips. Of course the amplitude of the signal will be greater than whatever voltage gets translated to -0dB full-scale - but the top and bottom won't be cut off, so as long as you attenuate the signal before it hits your sound card then you can avoid a clipped recording.

thanks a lot, how would I go about doing this? My interface's input gain is nearly off.

Using other mixer before your soundcard / laptop to reduce the gain.

[damagedgoods]

what interface do you have? If it has selectable input modes, make sure it's set to +4 (better yet something like "lo gain" if available) and not the consumer standard of -10 (which I believe is used for DJ mixers). +4 is the "pro"/recording studio standard, and basically means that the voltage that your interface calls 0dB is higher than what, say, a hifi system would call 0dB.

If you have no such option then you could either run through a little mixer first and cut the volume on that, use some kind of passive attenuator (but i doubt you'll have one of those just lying around) or take a feed from the venue mixer (assuming the DJ mixer doesn't go straight to the amps, which it does in many small venues). The latter could work well but make sure you keep watching the levels coming into your laptop (the soundguy probably won't), and be aware that depending on how it's set up the signal might be passing through the EQ on the PA mixer first.

And no matter what you do, if the DJ rags it too hard then the signal clips on exiting the DJ mixer, so you're screwed from the outset.

[prussell]

On most pro DJ mixers you can go well into the red before the signal actually clip

erm, not sure about this. from my experience (both DJing and selling DJ gear), they may not "clip" per se, but many of them will distort if ran far into the red.
depends on the brand.

Allen & Heath mixers for instance, you can run those into the red all day and be fine.
Urei, forget about it...distortion as soon as it hits red.
Pioneers always distorted for me when opened all the way up, but bear in mind i haven't ran the 800 into the red to test it out.

if it's distorting coming out of the main mixer, turning the gain down on a secondary mixer will only prevent the signal from distorting/clipping twice...you can't undo the sound coming out.

[PsyTox]

Pioneers always distorted for me when opened all the way up, but bear in mind i haven't ran the 800 into the red to test it out.

same on the 800, distorted sound galore. Not to mention the 600 sounds sh!t whatever the sound level is

[damagedgoods]

On most pro DJ mixers you can go well into the red before the signal actually clip

erm, not sure about this. from my experience (both DJing and selling DJ gear), they may not "clip" per se, but many of them will distort if ran far into the red.
depends on the brand.

Allen & Heath mixers for instance, you can run those into the red all day and be fine.
Urei, forget about it...distortion as soon as it hits red.
Pioneers always distorted for me when opened all the way up, but bear in mind i haven't ran the 800 into the red to test it out.

if it's distorting coming out of the main mixer, turning the gain down on a secondary mixer will only prevent the signal from distorting/clipping twice...you can't undo the sound coming out.

I probably should've said "over 0dB" rather than "into the red", sorry. You're right, the extent totally depends on the mixer, but I've yet to encounter a mixer that started distorting at 0dB (which I suppose is yellow).

[Rookas]

well on my xone 62 its still greeen ;]]] but ive got some kind of question if i go out to yellow like +3 +5 db and record it lowered will it sound really bad? somehow i have some kind of problem or something because the turntables go like on very low gain like 2-3 out of 10 and it hits 0db but it sounds very low and some vinyl shows 0-3 db but it sound much lower than the other ones at like 0db is this something wrong? needles? they shouldnt be bad (groovemaster) mixer? it isnt bad ? turntables? they are good (kam ddx5000)