Next step, get yourself a decent headphone. A headphone has to meet a
few requirements: Good bass reproduction, good fit and tough design. As far as
the demand for good bass reproduction goes, you have to favor the closed-back
designs. This will also better keep out the ambient sounds, which is, given the
situation, very much desirable. Better, more accurate sound reproduction will
help you hear the slightest of differences during transitions. A crap headphone
will make this a lot more difficult.
Good fit speaks for itself, you are likely
to want a headphone that has a comfortable fit if you want to survive several
hours of mixing. And for design: it is not so much you need a tough headphone,
but you need to avoid using a fragile one, which of course comes down to the
same thing. You have to be able to twist and bend the headphone repeatedly
without wear / causing damage and it has to be able to survive a drop to the floor.
(The twisting and bending happens when you listen with only one earpad on one
of your ears, the other pad behind the other ear, or even in your neck.)
The mixer. They come in all different forms and prices. A normal mixer
will have 2 channels which allows you to mix 2 of a total of 4 inputs: 2line
ins and 2 phono ins. Some mixers are "one input, one channel" but
most modern mixers have 2 inputs for one channel. A button or flip-switch
allows you to select the input that is put through to the channel, phono
in for the turntables and line in for the rest of the equipment.
(including pre-amplified turntables.)
Each channel needs at least a 2-band UE: bass and treble
( or high range) equalizer and the mixer needs a VU meter. From here on it
can only get better, more crowded and more expensive. Higher quality will show in
the durability and toughness of the mixer and the better sound it will send to
the amplifier(s). In contrast to the previous 2 items, the pair of decks and
the headphone, if you get a poor quality mixer it will not really effect your
own mixing skills, the music itself will not sound as good. Using poor decks
and/or a poor quality headphone will make it harder to mix right.
Amplifiers and speakers: This is where things get slippery because
it depends on what you have in mind: go for living room hobby DJ or try to cause
some earthquakes on the dancefloor...
Recording equipment is optional, but a very usefull aid to practice.
And if you take it more seriously, you'll also need it for recording demo
tapes/discs.
Back to the top.
Hardware Configuration
There are 2 different configurations possible for the equipment: the home
system and the party system. The first for use in your own living
room, the latter being more professional, to "cater" a crowd on a dance floor.
The difference between the 2 is the way they are set up. A home system
will have one set of speakers and a modest amplifier, say up to 2 x 100 watts.
The mixer connects to the aux in or the tuner in. In most
cases the input range of the tuner in is better than aux in so
it would be better to use this input of your amplifier. One set of speakers,
directly in your own vicinity, and that is all.
A party system has 2 sets of speakers and 2 or more (end) amplifiers. The first
speaker set, called the monitor is for the DJ him/herself around
the turntables, the other set of speakers, fed by the master out and
amplifier(s) is for the listeners on the dance floor. This will allow the DJ to
adjust the volume of headphone and speakers to his/her needs without
influencing the music volume the crowd hears.
NOTE: There are more names for these 2 outputs. The monitor out or
just monitor is the same as zone or booth (monitor).
This depends on the specific mixer you use.
The master (out) is sometimes called main (out). It is the
output that will feed the power amplifier(s) for the dance floor speakers .
Back to the top.
Powering Up/Down
Turning on and turning off the equipment requires more attention once there are
more watts involved. Being uncarefull with the order in which you turn on/off
the equipment can send a spike through your system: a power surge which in turn
could do damage to the rest of the equipment.
RULE #1 and #2 for mixer and amplifiers:
- #1 Before you turn ON the power, make sure the output is minimal.
- #2 Before you turn OFF the power, make sure the output is minimal.
In other words: turn the Output Volume fully down.
Turning the equipment on: The first opportunity for a spike to
appear is when you turn on your mixer. Make sure everything else is OFF.
Once your mixer is ON, you can turn on the amplifier(s). This may seem
overcautious, and for normal household equipment it is, but it is far from being
overcautious when you're dealing with high-end professional equipment.
The turntables do not have capacity to store enough charge, so they can not
cause any spikes at all.
And while we are at it, make sure your turntables are electrically
grounded so the static electricity can not make a terrible mess of the
music you play. (if you fail to do so the music will hiss and crackle from
static charge that builds up.)
Check the Output Volume, make sure it
is minimal and turn on the amplifier(s). Set the output volume of the
amplifier(s) and you are ready to go.
Shutting down the equipment.
Same thing in reverse. Start with turning Output Volume of your amplifier(s)
fully down. Give the amplifier(s) a good 10 seconds to decharge (to
defeat as it is called.) Some professional amplifiers have knobs you
can pull in order to defeat. Once this is done you can shut down the mixer.
Turntables can be shut down at any given moment.
If you are using a normal household amplifier, chances of sending a
spike through your system are minimal. These are relatively low power
amplifiers which do not need to loose charge before they are shut down.
Shutting down the amplifier can, in this case, be done the normal way. The
high power end amplifiers which are used in clubs and at parties, professional
use, require special attention.
Back to the top.
Sound Checking.
When you start with all the equipment for the first time, it is wise to set
a limit for music volume. Start with playing the body of a track. Open
the channel and set the gain of the channel in such a way that the VU
meter peaks between 0 dB and +3 dB. This value is somewhat arbitrary, it should
be somewhere in this range. If the maximum peaks are below the 0 dB mark, you
will send a relatively weak audio signal to the amplifier(s). If you set your
maximum peak value above the +3 dB you risk a distorted audio signal. The
average maximum peak value is also important as a reference for matching the
volume of 2 records. Make sure that the mixer output you use, monitor or
master out, is on 0 dB. A 0 dB signal can still clip and/or
cause distortion in the amplifier if the output signal is amplified by
the mixer before it is send to the amplifier itself.
If you are using the home system configuration, hook up the
monitor out to the amplifier. This will leave the master out
to connect the mixer to recording equipment (up to the reader to implement).
In case of the party configuration, a system with 2 separate sets of
speakers, you have to connect the master out to the amplifier(s)
for the dancefloor, and the monitor out to the amplifier for the
speakers in front of the turntables. Now you can turn up the volume of the
amplifier(s) to what you prefer as reasonable loudest volume, or possibly
up to the point where your amplifier(s) clip or start to distort. By doing
so you will have control the actual music volume with a convenient knob
(or 2: master and monitor) on the mixer.
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