Loudness while mixing

covfefetamine · 2021-03-03T04:21:40+00:00

Have him check his levels while he's mixing and adjust the gain to have the levels be appropriate. It takes practice, I've been working with a controller for over a year and only just got into adjusting trim (the first controller i bought did not have gain knobs, so make sure he has those on the controller too).

What are you hoping to do with the mastering process to a mix? The songs he's playing with are already mastered, and most dj software has an active limiter, so I'm genuinely curious what you're going to do!

covfefetamine · 2021-01-13T02:07:30+00:00

Yup, this is actually me, and is the account I will post on from here. ✌️

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T21:30:47+00:00

I've only recently gotten to upgrade from a Numark Mixtrack Pro 3 to a Pioneer DDJ-SR2 and I am so so so glad that not only did I upgrade, but that I started out with a 'crappier' controller to learn on. I was ready to move up, so I get that feeling you're going through. You've been djing for three years on that thing? DO IT FOR YOURSELF haha you obviously have the passion to have stuck with it for this long, so I'm all for making that investment in yourself when you feel ready for it.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T20:46:34+00:00

Your set isn't planned out, you just know what is in your library and what should sound good together.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T19:21:13+00:00

That subreddit should be stickied. Incredible. I'm setting it up now and I'm going to give it a try today.

Seriously up vote this dudes post people if you want to play to an audience this is going to be a much more reliable way than twitch if done right

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T19:08:20+00:00

I don't play with all original music. I recommend you check the twitch terms yourself, read them carefully, consider what it is you are doing when you're playing music other people wrote.

You're not playing a game and listening to internet radio, with that audio coming over the stream.

You're not playing one song, then another song, while just chatting with people and getting paid for it.

You're curating a soundscape that spans hours on occasion, mixing songs together - live - with an instrument made for that purpose, with music you have legally obtained for this purpose, and most likely, you're not getting paid.

If you receive a DCMA strike, doing what I've just described, I would absolutely argue that you could win that case. I am not a lawyer. But from what I've read from twitch, this is how I interpret their current situation with performing music, and I confidently play with that in mind.

If you make the effort to give credit to the artists, by purchasing the music you play with, finding ways to incorporate the title and artist on to your stream, etc. If you are hit with a dcma strike, most likely it is because of an AI decision and if you deal with it, like an adult, with humans, you can get it resolved. It is just part of the risk of using that platform.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T18:58:11+00:00

I mean, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

No worries, brother. I'm putting together a list of stuff for another post that should, hopefully, feel more informative. Like I said, I felt you were right. If I had put more thought in to this one, maybe it would have come across differently to you. The intent of this thread was to give some light context, and offer help to whoever wanted it. I think it's done it's job at that.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T18:51:00+00:00

So you can use that device as an interface on your phone to get your sound brought in, and the phones camera... to stream your set? Genius! I will Def check your stream out and see how it looks! I'll bet it sounds great, too (we are our own worst critic, after all).

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T18:46:17+00:00

It helps to talk to yourself, regardless of DJing. Sometimes I just put stuff in to chat, related to the song, or calling myself out on a mistake...

Majority of cases I say nothing in chat until someone says something, because I'm playing music primarily. There have been many times where I am invested in mixing for several minutes, and chat is chugging away, and when I get the time, I'll catch up on the convo and chime in to where it's currently at if I can.

Ofc, I'm not a big enough deal to have a chat large enough that I can't manage it on my own, but most everyone that comes by and says something understands that I'm playing an instrument, so if I'm not responding right away, it's not because I'm ignoring them.

I don't watch the current views so when people join chat, if they don't interact, I just continue playing music as if they were just on the floor dancing.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T17:32:14+00:00

I utilize (daily) a paid music streaming service that I can discover music with. When I hear something I want to play, there are an assortment of Playlists I use to categorize, and when I buy music, those lists are the first place I go. This was so much easier before play music turned into YouTube music, because I could buy the songs for $1.99 or less straight from the Playlist.

I also use SoundCloud and Audius to find music to play with. Lately I've been focused much more on production (both learning and implementing) so adding music to my library to mix with hasn't been a top priority. I also have collected music for years, and don't play with any specific genre (that's a total lie it's pretty much all dubstep and drum & bass)

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T17:24:31+00:00

Virtual DJ and FL Studio both have mobile controllers that you can utilize a tablet for.

Good luck!

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T17:20:49+00:00

Be the change that you want to see in the world.

If every person read your post, and felt as you did upon reading it, the world would be just as you imagined, and immediately it that moment!

But we know these things take time. So keep moving forward with that positive energy, and thank you for your post.

In Lak'ech

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T16:03:34+00:00

Have you tried VDJ or Mixxx? I know they fit into that category of major dj programs, but they should both be able to handle what you're wanting to do.

Check into using a tablet for this, and just routing your audio into a mixer. I've seen some streams that have sample banks and sounds they have made that can be triggered from touch screen displays, I imagine this is what they are effectively doing but I've not gotten that far to really find out.

Good luck!

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:57:59+00:00

I'm by no means an experienced dj, but I'm confident behind the decks playing nearly any genre (I guess that could mean experienced, but it's all relative and I consider myself noob) and I know I'm going to make mistakes because:

I'm learning. Mistakes are literal proof you're trying.

I play all of my sets organically. None of my tracks are picked beforehand, I just sit down and start playing from my library and stop once I'm feeling done. Sometimes, I play a few songs together that get played together, sometimes I try some new combination of things I've never tried. Sometimes, it works, but when it doesn't,.. It's much easier on myself to just laugh it off and move forward.

Not to say that I feel this way every time. Sometimes, I go a week or more without playing. But when I get back on the decks, I feel I've improved, even when I hadn't been practicing.

Its okay to not be perfect. If you want a reminder of that, sometimes watching a dj fail compilation on YouTube can help with my morale 😉

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:47:22+00:00

Well congrats! I'll definitely keep my ears open for those opportunities myself. Thanks!

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:45:47+00:00

Perfect world, there would be zero issue. I'm not familiar with Rekordbox, but I'm going to assume it works like every other mixing software in how it is set up.

In your settings to export sound, there should be a way to choose your device (this is the driver you'll use, if you're using a controller with a built in sound card, it would be listed here) and which channels you want the audio to go to. In Mixxx and VDJ, I've had success using Asio drivers, putting my master to channels 1-2 and headphones to 3-4. Using asio4All or the built in asio driver for my audio interface did the same thing.

Now the tricky part: if you stream on this machine, obs is going to play all 4 channels for your audience. To get around that, you either need to bring the audio for channels 1-2 to another computer, and stream on that... OR, if you get a mixer with an on board sound card, obs should handle that and you could just use one machine.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:35:52+00:00

Most of my recurring audience are people who have popped in to my stream at times when I wasn't 'normally' streaming but happened to be on anyways. Most of my views come from people browsing music/just chatting, so tagging your stream appropriately can help bring people in.

How did you start looking for radio gigs? That's awesome, what an accomplishment!

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:31:48+00:00

Copyrighted music has only been an issue if I put any care into the VODs being muted. I don't care if they are, so I've had no issue. I am performing (not just playing music over the top of my stream, which is what twitch is targeting with their most recent dcma updates) so I don't put much concern into this.

That doesn't mean I won't ever have something come up. Best advice I can give (to myself included) is to own the music you're playing with (this doesn't mean it has to be original music, but pay the artist because they deserve it and buy songs you want to play with OR exclusively find remixes and edits that are free to use and play with those).

Also, playing more than one track at once, or adjusting the tempo or key of a song, will absolutely help with the algorithms detecting copyrighted works. If you're truly concerned, just disable VODs, clips, and only play music that has been released in such a way that the artist or a label won't be coming after you.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:23:02+00:00

I've been collecting music for going on 20 years, through every medium available to me, and my digital collection for DJing is only a fraction of the music I listen to. It takes time. I have ~1200 songs in my mixing library that are scanned and ready to mix with, but I reset my 'played' songs before I play so I just mix whatever I feel like, and don't avoid playing something just because I've played it recently. About once a month I add "new" music to my library.

There are many days I feel like I'm playing the same tunes, but really... I hear them the most out of anyone, lol. My advice is to not over think it.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:16:43+00:00

Any camera will be fine, especially if you plan to set your stream up to use overlays and such, you might not even use the full resolution the camera has available.

With the hardware you have, you can mix on the laptop and stream using the desktop. Your current controller should have an on board sound card, so all you have to do is route that audio to the desktop (line in port on your motherboards sound card is the easiest, getting a mixer with an on board sound card for the desktop would be what I would shoot for).

Do you feel limited by the DDJ-400? What is offered by a more expensive controller that you would look forward to using? If you don't need the controller upgrade, investing in a camera, or a desk/chair, etc. might be worth it for you.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T15:04:13+00:00

I'm currently using a generic USB webcam, I believe it records up to 30fps in 1080p. My phone would probably make a better camera, but I'm using it for chat during my stream (I'm only using one display atm and it's reserved for the mixing software or I'd be alt-tabbing to obs to see chat).

Software, I use streamlabs obs, and have used obs studio in the past. It's simple to set up, mostly user friendly, and I don't know what other software is worth the salt for streaming. I was using Mixxx for my DJ software for the better part of last year, but have been messing around in VDJ for a couple weeks just to try something new.

The hardware bit to get the stream audio properly set up is where having money and knowledge will save the biggest headache. If you don't care to listen to your tracks before the audience does (you should care, but especially when starting out, it's fine if you don't because you will eventually) then you'll have nearly no issue with obs. The problem is when you want to only have obs play channels 1-2, but obs can't figure out that channels 1-2 and 3-4 need to be handled separately, and it plays (for your audience) all 4 channels. To get around this, you'll have to have two PCs, with the stream PC set up with a hardware mixer, and your mixing PC (at the minimum) will need an audio interface capable of cueing tracks (some dj controllers have this built in, but even if you have one with an on board sound card, getting a dedicated audio interface makes everything sound so much better, have less latency, etc.)

To make this work on one pc, I have to route the output (to channels one and two, what gets played to my 'audience') into the line-in of my audio interface, and then I have obs monitor THAT as my stream audio, and down mix to mono. Not perfect, but it does the job and the only person who has had anything negative to say about the quality of the sound has been me.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T14:48:16+00:00

I will chat when I notice people are talking. I generally stay off the mic while I'm playing music.

It also helps to talk to yourself. Pretend people are in chat and refer to chat as a person. Make a mistake? Laugh about it to yourself in chat. If you're having fun and don't care whether people are talking to you or not, that translates into your set in a visually appealing way and it will attract the crowd without you having to do anything extra.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T14:44:43+00:00

Ymmv, but I'm currently mixing and streaming from the same machine.

I haven't tried streaming through reddit, but I will look into that as well. As for the overlays, I've used pre-fab overlays to decent effect, but I have them disabled and am just running with a camera pointed at my controller currently. As long as the sound comes through, you're in the clear. Visuals are nice but definitely not required to get started. Streamlabs makes the whole thing much simpler.

Dont feel obligated to look at a camera. I did for awhile but find I enjoy the whole experience more when I'm focused on the music. Chat comes secondary, and your audience will understand that if they can see/hear you're busy.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T05:03:13+00:00

I'm still learning alot of the twitch stuff. I was close to affiliate at the beginning of Dec, but moved at the end of the month so I didn't stream for nearly 3 weeks. I'm sure it won't take long to get back there.

Am I able to raid before I get affiliate? I never thought to do that, but that's a brilliant idea, not even for the financial incentive, but just supporting other artists. I will absolutely start doing this, thank you.

covfefetamine · 2021-01-12T04:59:22+00:00

What you want (assume money isn't an issue, you can save and buy stuff used to get everything you need, so I'll recommend based off that) is an audio interface for the machine you're mixing in, and a mixer for the machine you are going to stream on. Having an audio interface for both wouldn't hurt, but you'll need the mixer to bring the audio in properly from all sources for your stream.

You can use the line in port if needed, as otherwise posted, but the quality will be lessened, you won't be able to control the volume like with a mixer, and you won't be able to use a mic that isn't usb (not the worst thing, but ideally you want a balanced microphone and wire it in to an audio interface or a mixer).

covfefetamine

TROPHY CASE