possibilities for mitigating against a DJ and DJ music

[S&L]

I was hired in this weekend to mix on a colleagues 6 box ohm rig. a couple bands an a DJ.

long story short the first DJ was fine, the DJ that closed the night kept upping his levels incoming to our desk, I kept trimming them back on the desk until I was left with nowhere to go minus 15db on gain trim giving an output level of around minus 18 to minus 12db. the PA had held up fine until that point but during the last song or two of the night on horn gave up and died.

 

now plenty here will ###### about dj's and rightly so in some cases and plenty will say the remedy is to make them use their own gear but in this case the guy that hired me in is ok with the repair being 'the cost of doing business' and the same clients will not only give him more dry hire work but also will most likely hire me to mix again. so this situation is going to arise again and I would like to work out a way of limiting or mitigating a DJ's rise in gain.

 

I guess one solution would be to to place something inline before the desk (x32) and drop the gain with said gadget before desk, lift the gain on the desk and slowly rotate backwards during the night.

My colleague was discussing loading in a driverack crossover for the next gig with a limiter on. but would this protect speakers with compressed music (mp3's and dance cd's)? and at what point does one have to set the limit to protect a horn.

 

I should say that working with DJ's isn't something I do a lot of. mostly for function work, they bring their own rig.

details of the gear and event

200 plus capacity

2 no. RW3 tops

4 no. RWS subs

2 no. EPQ2000 amps

x32 console

 

I'm interested in suggestions for LIMITING both top and bottom ends of the sound.

 

[dosxuk]

Did you ask the DJ to turn it down?

[Shaggy]

I was hired in this weekend to mix on a colleagues 6 box ohm rig. a couple bands an a DJ.

long story short the first DJ was fine, the DJ that closed the night kept upping his levels incoming to our desk, I kept trimming them back on the desk until I was left with nowhere to go minus 15db on gain trim giving an output level of around minus 18 to minus 12db. the PA had held up fine until that point but during the last song or two of the night on horn gave up and died.

 

now plenty here will ###### about dj's and rightly so in some cases and plenty will say the remedy is to make them use their own gear but in this case the guy that hired me in is ok with the repair being 'the cost of doing business' and the same clients will not only give him more dry hire work but also will most likely hire me to mix again. so this situation is going to arise again and I would like to work out a way of limiting or mitigating a DJ's rise in gain.

 

I guess one solution would be to to place something inline before the desk (x32) and drop the gain with said gadget before desk, lift the gain on the desk and slowly rotate backwards during the night.

My colleague was discussing loading in a driverack crossover for the next gig with a limiter on. but would this protect speakers with compressed music (mp3's and dance cd's)? and at what point does one have to set the limit to protect a horn.

 

I should say that working with DJ's isn't something I do a lot of. mostly for function work, they bring their own rig.

details of the gear and event

200 plus capacity

2 no. RW3 tops

4 no. RWS subs

2 no. EPQ2000 amps

x32 console

 

I'm interested in suggestions for LIMITING both top and bottom ends of the sound.

 

I'm confused as to why you couldn't just pull the fader back on your desk? Yes the input may have been clipping but you could have pulled it back to a safe level before the desk. What I do with DJs is put a compressor with ratio turned up full or a limiter on the channels, with the longest available attack and release times. Experiment with the threshold so that the output is where you want it on your loudspeaker processor. If you have enough rig this should let you give the audience a consistent volume, and if you are a bit short on speakers this method will compensate for a DJ turning up over the course of the night, but it may be that you occasionally hit the limiters on your loudspeaker processor, but not excessively so. The advantage of the long attack and release times is that this does not really affect the dynamic range or over-compress the signal as the action of the compressor is so slow it resembles someone looking at the meters and adjusting the fader.

 

I used to limit with a very fast attack, with the same longest release, and while this would be better at keeping the levels down, it was more noticeable as the faster attack means the threshold was set higher. This meant it would start to release quicker in quieter bars or passages which would then be unnaturally loud for the song.

[Jivemaster]

Best to actually talk to the DJ nicely first, second best to have a bigger pad in the line. Teeter drives usually rely on having a small duty cycle so anything that compresses increases that duty cycle towards 100% and kills tweeters.

 

Build yourself a 10 or 20dB pad in a XLR connector pair.

[themadhippy]

I would like to work out a way of limiting or mitigating a DJ's rise in gain

A baseball bat or large hammer and the phrase "stay out of the red and I dont hit you on the head" tends to work well

[Cheeseweasel]

If you can communicate to the DJ to 'turn your mixer down, so I can turn the rig up and it will sound phatt!' they usually oblige. If they don't, then turn the master down to a safe working level - if you're clipping the mic amps and everything is distorting then this 'safe level' (for speakers, and ears!) might be quieter than what the DJ would like, but tough - the DJ isn't paying your wages, and presumably won't be reimbursing you for any drivers you manage to break on the night.

 

If you don't already have one, a monitoring system of some sort, even if just a powered speaker on a stand fed from the DJ's booth output that he can deafen himself with, can really help. The DJ will thank you for this too, as it makes his job easier. If you can feed this from an aux, then even better, as you can sneakily give the DJ a bit more in the monitor if he feels the need to keep turning the master up.

 

Set a suitable limiter on the DJ channel on the X32. There are plenty of fixed installations in clubs that are designed to be run without an operator, and they tend to be well-protected by limiters. If the DJ pushes too hard, things just start to sound nasty without getting any louder. Adding that DBX Driverack would be a sensible idea too - to calculate the limit points for the sub and top you will need to know the RMS power rating and impedance of your speakers, and the voltage gain of your amplifiers (you can work this out from the sensitivity if it's not explicitly stated in the amplifier's spec sheet). If you don't want to do the maths then there is a useful lookup table on page 42 of this manual, and suggested attack/release times on page 41.

 

 

[sam.spoons]

I've yet to try the X32 but plan to soon as I hope to buy one later this year. I'd be amazed if it was not possible to control output levels on this desk to protect your FOH either by setting a limiter on his channels or simply by pulling down the main faders.

[Jivemaster]

Remember also that the DJ was booked to perform his set, his style and his loud, that's what the client booked and paid for -and you failed him. I've been booked to play disco, and during the evening without notice the venue engaged an 85dB power off limiter -guess how long it took the client to complain and threaten legal action.

[abbotsmike]

Remember also that the DJ was booked to perform his set, his style and his loud, that's what the client booked and paid for -and you failed him. I've been booked to play disco, and during the evening without notice the venue engaged an 85dB power off limiter -guess how long it took the client to complain and threaten legal action.

 

There is a good chance though that the DJ has always had an engineer pulling back the faders for the sake of the rig. So whilst his style may be to keep pushing the levels, the audience may never have heard it, and like it anyway! Standard wisdom does seem to be a big scary guy with a big scary stick coupled with a moniotr that makes their eyeballs rattle, so they think it's louder!

[Simon Lewis]

As much as I have a soft spot for Ohm speakers (and still have some) the RW range was never their finest offering, and the FormFocus tweeters used were quite easy to take out. The saving grace was that the replacement diaphragms weren't too expensive. Although the problem of the DJ still remains, I would suggest that (if available) something a little meatier, coupled with a suitable monitor might help?

[peza2010]

if you end up mixing him again then that is your perfect chance to fix the issues.

 

"great set last time I mixed you mate, but towards the end you were peaking the system and started to distort. if you knock your output back a bit I can make you louder out front, and we'll knock em dead later on in the night"

 

that should be job done, if not, and this guy wont turn it down then just keep pulling him down until he notices its going quiet and then use some of the sentence above.

 

If your out as a babysitter for the rig then a limiter will be a good option, but if your out as an engineer then there are more "tools" to use before you get to this point.

[audiomik]

You might try one of these limiters from Formula Sound directly in line with the DJ Mixer output:

http://www.formula-sound.com/noise-control-system-protection/avc2

This has a threshold level and when an input exceeds this reduces it's output.

 

Other manufacturers also make this type of unit such as Drawmer:

http://www.drawmer.com/products/protection/sp2120-speaker-protector.php?sort=series&series=misc

 

Many stand alone systems use these to act as 'Speaker protection, which is often the reason that systems survive the excesses of DJ's.....

A clipped signal contains a substantially greater HF content in terms of RMS Power which can easily exceed ratings for HF Drivers, whilst a normal signal will have a crest factor which falls within Driver ratings (over-simplified but hopefully explains things!).

Substantially reducing a clipped signal level goes a very long way towards having HF drivers working for the next gig

 

hope this assists

Mik

[RichM]

I usually set a compressor/limiter over their inputs set in such a way that it is very noticeable as soon as they start taking the piss. Show them that if they back off a bit things sound much better and most will oblige.

[sam.spoons]

Remember also that the DJ was booked to perform his set, his style and his loud, that's what the client booked and paid for -and you failed him. I've been booked to play disco, and during the evening without notice the venue engaged an 85dB power off limiter -guess how long it took the client to complain and threaten legal action.

 

I too hate noise limiters but I have worked venues where it was a condition of the licence that one was installed and used whenever amplified music took place. The client/DJ has no legal comeback as it is usually a condition of the contract that the sound system must run through the limiter. I just don't go back.

 

The sound engineer is employed to run the rig and can only do so within it's limits. To suggest that he failed because he was unable to go louder that the rig was capable is ridiculous, if the DJ wants more loud he needs to specify a bigger rig and be prepared to pay a suitable premium for it. Whatever the rig it's just simple good sense and good manners to accept the word of the pro running it when he says "no more".

[Doug Siddons]

 

The sound engineer is employed to run the rig and can only do so within it's limits. To suggest that he failed because he was unable to go louder that the rig was capable is ridiculous, if the DJ wants more loud he needs to specify a bigger rig and be prepared to pay a suitable premium for it. Whatever the rig it's just simple good sense and good manners to accept the word of the pro running it when he says "no more".

 

Wish this was true all the time!!

 

I normally put a brick wall limiter over the output of the DJ and keep it there and adjust the volume to the room, having explained this to the DJ normally they play ball, although the look on their faces when they shove the fader and it goes quite is always worth it. Another trick is to start the Dj set quieter and gently turn it up to full volume during the set, never start the second DJ set at the same volume as the first finished. It does depend though on the experience of the DJ the more professional they are the easior it is to keep things from breaking.