Okay so I create show (performances) mixes for artist I produce and record for. I don't do any mastering, outside of midside equing, cutting the bass out at around 105-140H on the sides. But I do own a pair of JBL JRX215s that I use to reference for a nice sounding mix in a club environment, early in the morning when I know the neighbors are at work..lol.

Anyways,I'll have my kick hitting hard 2 milliseconds before my sub or 808 bass, and you can distinctly hear both, and how the kick drives the bass. Yet at a couple clubs my artist perform at, the Bass sounds muffled as hell and the kick literally inaudible. It's not just my artist songs either, it's other performers as well. Yet, I tested to make sure I wasn't tripping by having the DJ play one of my artist songs right off of his desktop, instead of in his DJing program and the sonic quality of the songs were just how I mixed them, with the kick and bass hitting hard on the PA speakers. I'm guessing the DJ's use some limiter preset that pretty much cuts a sound almost completely out if it pushes beyond like -3db.Ironically I usually have my kicks hitting from between -5 to -1db, and my bass at around -8 to -6db Anyone know why DJ's do this, because it destroys the integrity and quality of the mix. I loathe it dearly, to the point that it's almost discouraging.

 

here's an example of one of the songs I'm talking about. The DJ literally destroys the low end with his limiter..smh

 

I guess they want to manipulate their environment and try to keep levels relatively the same, but if your tracks are all ready doing that bit ànd are annihilated by their use of limiters, you really need to have a meeting and ask them to stop their messing about. Maybe they are worried about decibel levels.

 

That's what I was guessing. They probably deal with so many bedroom producers with levels all over the place, that they want to just to keep everything consistent. But still..

 

Actually is OK to have brickwall limiters, the sound systems are very expensive and I've witnessed many top pro dj's behave like savages, they have no clue about what a red LED means on the mixer.

...so your artist has a prerecorded show and a DJ presses play at the begining of the show and stop one hour later? Just tell him to stay on green LEDs on both line channels and master output. No decent venue will start limiting in this range.

... or you can experiment with delivering a mix with a higher dynamic range and reliying on the venue's limiter to do the final touch.

 

You've probably already thought of it, but a room full of people will sound different to an empty room.

 

You're saying the example you listed above is the result of DJ's destroying the low end. Did the DJ happen to re-record a copy of your song playing through their "destructive limiting" and give it to you to use for research or examples? It's not the sound of a live feed. Why would they record the same thing over and have it handy?

 

No the example song is my rough mix GIVEN TO the djs. Granted it's not a perfect mix. Though it's clean and the low end is pretty tight.

 

Never thought about that. Only thing I put on the master output is a light glue compression, with a ratio of about 1:2 no higher than 2:1 with a slow attack and faster release, with about 2-3db in make up gain. You think I should just scratch the compressor completely?

 

Try giving them a 3-6 dBs headroom.In that way, their limiters (which someone noticed that their purpose is to keep a relative level perception their tracks) will not trigger too much.so if you give a prerecorded mix, will not have to hit the wall.Unless of course you hit a stupid "wall" like the ones i have to deal with in broadcasting environments , who take my LUFS weighted mix at around -12 to -18 (depending on their needs- instead of -20 to -24) and think of it as a low level source.They pump up the fader on the mixer and my mix ends up hitting the station's master limiter at -8 dBs. In music , this might sound muffled.On the other hand ,in a show, doc, movie,etc where dialogue is present, they f*ck my balance and we end up having difficulties hearing dialogue over music beds.I tried talking their technicians with no solution.So my final step was to f*ck up my own mix with a hard limiter during the mixing stage so i can really hear the "broadcast" levels and adjust the dialogue accordingly.In this way, i deliver a solid mix which doesn't change much when it hits the broadcaster's brick wall.

 

I'd assume he just doesn't pay any attention to what his gain is set to along the way and is destroying things accidentally

 

I'd just be pleased I had the work!

 

Ok.. when you said it was an example of what you were talking about I thought you were sharing the song as an example of what they are doing to mess up your tunes. My younger brother is a DJ out in California. He stays criticizing other DJs and how they operate. The DJ who managed to make your music take a dive in quality probably has a combination of insufficient gear and not knowing what they're doing. My little brother and most the DJs I've seen in big clubs are using fairly costly signal processors and pa systems, and some joints might even sound better played back on them.

 

Last edited: Sep 22, 2016

the limiter of the pa is set waaaay to low, (maybe they have had complains, and also the venue is badly planned sonically) of course they set it up when the place was empty so it sounded really loud then, but when full of ppl the level gets cut in half.
and then?
the dj compensates and pushes all the levels waaaay up.
and, the limiter fights him back killing whatever frequencies needed
so the dj increases the levels higher and the system limiter squeezes it even more.
sounds like shit.

I've played in such places. its a mighmare

 

Stop The PRESSES!!!!!!!

wait... what!!???

"show (performance) mixes..."

WHAT is that?.. please don't tell me that's a "stand there and push 'play'" type of thing....

 

Just had a listen ... this has already been destroyed with distortion imo

 

I thought what you had us listen to what was an example of post issues. I agree with focusrite, the bottom is kinda garbled and just like the bottom of the Mississippi River played through both my cans and monitors.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 22, 2016

I had to check that there wasn't a tear in my speakers.

 

Have you slammed that through a tape emulation? I checked out your sound cloud, you've got some good stuff man, but they all seem to have that same distortion in the low end.

What are you using as references?

I'm not big on hip hop myself, but my partner loves it so it get's played a lot. I hear a lot of clean subs with layered mids, when there is distortion it's chunky, rough distortion. Your low end seems to have that smooth distortion, I swear it's a tape emulation pushed way too hard. Your side chaining seems really slow on the release too, which could be the tape emulation if I'm right (I'm wrong more often then I'm right) . Back in the day if we pushed the low end to hard when printing to tape you would get this horrible pumping. Not the good kind, I think it's hilarious how people carry on about tape like it was something magical, it wasn't. Damn, sorry rambling again.

 

Man most trap and hip hop uses heavy saturation and/or distortion on the low end. When I reference my mixes to industry guys like young thug, future, migos etc. I feel like I'm being subtle with it actually. I use waves renaissance bass or voxengo LF max punch for distortion and I always have them chained before the eq on my 808. I also cut everything after 280Hz on the 808 eq and cut out everything low on the sides to about 150-200Hz.