HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TRAKTOR TRACK LIBRARY

Learn how to take control of your music library, with TRAKTOR at the center of your system. Boost your playlist searches, tidy up your metadata, and quickly fix your beatgrids for more accurate mixing.

Knowing your music and understanding how to get the most out of your library will help you excel at DJing even under the toughest live conditions. That’s not to say you can’t have lots of music in your library, but it needs to be efficient.

The further down the path of chaos you travel, the harder it is to change course, which is why the best time to start organizing your music is right now. Here are some useful tips and tools that can help you keep your library efficient and easy to search.

THE PROCESS

A big part of library management is not only knowing where your tracks are and how to search for them, but building in the routine of maintaining it all. If you start organizing your music, it should become a well-oiled machine that will become more efficient over time.

STRUCTURING YOUR LIBRARY SYSTEM

Maintaining similar basic folder and playlist structures will help with navigating your music. Where it will differ, however, is when working on set preparation: keeping a separate folder of prep playlists, dated and labeled with the event name, helps you keep a list to start from (as detailed further down).

One the easiest ways to keep up with new music in your collection is to maintain a yearly folder structure, with sub-folders that suit your musical style (e.g. genre, BPM, or energy), along with a folder for incoming new music:

+[Year]
+[Year]
+[Year]
+[Year]
+[Year]
-[Year]

[_NEW TRACKS]
[GENRE/BPM/ENERGY]
[GENRE/BPM/ENERGY]
[GENRE/BPM/ENERGY]
[GENRE/BPM/ENERGY]
[GENRE/BPM/ENERGY]

Each ‘year’ folder will store all the music you’ve bought within that year, rather than the year of release. This is an important distinction, because unless a piece of music is important to you, there is no association with some random date, potentially in the distant past, rather than the year you purchased the music.

ORGANIZING FOLDERS AND PLAYLISTS

At the start of every year, take a moment to ponder the previous year’s music, while creating a new folder and TRAKTOR playlist. This is about giving some time to think about all the music added over the last 12 months. This can help you to appreciate the change in trends, and your own tastes.

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USING SEARCH TO FILTER

Once the system is in place, the search bar will become an even more powerful tool. With just a few words typed in, you’ll be able to filter your entire collection or individual playlists, using a tagging system tailored to your music. Keep in mind, when searching within a playlist, the results will be limited to the playlists only. When hitting Enter after the search term is typed in, the search will be expanded to the whole collection.

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STEP 1: ADDING NEW MUSIC

Whether you’re trawling SoundCloud for free downloads, buying from established labels and artists on Beatport/iTunes, or hitting the indies on Bandcamp, the start of your journey to expanding your TRAKTOR library will be pretty much the same.

how-to-manage-your-traktor-library-3-1

Once you’ve downloaded your new tracks, add them to the _NEW folder, after moving any existing content to their respective genre/BPM/energy folder. This ensures your latest tracks are all in one place and easy to review.

STEP 2: FINDING THE ROOT KEY

TRAKTOR’s built in key analysis will present the musical key in either Open Key (4m/1detc) or Musical (C/Ebm). There’s no need for extra software, as the key will be determined during the track analysis. If you’re used to the Camelot system (8A/2B), there are other options such as Mixed In Key.

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STEP 3: GETTING TO KNOW YOUR MUSIC AND TAKING NOTES

Next up, either throw your new tracks into an empty iTunes playlist, or use within TRAKTOR Cruise Mode, and hit PLAY. This gives you a chance to both listen to your tracks in full, check your ID3 info, and give yourself some reminders about the music.

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As you work your way through the list, make sure the ‘track name’, ‘artist’, ‘genre’ are filled out, and use the ‘comments’ tag to fill in any hints about the track. Any vocals? Male or female? Is the track hard, laid back, or percussive? Any audio samples that you’ll remember? Whatever helps to nudge your memory.

If you’re classifying by genre, keep in mind that it needs to be what works for you, not necessarily what was decided by the webstore or the labels (it’s often the labels that decide what genre category the track appears in). Think about where you feel it will fit. If you mainly play progressive house and techno, but you’re adding a melodic deep house track, it will probably go in a progressive house set rather than a techno one. This is why keeping a separate genre tag in your comments will help you classify your music.

STEP 4: ADDING MUSIC TO YOUR TRAKTOR LIBRARY

There are two ways to add music to your collection:
via the Explorer node of the TRAKTOR library browser; or;
dragging and dropping using the Finder / File Explorer window.

how-to-manage-your-traktor-library-6

In both cases, you can just drag the tracks or folders to your main collection or the current year playlist. You can also clear your playlist, and drag the entire year’s folder back in, to ensure everything in the playlist is the most up-to-date. It will also mean all your newest tracks, held in the _NEW folder, will be at the top of the list.

BEATGRIDDING

Even though TRAKTOR’s beatgrid analysis usually gets it right, you should build the process of beatgridding into your routine. No music analysis is perfect, and you should trust your ears first. The most important thing is to ensure your tracks have consistent grids throughout your collection. This is especially important if you tend to use sync, but can also alter how TRAKTOR’s effects work.

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How to Beatgrid your tracks will be covered in a later post, but for those looking to find out more you can either read up further on the TRAKTOR Forum here, or check out this tutorial by DJTechTools here.

PREPARING FOR A SET

It’s important to remember that a DJ’s job extends beyond a jukebox or music player. A tidy music library is as much a part of your preparation for a gig as crafting a crate or playlist for the event. Keep things loose, and you can remain flexible while you’re playing.

how-to-manage-your-traktor-library-8

In the days leading up to your gig, start adding a few tracks to a playlist that you’d like to play, alternatively create a playlist for your gig in your Record Bags folder.

[Record Bags]
>2018_02_24_Venue

Right click the playlist and click “Select as Preparation List”, this way your Preparation List is more flexible and you will prepare directly for that gig. Usually, between half a dozen to a dozen tracks should be enough, and once the set starts to flow, you probably won’t even get through all of those. If you aim to have your opening track, and a couple more that you know you will play, you can fill a whole set round the rest of the playlist.

 

SOME USEFUL TIPS AND APPS

Start as you mean to go on. The way you organize and categorize your music will evolve as your collection grows and your tastes change, but the priority should always be ensuring everything is where you expect it, and no information is missing. Schedule time regularly to sort through new tracks, and get to know new music.

Metadata is your friend. Use the text fields to save information useful to you, personally.

Don’t be afraid to cull your library. Just because you bought a track back in 2010, it doesn’t mean you still need it. Every couple of years, it’s worth listening through your whole collection, double checking the metadata, and being ruthless about what to keep and what to get rid of. You don’t even have to delete anything. Simply moving it from your collection folder, and updating your TRAKTOR library will make it easier to find what you need.

Apps to manage your music. Here are a few popular alternative apps to help sort and analyze your music.

Beatport Pro – Windows/macOS desktop software from the popular electronic music webstore to download, sort and manage your music. Export to TRAKTOR via the iTunes XML bridge.

Rekord Buddy 2 – Currently macOS only, with a Windows version on the way, Rekord buddy 2 has powerful library management tools, and lets you sync your music and cuepoints from other DJ software.

Mixed In Key – The original Windows/macOS software to analyze musical key, energy level, and cue points, to import into TRAKTOR.

MediaHuman Audio Converter – Simple batch audio-converter for Windows and macOS.

Kid3 ID3 tagger – Cross-platform batch ID3 tag editor.

MediaMonkey – Popular Windows-based music manager. There’s also a handy script to export as an iTunes XML.

 

TIPS FOR TRAKTOR LIBRARIES

There are plenty of underutilized tools in TRAKTOR to help prepare and manage your library. It’s worth exploring the manual to get to know what can be done. Here are few suggestions.

Color code your tracks. Recently released in TRAKTOR 2.11.1, track color coding can help you sort your music by adding colored highlights within your playlists.

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Remember your history. TRAKTOR saves all your past sets to dated playlist files, which you can access via the Archive section of the Explorer node.

how-to-manage-your-traktor-library-10

Check consistency. Remember to scan your collection regularly, to make sure all your tracks are analyzed, and to relocate or remove any missing tracks.

Keyboard for gridding. Speed up your preparation routine even more with a custom keyboard gridding mapping.

Playlist search and sorting. Quickly drill down to the music you need by searching individual playlists, and sorting key, tempo, or any other metadata column you find relevant.

Playlist favorites. Gain quick access to important folders or playlists by adding them to the Playlists Favorites bar at the top of the browser.

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Name your cue points. You can rename your cue point labels in the CUE advanced panel by selecting the cue point and double clicking the name in the middle of the panel.

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Load, loop points. Adding a load point where you want to start your track playing helps speed up your cueing process. Loop points allow you to quickly jump into a loop, and serve as a visual clue of a good place to start a loop. You can set up a loop point at the start or end of shorter tracks, to give you more time to mix in, as well as extra time at the end.

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How Often Should I Work Out?

How many days am I supposed to work out in a week? When it comes to eating, what is the right amount of food in each meal? How much is too much? It depends on your body. It depends how many calories your body need to function properly each day. The same thing goes to your training. How many days you need to train each week depends on your body ability to recover.

Your body’s ability to recover depends on how optimum your diet is and how long you rest. The process of build muscles is as simple as putting stress to your muscles by lifting weight and giving them sufficient rest time to recover. During a workout, muscle tissues are broken due to the amount of stress they get. With sufficient nutrients and rest, they adapt and grow bigger and stronger.

Back to the question, how many days do I need to train every week to build muscles? It depends on your body ability to recover, which depends on your training intensity, diet, and rest. Don’t rely on the theory that you should train two times a week, three times a week, and so on.

Listen to your body. If you still have plenty of energy to train, then you can train as many days as you want every week. If you feel weak and get sick easily after training six days a week, then you may have exhausted yourself by training too many days per week. Exercise is supposed to improve our health. Because of the difference of slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fiber composition and other physiological differences, some people may recover sooner or later than others.

Advanced trainees who train in higher intensity normally need more recovery time between training sessions. Some people are fine to train every day but most people prefer to work out on every other day to prevent boredom.

If you don’t feel fit enough to train, skip the gym for one day and get some rest. However, this depends on the case. Most people feel that they feel refreshed with more energy and better concentration for work after working out. As a rule of thumb, working out less than three days a week doesn’t give maximum result in muscle gain. Doing all exercises on weekends is not enough if your goal is to build muscle, but it is still better than nothing.

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How Many Watts Per Person Do I Need?

It depend on the type of gig, size of the venue, shape of the venue, expectations of the client, whether it’s inside or outside, and the style of music that you will be playing. If it is an indoor gig, you should aim to have as a minimum around five watts per person. If you are playing outside, then you will probably want to double that and have 10 watts per person. Naturally, this is a loose rule of thumb and if you are going to be playing bass-heavy music, you might want to have extra sub-woofers. In this case, a 2:1 ratio between subs and tops is common.

Most importantly, and something that is often overlooked, is to make sure that your speakers are being amplified efficiently. Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better (or louder for that matter). Make sure the amps are rated at at least a third more power output than the speakers are designed for – half as much again or even more is also fine. Contrary to popular belief, it’s speakers being driven by under-powered amps that tends to blow them, not overpowered. Avoid this entirely by using modern active speakers, where all of that has been handled for you.

Indoor gig = Number of guests X 5 watts = speaker watts (+ sub-woofer)

Outdoor gig = Number of guests X 10 watts = speaker watt (+ sub-woofer)

Power Calculator
On the Crown website is a calculator that determines the amplifier power required to achieve the desired SPL at a certain distance. It also accounts for the number of dB of amplifier headroom needed for audio peaks. Text accompanying the calculator gives the equations used. Click on the following link to go to Crown’s power calculator: Calculator

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5 Simple Steps Towards Making Time For DJing

Nobody has enough time nowadays, right? I sure as hell know I don’t. No matter how much I plan, how organised I try to be, and how much I say it’ll be different this year, whenever anyone asks how it’s going, I almost invariably say that same thing: “Y’know, busy…” So if that sounds like you, and you feel like you’re not giving your DJing the time it needs, what to do?

(As a DJ, business owner and I.T. professional, I have a few things to squeeze into my life as it is, and I’m always wanting to have a go at different stuff, so if this works for me, I’m pretty confident it can help you, too…)

My five-step plan for finding time for DJing

  1. Set measurable, achievable but challenging goals – If you don’t have a goal that excites you, you’ll make excuses for not doing the work. Whether it’s landing your first gig, getting a club booking, making the podcast you’ve been saying you’ll do for years, whatever – set a goal that inspires you, give it a name and a date, and tell the world
  2. Give something up in order to achieve it – I’m going to guess you don’t spend an awful lot of time sitting around doing nothing. So if you want to do the work to achieve a goal, you can’t make time, you’ve gotta find it – right? So something has to give. A key factor in success is choosing what to give up. Another way of putting it is: What are the consequences of going for this goal? Try an hour’s less TV a day, or getting off Facebook. Commit to it upfront
  3. Timetable the work – Anything worth doing needs work, right? Whether it’s DJing practice, or sitting down to record your latest podcast, or finding the perfect signature tune for your next mixtape, to get where you want to go you’ll have to do the work. So put it in your diary, set notifications, and stick to it!
  4. Form the work habit with a “when… then” rule – This is a great one. An example: Every night at bedtime, I take water to my bedside table. That triggers me to fill in the day’s page in my journal, and it does so because I have a “When I take water to the bedroom at night, then I will fill in my journal.” So if you want to always practice DJing in the evening, and you also always read a story to your kid/s, that could be yours: “When I finish reading to the kids, then I will practice DJing for an hour”. It rewrites your neural pathways to feel weird when you don’t do whatever the thing is. It really works!
  5. Celebrate your wins – I forget to do this sometimes, but it’s vital. “Doing” makes you right, so don’t always simply push yourself with no time to take stock and smile. Make time to celebrate the little steps along the way. If getting a gig involves sending out 50 mix-tapes, following them up, getting a booking in the diary, and playing the gig, celebrate all four steps when each is done. You get the idea. Go a bit easier on yourself, and try and enjoy the journey a bit more

FINALLY…

Just by doing the above, you’ll be ahead of the majority of people who don’t do this stuff. It can be worth remembering the words of Bill Gates, too: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

In other words, start now, keep doing it, and you’ll achieve more in your DJing that you can imagine as the months turn into years. Good luck

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5 Healthy DJ Lifestyle Changes

drunk

It’s that time of year, right? Gym memberships are up, people are having “dry Januaries”, and with gigs a bit thinner on the ground, us DJs find we’ve got a bit more time on our hands to think about how we can change our lives for the better – which let’s face it, in our profession usually means trying to get a bit more healthy.

The trouble is, the usual advice all seems so unrealistic (just ask your mum or your doctor what you should do and see what they say): “Get eight hours of sleep a night” (yeah, after working till 4am?). Don’t drink (hello?). “Avoid loud music” (sorry doc, do you even know what I do for a living?). “Keep your stress levels nice and low” (ever had to deal with the fifteenth Beyonce request and a half empty dancefloor?). And “eat healthily” (what, when you’re in a rush and on the go?).

You get my point. Our profession can be a bloody unhealthy one. But there is a solution – and it involves a simple dose of realism, and taking a few baby steps in the right direction.

You see, when you make small changes and stick to them, they become habits. From that new, slightly improved standpoint, you can make more small changes later, and so on. Over time, you are going in the lifestyle direction you want to go in… while still enjoying your DJing and music, and still having fun sometimes.

Let me show you what I mean. We’ll look at the five things your mum or doctor might say from that list above, and I’ll give you simple ways to move towards them, without completely changing everything about yourself overnight. ‘Cos that just doesn’t work. And these do. I know. I’ve done ’em all.

5 SIMPLE CHANGES

1. Sleep in a dark room

sleep mask

That’s it. When you sleep, make sure your room is totally dark. No glowing LEDs, no light bleeding under the door, no thin, rubbish curtains, no falling asleep with the telly or bedside light on. Pitch dark.

Sleep is ridiculously important (scientists are increasingly linking it to the ability to function properly at all, never mind to be better at what we do), but as DJs, we often have to sleep in the day, or in rooms that aren’t ours.

But if you insist on darkness in hotels or anywhere else you need to sleep, you’re much more likely to sleep properly. Bonus points for carrying around a travel eye cover for a bit of dark shut-eye on planes or buses…

Easier than: Getting eight hours of sleep a night

2. Take 48 hours off the booze each week

booze

Not drinking is a valiant aim. It’s also totally unrealistic for most people, especially in the profession we operate in (if you’re one of those who’s managed it – and I’m not saying it’s impossible, we have two in our team here at Digital DJ Tips – well done), but for everyone else, you probably don’t want to stop, or don’t feel you need to. Fine.

But you also know that drinking affects your health (and your sleep – am I right?). So stop for just two days, one after the other, every week. Studies show that this gives your body a multitude of recovery benefits, and if you can stick to it (and if you can’t, at least it’ll show you that maybe you do actually have an issue to deal with), you’ll reap those benefits.

Easier than: Giving up drinking

3. Wear musician’s earplugs

plugs

As soon as you have any type of ear issues (and if you’re a DJ, it’s not a case of if, but when), you’re going to be told to avoid loud music. It’s good advice – but it’s also utterly unrealistic.

That said, tinnitus isn’t fun (again, two team members here can confirm that). So what to do? Our advice is to wear earplugs. Not the rubbish foam ones you buy in chemists, but earplugs designed for musicians, that reduce the overall volume of the music while still letting a bit of everything through.

It’s like turning the volume down in your ears rather than simply muffling everything. And with a bit of getting used to them, musician’s earplugs do work! (If you really can’t DJ with them in – and some can’t – then wear them at all other times when you’re in a club environment, taking them out for your actual DJ sets only, carefully watching the monitor volume to ensure that you don’t push it too high.)

Easier than: Avoiding loud music

4. Spend a minute breathing slowly a couple of times a day

Hear me out – I’m not going all hippy on you here, I’m not going to ask you to convert to buddhism or go on a meditation retreat. But stress is a real issue, and we have a stressful occupation (requests, empty dancefloors, not getting paid, being freelance, worrying about our kit failing…).

It’s an issue because when we’re stressed, we’re in “fight or flight” mode. Creativity – what gets us noticed, what furthers our careers, what ultimately gets us paid – does not like fight or flight mode, not at all. Our brains, basically, shut our creativity down entirely in these situations (cavemen didn’t need to come up with great poetry when running from lions).

breathe

So we need a way of de-stressing in order to do the best job. And deep, slow breathing is a simple and effective step in the right direction, proven to de-stress us (it’s no coincidence that Apple has added it to its Health apps recently). Bonus marks if you can concentrate on each breath going in and out, bringing your mind back gently to that thought when it drifts – that’s basically what meditating is. (See? Nothing hippy here at all…) So when you feel stressed, get into the habit of doing this – things never seem as bad 60 seconds later.

Easier than: Avoiding stressful situations entirely

5. Prepare your own food whenever you can

Our profession, our friends, our lifestyles… they all, in my experience of DJs, lead to takeaway food, more than for most people. And while that’s all well and good every now and then, honestly, takeaways are the crack cocaine of the food world. They’re designed to make you want more, and quickly.

Those people who run those establishments really don’t care about your well-being. You should. And a great way to do that is to buy ingredients that your great grandmother would recognise, and cook with them.

food

Yeah, it may take some effort at first, but come up with seven simple things you can cook, and that’s a repeatable week of meals, right there. And while you might still be cooking things that aren’t exactly 100% healthy, that’s fine. Trust me, it’ll be much better than takeaway, whatever it is, and you’ll be mindful of what you’re eating – while at the same time avoiding all kinds of stuff that you really don’t want to be eating. (By the way, you don’t have to take it this far…)

Easier than: Eating healthily

FINALLY…

Now honestly, I’m the last person to be a killjoy, but I’ve been a club DJ since 1992 and I’ve learned a few things about this stuff – and seen too many times what happens when it goes wrong. They say you are what you’ve done, which in the case of many DJs (and clubbers, and party people) might literally mean an awful lot of things that aren’t exactly ideal. Word.

Yet for me, and for most serious DJs who I know, partying was always temporary, but we always knew the music would be forever. The music was our calling. If you’re the same, don’t you owe it to yourself to ensure you can take your sharing of music to its full potential? While it’s easy (especially at the start of your DJing or music production career) to think you can’t be in the music industry without partying, in fact the opposite is true. It’s harder to stay in it if you don’t get these things right, – and it’s better to make changes sooner rather than later.

All that said, it’s equally easy to fall into old habits and easy temptations despite good intentions, and to do that repeatedly. That’s why committing to simple habits that you can work to maintain is always going to be better than just trying to change everything about yourself overnight.

And the best bit? You don’t even have to do all of it! Pick one, make it stick, and see the benefits – then come back and pick another.

What have you committed to to make your lifestyle as a DJ healthier in 2017? If you’ve been in this game for a while, what has helped you the most – or what mistakes have you made that you learned from? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments…

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Pioneer DJ Launches DDJ-SZ2 For Serato

Pioneer DJ has upgraded its flagship Serato DJ controller to create the DDJ-SZ2. This new four-channel controller gives hands-on control of the latest additions to Serato DJ, including key shift, key sync, pitch play and Serato Flip.

Pioneer DJ says that improved jogwheel latency makes scratching more responsive and precise than ever, and is bundling the DDJ-SZ2 with the latest version of Serato DJ including the Pitch ‘n Time DJ and Serato Flip expansion packs, allowing use of all the new features out of the box.

Additionally, Pioneer DJ is putting a voucher for a free Serato Video expansion pack in the boxes of the first 3,000 DDJ-SZ2 controllers, for full control of audio and video performances.

More about the controller

The DDJ-SZ2 is the best Serato DJ controller Pioneer makes, offering mirrored CDJ-style set-up, dual USB ports for smooth DJ changeovers, and Magvel crossfader. The fact that the company has upgraded the controller indicates continued support for Serato DJ software, something many doubted would happen due to Pioneer DJ now having its own software platform, rekordbox DJ.

PROMO VIDEO

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HOW MANY WATTS DO I NEED?

Deciding on the number of watts you need can be a confusing business! Websites don’t always say whether the wattage of the speakers and amplifiers they’re selling are the Peak power or the RMS, or average continuous power. Peak power can be misleading, as you wouldn’t be able to get that amount out power out of the speakers or amplifier constantly.

You should not have your PA system turned up to its full capacity because any peaks in the music may cause distortion. On the What PA? website, we always show the power in watts RMS – the power it can comfortably and safely deliver over a long period of time, which is what you want.

That makes it easier to compare different speakers and amplifiers, and to decide whether you are getting value for money as well as a system that’s right for your needs.

When you’re trying to decide how many watts you need, you can start with our very basic guide below. There are other factors such as the acoustics in the venue, whether you’re indoors or out, and the sound pressure level (SPL) of the speakers, but we’re trying to keep things simple for you!

A VERY BASIC GUIDE

 Type of use Watts per audience member
Spoken Word (indoor) 0.5 to 1
Acoustic Acts, Solo Artist & Duos 2 to 3
Bands & Average Sized Venues 3 to 4
Loud Bands & Large Venues 4 to 5

 

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Gain Structure

Managing Gain Structure Is Key To Audio Quality

When getting into any audio system there will be a few things that are constant and a few things that can vary depending on the gear you are using. One thing will always be extremely important and often overlooked by beginners. We are talking about gain structure. Basically gain structure is creating a bit of consistency from the beginning of the system to the end.

The Basics of Gain Structure

It is common to find users that think gain structure is simply just turning up the gain until it is loud enough or pushing it as hard as you can, when in actuality what you are trying to do is set a consistent level so all outputs can be matched. On an analog console, for example, the goal is to get your input source (whether it be a kick drum or a vocal mic) to be pushing about 0 db of gain or unity gain. You can push harder than 0 db but for this example will say unity to be safe. It is important to remember that the gain is set on the input and shared through all of the outputs. So if you have set you gain to 0 db, each output you decided to send signal to will have a consistent level. If you were to simply turn up the channel fader and then set gain you might be short on power going to the monitor mix or other output feeds.

Setting Gain Structure

Using a mixing console to adjust gain structure.When setting gain you must also remember that there is no magic number. Each input device will require a different amount of gain. For example, avocal mic might require less gain than aninstrument mic on a guitar cab. That being said, as you begin your sound check you will want to check all gain levels first. In addition, it is always a good idea to have performers play or sing at their loudest level so gain doesn’t jump up on you. This happens frequently with drummers who can sound check lighter than they perform.

Once your gain is set, you can feel safe that your output signals will be consistent. The concept is very simple, but often ignored when people start to dive into mixing sound. If you can master gain structure you will be able to quickly advance to other more complex mixing situations with greater confidence.

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Question: How Should I DJ A Fashion Show?

Runway

Unless you’re a well-known DJ who was picked specifically for the type of music that you spin or produce, the tunes you’ll be playing at the show will depend entirely upon the show director or creative head. The first thing to do is to consult with the show’s creative team so you can begin planning your playlist. There are two scenarios for this: The first is the director briefs you on the mood, vibe, and energy that he / she wants during certain portions of the walk, after which you’ll be ask to give songs and music ideas that fit his / her criteria.

The second way is you’ll be given a handful of reference songs that already are a good match for what the director has in mind, and then you’ve just got to present even more tunes to his or her liking.

Either way, it’s important to note that the show runner has the final say, and a wide-ranging taste in music certainly helps here. I used to get booked for this type ofg gig many years ago, and I’d have a sit-down meeting with the show’s creative team and we’d go through swaths of music libraries to pick the ones we’d all agree on. That’s easier these days, thanks to streaming sites like Spotify and YouTube.

If you’re spinning at a more complex fashion show with a programme or performance choreography (think those Victoria’s Secret fashion shows), you’ll have a handful of rehearsals with which to fine tune your music selection and sequence: don’t forget to make playlists and back them up by hand. I once spun at a fashion show where my playlist got corrupted – good thing I was able to reconstruct it using notes I scribbled in a notepad.

You’ll also follow a strict events timetable – ask for a copy of this as early as possible (usually the morning of the show) so you can study it. Always ask for the most recent copy, as changes will often be made leading up to the event – sometimes, even during the event itself!

Music is such an important part of any fashion show because it’s what ties the visual and performance elements together to create an experience. The songs you play essentially become the “voice” and the “emotion” of the models walking since they don’t have any microphones, and often have to appear a certain way (ie aloof). You’re doing more than just mixing songs together: you’re the last point of contact between the designer’s creative vision and the audience, so work it!

“Speak to the agency doing the event. Some shows have clothing themes, and some have model to model music changes, so it really depends on the way they want it handled. Also, they’ll sometimes have a ‘top model’ wearing the flagship design, and they’ll want special entrance music for that, so keep that in mind. Always try to match your music to the designs and ask for a design overview so you can plan your music well in advance.”

Any fashion show tips you’d like to share? What was your first fashion show DJ set like? Share your thoughts below.

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JBL STX 818s Sub-woofer

Image result for jbl stx 818 review
OVERVIEW

Big Sound.

JBL’s idea with the STX800 Series was to offer the professional touring musician or the enthusiastic hobbyist with a commitment to great sound an alternative to light-duty portable PA speakers without making the commitment to full-size line array tour sound systems. JBL’s promotional literature for this series states its place in the market beautifully: “Our goals at the inception of this project were simple: Offer a high performance, high density system solution in a truck-pack friendly format. Develop concert-worthy floor monitors and side fills that could affordably complement any touring sound system. Deliver an affordable, great sounding subwoofer that could reproduce true low frequency at elevated sound pressure levels.” The JBL STX818S 18″ Bass Reflex Sub-woofer is the low end foundation of this design concept.

The STX818S is a single 18″ compact high power sub-woofer system in a front-loaded, vented enclosure designed for minimum frontal area. It provides 1,000 watts of continuous pink noise power handling, 2 kW program and 4 kW peak. The STX818S also comes equipped with a top-mounted M20 pole-mount and an optional wheel kit.

The STX whether you’re in need of ancillary speakers for a full-blown tour sound system, ground-stacking for a live concert performance, installing speakers in dance clubs or performance venues, touring clubs with your band, or you are a performing mobile DJ, STX800 Series is the smart choice.

FEATURES
  • 18 in. Super Vented Gap woofer for extended low-frequency output
  • Large port area for reduced distortion
  • 20 mm threaded pole socket for solid, secure satellite speaker mounting
  • Rugged DuraFlex coated enclosures sized to be truck pack friendly

Order now to enhance your existing system or build from the ground up.

SPECIFICATIONS

STX818S 18″ Bass Reflex Sub-woofer

  • Frequency Range ( -10 dB): 35 Hz-250Hz
    Frequency Response (± 3 dB): 40 Hz-120Hz
    Sensitivity (1W/1m): 96dB
    Power Rating
    (Cont. Pink Noise/Program/Peak): 1000 W / 2000 W / 4000 W
    Rated Maximum SPL: 132 dB SPL Peak
    Nominal Impedance: 8Î
    Input Connectors: Two NL4
    Operational Modes: Subwoofer
    Dimensions (W x H x D): 22.4″ x 22.0″ x 28.3″
    Net Weight: 45 kg (100 lb)
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