Main output on traktor pushing red.

Hey does it matter that the main output volume level shown at the top of traktor is pushing into the red? Sound is fine as it does this. Just wondering. Thanks.

 

Have you ever known red to be a good sign?

Turn down your master output. Red means it's clipping.

 

^^what he said^^

 

O.k another question then. How would the sound be clipping even when my external mixer is in the green still? The sound , volume level output out of my speakers is the same as if I was using cds in my cdjs. If I turn down the master volume on traktor this means I will have to turn up the master volume on my external mixier causing my external mixer to push into the red....?

 

If its in the red coming out of Traktor, it is a clipped signal. This can do damage to you speakers over time even if you keep your PA in the green.

If you are having to push everything so hard, I would suuggest you get a bigger PA that comfortably achieves the volumne you are looking for (this is called headroom)

You then do not spend the night worrying if your speakers are going to blow and it will sound a lot better as well.

 

If you have Traktor's internal limiter turned on, then when Traktor shows red, the limiter will squash the outbound music to keep it safe, which I think would then show green on your external mixer. But even if the mixer shows green, your sound would already be compromised coming out of Traktor. Someone correct me if this interpretation is in error.

 

Yes, if the limiter is on, this would mean the signal would be squashed. I use a limiter at the amplifier stage as I feel this is safer for my speakers.

Driving Traktor into the red without the limiter will cause input clipping.

 

Traktor's limiter does a good job on preventing clipping, even when touching the red I can't hear any distortion or squashing coming from the speakers (and I'm very picky about sound quality, I just moved from Ableton for that reason), a bit of red is not bad even in analog environtments if it just touches it occasionally and don't stays there all the time, leave your master at 0dbs and activate the limiter and you are done, as you said the sound is fine and your mixer shows green so why to worry?

 

Ok. Thanks for the info. It was very helpful.

 

Quick thought while on Topic.

So Traktor has an Auto-Gain Function (per deck). This should set the gain to be ideally amplified/reduced for each deck to what level? For best sound? So that the Master gain should be thus be set to 0, and you have no spiking? or what? Really, I think these two functions should be tied together.

If I turn Auto-gain ON, I often then must go to the Master out, and drop it -5 to prevent spiking on 1 deck playing, and typically -6 dB to prevent spiking with two decks playing simultaneously.

I don't see the logic of the Auto-gain in combination of the Master with NI's implementation. I would think the ideal scenario should be, Master Output at 0 dB. and Auto-Gain On. This always makes me change the default of 0dB at the master to be reduced siginificantly.

Does anyone else think this much of an issue or concern?

 

The autogain doesn't adjust to the gain so the loudest part of the track is 0 dB, but instead tries to adjust the gain so that it appears to be the same average level to the listener.
It's not always successful and I don't know how much of the track is sampled to adjust the gain.

 

Since the autogain setting is determined during the track analysing, I would assume that the whole track... of course, only NI developers or designers can give a finite answer to this one

 

bump

 

Why bump? What issue are you having komodino?

 

I've always wondered about the autogain setting.....it works sometimes but I like to manually set the gain. The volume levels are so hard to see in traktor when in internal mode!

 

Yeah, the faders get in the way, but you can still see the master out, although it's tiny.
I save the gain values I change when analyzing new music and putting together playlists so I don't have to change it next time the track plays.

 

strange

Am I the only one thinking its strange that the output meters get higher when you play 2 track at once, even when they are going to 2 different outputs?

clearly something's not working there..

 

Which meters? Do the channel meters under the faders indicate higher output? That would be weird. If it's the master out in the global panel it makes sense.

 

its in the master panel, but since it's going out of 2 different outputs and therefor different converters, it doesnt make sense to me..
each converter still has the same input and output volume.

Why should clipping occur on output 1+2 when you start playing something else on output 3+4?

 

I've always wondered why when using an external mixer (& TP is set to external), the master output shows the sum of the two channels (as though in internal mode) when each channel level should be running independently into my DJ4 ch1 or ch2 and not through the TP master. Doesn't make sense, especially when the master clips, how can it? It shouldn't be on a master buss in external mode...only the channel faders should be relevant.