Attn DJ's! hardware mixers smoother ??

faisalbaig · Post by **faisalbaig** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:37 am

Hey DJ's. Arent hardware mixers smoother than Live's internal/Midi mixer. MIDI has 127 steps......i'm imagining hardware mixers are smoother , smoother EQ etc.
Please share ur thoughts---i know nothing!

ciao

Faisal

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:51 am

i've heard that said before, but by my own personal experience. i don't agree with it. especially with 14bit turned on in ableton.

most dj mixers have 60mm faders... so with midi thats less than half a millimeter per step of midi. how is that not smooth?

acidpimp · Post by **acidpimp** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:58 am

they are two seperate animals with two completely different applications.

there is no analog hardware that even touches on what live does.

if you just want to compare digital mixers to analog mixers, always go analog unless automation is a priority.

but live is not a mixer. it has a mixer. you could use it as a mixer if you really needed to, but that's not it's primary function by any means.

there are some people who run multiple outputs from their laptop into seperate channels on a DJ mixer, but smoother fading is not their reason.

it is true that a midi controller will only transmit a number between 1 and 127, but there is no audible "zippering", and the result is transparent to the human ear.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 6:11 am

The Behringer controllers send 14 bit values for silky smoothness

Deft · Post by **Deft** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:00 am

I'd be quite interested to see how a fader that sent MIDI to Ableton would handle fast scratching, at the highest resolution possible. I reckon there would be too much decay time / latency style problems to do it.

faisalbaig · Post by **faisalbaig** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 10:15 am

I guess it would make a difference if the hardware mixer had a "sound of its own" which could be desirable ..... a friend of mine runs everyting thru his Allen and Heath Analog Rotary mixer which costs 4k or something like that----he just loves what the mixer does to any signal passing thru it.

But for most i guess MIDI control within Live is good enough.

Thanks for answering this for me. I may have saved a lot of money.

cheers

F

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 12:50 pm

For me it's not a question of "smoother", as it is the way the volume curves are implemented in both. Live's volume faders are perfectly linear, while DJ mixers volume faders are typically slightly logrithmic. Some people prefer one or the other for various reasons.

Personally, I run Ableton into my Allen and Heath XONE62 (and use it's faders and EQ for mixing) because yes, it does sound a lot better to "me". The XONE just does something to the audio signal that makes everything gel together much better. I'm not familiar enough with the internals of this unit to even hazard a guess why though.

And when it comes to EQ, I don't think you'll find anyone who's spent time with both that would say Live's EQ plug ins sound better than the A&H EQ, it's far better sounding, not even close as far as I'm concerned. If I need an EQ plug in, I usually use TL-Audio's EQ-1 versus the Live ones.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 3:18 pm

AdamJay wrote:i've heard that said before, but by my own personal experience. i don't agree with it. especially with 14bit turned on in ableton.

most dj mixers have 60mm faders... so with midi thats less than half a millimeter per step of midi. how is that not smooth?

Most people forget to edit the BCR to send 14 bit values which it does not do by default.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:30 pm

sweetjesus wrote:
Most people forget to edit the BCR to send 14 bit values which it does not do by default.

i don't think any controllers do.
i know my UC-33 doesn't either.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:39 pm

AdamJay wrote:
sweetjesus wrote:
Most people forget to edit the BCR to send 14 bit values which it does not do by default.
i don't think any controllers do.
i know my UC-33 doesn't either.

huh? *confused*

the Behringer controllers send 14 bit values.

Live accepts 14 bit values.

the behringer is not preprogrammed to set 14 bit values until you use the editor or program it to do so.

after that you will have very smooth control without the stepping controllers like your UC-33 have.

p.s. the uc 33 has to delay the transmission of it's signal in order to compensate for really bad stepping (based on a thread i read.. not firsthand experience).

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:52 pm

i think your confusion lies in the fact that i never brought up the BCR.

jasefos · Post by **jasefos** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 10:14 am

sweetjesus wrote:The Behringer controllers send 14 bit values for silky smoothness

Indeed they do ... Pitch Bend messages are another alternative if your chosen control surface doesn't support it.

BCF2000 faders are smooth as silk (and long throw) with latest Firmware 1.07 and 14bit CC's.

Attn DJ's! hardware mixers smoother ??

Attn DJ's! hardware mixers smoother ??

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