DJ - Tip The importance of volume balancing
A 5 minute ride on a rollercoaster is a burst of adrenalin and thrills, but it wouldn’t be much fun riding one for 3 hours straight, that excitement would soon be replaced with fatigue and annoyance. Thats how I look at FX on a DJ mixer, a DJ showing off their FX tricks in a 5 minute burst of action looks exciting and impressive, but if they did this for 3 hours long, it would soon get tedious and annoying, especially on the dance floor.
Thought most DJ mixers today come armed with a plethora of FX tools at your disposal, to me the most powerful and most complex tool is the volume faders and pots. I say pots, because many don’t make the connection between EQ pots actually being volume adjustment too. Watching DJ’s like me tweak volumes isn’t the most exciting thing to watch, but the listening experience is very powerful as we’re unfolding a smooth musical journey where you can’t hear the transitions. It’s not just a case of us tweaking those volumes whilst mixing two tracks, we’re doing something way more complex, to me, mixing and balancing volumes/frequencies is the most complicated and technical part of a DJ performance, something that many can’t and won’t ever grasp and a skill that gets overlooked. Over the years we train our ears to be able to pick out certain sounds within a track and instantly identify what frequency range it sits in, allowing us to blend smoothly those frequencies. For example the outgoing track sonic power of the low end kick/bass could be punching at 60hz, and the incoming track could be at 80hz meaning the next track won’t sound so deep, and if you wanted to keep the journey deep, I’d hold a loop of that specific 60hz under the next track blending them together a slowly mixing out so that there wasn’t a sudden energy jolt. Things can get way more complicated as many sound systems are different and some sub speakers are more responsive at certain frequencies, the natural reverberation of the clubs room could add dynamics or subtract due top phasing issues. This is a tiny example of the frequencies I’m tuning into whilst dealing with each mix case by case as every track is dynamically produced, mixed and mastered differently, especially when crossing genres.
Mixing and blending those frequencies is by far the most complicated job to do as a DJ, especially on the fly making those crucial decisions as we go along, but its also one of the most overlooked as it doesn’t create the eye candy of a DJ over exaggerating those FX. Don’t overlook the power of those volume faders, no matter what your budget is to spend on a mixer, every mixer comes with those basic tools, its down to you to train your ears and learn the complex world of frequencies and learning how to identify and blend and balance them.
