The ubiquitous DJM-600

I purchased a DJM-600 because it is the de-facto standard for DJ Mixers found at almost every Club and Party I have attended. Not owning one was a major set-back the first time I ever played the large Silver Room at the famous Icehouse Venue in Downtown Phoenix. Considering how dark it was and the conditions that I was playing vinyl in were absolutely terrible – such that any step on the stage would make the needles skip as they were aggrevated by the enormous bass that was being pumped out of the speakers and reflected back at me… It was a mess to try to figure things out. I vowed that I would get my own and discover its secrets.

There, within the instruction manual, was perhaps the most essential secret that I use continuously to this day. Even though I have moved to digital DJing, I still do my mixing through the Analog circuits of my Pioneer DJM-600.

This mixer has so many outputs and inputs that it fits any job, but too often have I almost been in tears to see somebody using the “Record Out” plug with a 3.5mm adapter into a Laptop’s often microphone input jack… Absolute blasphemy! The Record Out is at full power and easily overwhelms the puny input jacks on Laptops and basic Desktop sound cards.

Their second option is to connect to the “booth monitor” out and adjust the booth monitor volume so low that it barely registers. This completely ruins the capturing of the bass, as anyone who has turned down a high-end volume knob can decree that the audio changes color significantly. While avoiding some clipping, this is not a great way to record.

Now, I do not use the Effects on my Pioneer DJM-600 live, unless I’m bored out of my mind and I want to contribute to somebody else’s set by making it more lively… sometimes to success and other times to failure. That’s what the effects do. Sometimes they work and sometimes I want to let the DJ know what I really think about their trying to show off and impress a crowd with the same effects everyone else has. In my opinion, if somebody is using too many effects then they should have practiced their mixing more or brought better songs.

So on to some actual helpful information and my secret that I’ve been wanting to tell other DJs for a while. Did you know that the Effects Send Out use not only much higher quality cables (1/4″ TS Unbalanced) than both the Record and Booth outputs, which are puny RCA? Not only that, but the Effects output is sent at -10db!!!

One would think that having a lower volume output would be a bad thing, but in this modern age everyone should be recording at 24bit, which equals 144db of headroom. The benefits of having -10db include:

1. Never clipping
2. Less noise in the signal path as it bypasses the master amp
3. Has been right under your nose the whole time!

There is one downside, however. In order to record from the Effects Out, you must have the Effects input knob set to Master and NOT TOUCH IT during your mix. Setting it to another channel will mean that only that channel’s output will be sent. Effects are cheesy unless you’re really innovative anyways, or you’re Sasha using a custom MIDI controller with a pimped out Ableton Live. You will also need a decent hardware interface. Currently I use a M-Audio Firewire 410 so I can use direct 1/4″ TS to 1/4″ TS into its inputs, record at 24bit (or 32bit IEEE Floting Point), and not worry about clipping.

When I DJ, I try to keep the levels as close as possible. Unfortunately, unless you know your record’s RMA loudness and Peak Loudness, you’re going to have some fluctuations. With a 24-bit recording, you have enough headroom to utilize software multi-band compressors/limiters/dynamics to really get the most out of your mix. I recommend Ozone 3, and surely Ozone 4 now that it is out. Izotope is a fantastic company and use 64-bit mathematics in their VST/AU plugins. That precision is nice because it gives you extreme freedom to make the mix properly fill in the missing headroom before you convert back to 16-bit for CDDA/MP3 audio.

The key point is that by using the Effects Out on a Pioneer DJM-600, you can focus on your mix and not on accidental clipping. You also get a far superior recording compared to the other methods.

I don’t think he even mentioned it in this video…

Well, if anyone wants help recording their mix or promoting it, please feel free to contact me!