Auto Gain Levels High when Mixing

Using latest djay 5.03 iOS 17 latest one on iPad 12.9 pro 5th edition as well as iPhone 15 max pro. Noticed when using auto gain when set my gains in green touching orange when transitioning starts to go into red. When I touch gain and slightly move sounds drops again. I’ve turned auto gain off and it works fine. Defo issue with auto gain. I’ve tried different cross fader settings, limiter on/off. Anyone else had this?

Hi @Dysfunk_DJ, can you please clarify?

  1. Do you have Auto Gain turned on in the settings, but you are still manually adjusting the Gain Knob on your controller? If you are using Auto Gain, you should not need to touch the gain controls on your hardware at all.
  2. Also, it’s normal for the gain to move abruptly if you adjust the physical Gain Knob on your controller while using Auto Gain. This is because the gain position in the UI does not match the physical position of the Gain Knob on your controller. So, the level will jump to the position on your controller when you move it. If you want to change this behavior, you could try editing the MIDI Mapping for your controller and turn ON Pickup Mode in the Advanced Control Configuration drop down. This setting will require you to move the Gain Knob on your controller to the same position as the UI before it will take effect.

If the issue is that the Auto Gain is not keeping the LED levels meters under Redline during mixing then that is a different thing all together.

  1. Auto Gain only sets the gain level of the song based on the loudest part of the track. It does this when if first analyzes the track and takes a second or two to automatically adjust the Gain knobs in the UI.
  2. Auto Gain basically compensates for the different recorded volumes of each song and sets them a similar level.
  3. Auto Gain does not dynamically adjust while you are applying FX or while you are performing a mix.
  4. To prevent Redlining during your mix, normally you will adjust the EQs and/or Channel Faders to keep the levels out of the red. For example, having the Low EQ level cut on the track you are mixing in then performing an EQ Bass Swap from the outgoing track to the incoming track.
  5. If you are using Automix and not manually adjusting EQs and Channel Levels, then you probably want to have Auto Gain ON and Audio Limiter ON. This will prevent clipping and distortion if the Automix goes into the red during a transition.

Thanks for your detailed quick response. The high level on gains was when not touching gains at all. I had eq Crossfader fx on at the time. Only time gain was touched was to reduce the level as I was trying to rule out. I had a mix this morning on my iPhone 15 and all was well. I’ll keep an eye on it as it 100% wasn’t right yesterday. I’ll let you know if happens again.

1 Like

Hi @Dysfunk_DJ, thanks for clarifying.

  1. Based on this information, I recommend that you turn ON Auto Gain and Audio Limiter and monitor the actual sound output during transitions to see if it is distorting if/when the LED level meters go into the red.
  2. If there is audible distortion in this scenario, then the next step would be to set the Output Headroom to -6 dB.
1 Like

I’ll check later. Thank you .

Hi @Slak_Jaw seems to clip red on settings you suggest either with -6db or not but only for 2-3 tracks then it settles down and works as should. Not a massive issue but something that could be looked at.

1 Like

Okay, thanks for the update.

This is exactly my ‘normal’ autogain behaviour.

On most days it is perfectly awesomely working.
And then one day it’s haywire.

Whenever I have a controller i jist turn it off compeltely and DJ away. Turning knobs on the fly is better than suprises

1 Like

“And then one day it’s haywire” → Same problem here. If it goes haywire all of a sudden I also see the meters on the controller going into the red. I always have the -6dB headroom setting and Limiter ON otherwise the Limiter will kick in (after the sudden auto gain increase) and make everything sound flat. With the -6dB headroom switched on the tracks will still sound normal even after the auto gain jump.

@Dysfunk_DJ, @HansDNL, @Armigo, I wanted to try and explain a few things after further discussing this with the engineering team:

  1. Channel Meters Going into Red:
    a. This doesn’t necessarily have to do with gain.
    b. The meters show the level of the Deck after EQ and FX. Auto Gain is calculated prior to these, and as I said above does not dynamically compensate for level increases due to EQing and FX.
    c. To try for yourself, turn the Low EQ up with Auto Gain ON and you will see the level increase.
    d. This is not an issue, however, since djay has a lot of internal headroom above the Red LEDs anyway.
  2. Output Headroom and Audio Limiter:
    a. The Audio Limiter is applied to the final signal which is the sum of the channels, so it can’t affect the LED meters on each channel.
    b. The Output Headroom setting is applied right at the audio output, so again after the LED meters.
    c. On a sound level the Output Headroom and Audio Limiter totally do the job to prevent clipping.
  3. So, in summary, this is mainly a visual issue. If Audio Limiter and Output Headroom are enabled, you may still see the LED meters go into the Red depending on EQs and FX, but there is no actual clipping happening.
1 Like

Thanks for this extra explanation but we are reporting a sudden jump in gain during use of DJay while Auto Gain has been ON the whole time. The gain jump is before fx & eq, so on the “raw” tracks.

Hi @HansDNL, it sounds like you, @Dysfunk_DJ and @Armigo might be talking about different things. Let’s try to clarify:

  1. Can you please try to capture a video of this happening, upload it to your Dropbox/Google Drive, set the necessary sharing permissions and then share a link to the video here? This will really help to explain what you’re experiencing to the engineering team.
  2. When this “gain jump” happens are you seeing the actual Gain knob onscreen move or just the LED meters going into the Red?
  3. When this “gain jump” happens is it shortly after loading a track? Please note that when first loading a track, it needs to be analyzed by djay to determine the optimal gain. This process can take a few seconds before the gain is adjusted. If you watch the gain knob onscreen when you first load a new track you can see it move from 12 o’clock to the optimal gain level.
  4. When you notice this “gain jump” are you using Automix, Crossfader FX or transitioning between Decks?

For me auto gain appears to have calmed down. When I did have some erratic issues it was with auto gain ticked, limiter ticked and 0db with Crossfader effects EQ. High level was when transitioning from one track to another. All tracks fully analysed.

Hi @Dysfunk_DJ,
Thanks for the info. Please note, as I stated above, Auto Gain only adjusts the overall volume level of the song when you load it. Basically normalizing it compared to other songs. It cannot dynamically compensate for increases in volume due to FX, Filters, EQs or CFX applied during a transition.

1 Like

Cheers. Not really an issue now, seems to have settled down.

Hi there.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Yes, my autogain issues may have been slightly different from the one in this thread, but related. I called my "my autogain going haywire - i.e - Mine was an issue of a track either being significantly louder or quieter than the previous one once in a while on few days, and yet on other days it is absolutely perfect all through the set. Mac, No hardware connected, set on automix for cocktails or slow warmup times.

Currently on 5.0.4 and yet to experience the glitch, as it hasn’t happened again on that version yet.
It may have been one of those bugs that got autocorrected in recent updates.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.