Many DJs believe that making their room sound better is a complex science that’s beyond the reach of the average person. However, this isn’t the case. In this live lesson, we discussed five straightforward methods to improve your speaker’s sound quality. While not all of these methods are inexpensive, they are all reasonably simple to implement.
Whether you’re using a corner of your living room, an attic, a garage, or a custom studio like ours at Digital DJ Tips, these tips are applicable to all situations.
Why worry about audio quality?
But why bother? There are numerous reasons. For instance, if you’re practising manual beatmixing, superior sound quality makes it easier to distinguish between the two tracks you’re trying to mix.
For DJ/producers creating bootlegs, mashups, re-edits, and original productions, mixing is significantly easier with high-quality speakers. You can trust the sound they produce, ensuring that your creations will sound good on other speakers. This is a mission-critical reason for having excellent audio.
Plus, it’s simply more enjoyable. If you’ve ever cranked up the car stereo for a great song, you’ll know that there’s a sweet spot in any sound system that just sounds good. You really want that to sound as good as possible in your home DJ studio!
5 Easy Ways To Make Your DJ Room Sound Better
- Sort out the room itself – Many people invest heavily in equipment without considering the most crucial factor: the room. Does it echo? Is there reverb? Are there problematic corners that distort the sound? These issues are relatively easy to fix. Break up or cover any hard surfaces with carpets, rugs, or even continental quilts. Soft furnishings or bean bags in corners can reduce reverb and create a more natural audio environment
- Fix your speaker positioning – Follow the recommended positioning guidelines provided with your speakers. Depending on their size and design, they may need to be placed closer or further from walls. Experiment with positioning to find the optimal sound
- Make sure your speakers are isolated – You want the speakers themselves to vibrate to produce sound, but not the surface they’re on! Options include foam stands, rubber feet, or speaker stands with spikes to prevent vibrations from affecting the sound
- Adjust your positioning – Your position in relation to the speakers is crucial. Ideally, you should be equidistant from both speakers, forming a triangle. The tweeters, or small speakers handling higher frequencies, should be level with or pointing towards your ears for the best audio experience
- Electronic correction of speakers – Modern technology allows for digital signal processing (DSP) to improve speaker sound. Some speakers have built-in DSPs, while others can be enhanced using separate DSP devices. These work by playing music in your room, recording the sound, analysing it, and then correcting the speaker output. Remember, these corrections are specific to your room, which is why it’s essential to get the previous steps right before investing in DSPs or new speakers that feature DSPs
Learn to DJ with us: The Complete DJ Course
We can’t always control where we get to practise our DJing (even my home studio is in the living room, although to be fair, the Digital DJ Tips studio around the corner is pretty cool!). But we can do something to improve the sound in the space we’ve got. I hope these tips have been helpful.