Hi, I'm David Lee, and I'm here to answer the question of whether you need a mixer in addition to your DJ board. In other words, do you need a band mixer in addition to a DJ mixer or DJ controller?

This is primarily for DJs who need to integrate various things into their systems. There are some things you need to know and some things you need to avoid.

So, the first question is: do you need one? 

Well, that depends on how you run your system. If you are the operator of the system and you’re in control of the levels, and you set it up as per our recommended method, realistically, no, you don’t need another board. More often than not, it will do more harm than good. We’ll go into why.

Effectively, the boxes are programmed to be run straight from your mixing board, DJ board, or DJ controller, using the balanced signal going into the boxes. Realistically, you can use as many boxes as you like, daisy-chaining them as needed. This setup gives you all the control you need, under the circumstances, to balance the system the way you want it.

When Do You Need a Mixer?

Realistically, for the most part, you don’t. A mixer isn’t necessarily the right tool for the job in many circumstances. If you’re a DJ and need to bring in multiple microphones or different sources, or if you need to add instruments, then yes, you need a mixer to do that.

The question then becomes: do you need it after your DJ controller or before your DJ controller? And how do you integrate those things together?

Potential Issues with Adding a Mixer

If you use a mixer after your DJ mixer or DJ controller before the loudspeaker system, be careful about what inputs you use. Your DJ controller or mixer has a line level output capacity. Most popular brands provide +24 dBu of output, which is way more than what you want going into a microphone input of a band mixer. Most inputs on a band mixer are microphone inputs, which means you can overdrive and distort them, negatively impacting the sound quality.

To avoid that, make sure you're going into a line level input, which are often quarter-inch inputs rather than XLRs. If your mixer doesn’t have line level inputs, you can buy additional hardware, such as attenuators, that lower the level coming from the DJ mixer to prevent overloading sensitive microphone inputs.

Digital Mixers and Sound Quality

Another thing to watch out for is the filters and controls on both analog and particularly digital boards. If you’re using a digital board, there are so many settings and adjustments that can negatively impact the overall sound quality. We've had customers demonstrate this by plugging cables directly from their DJ board to the system, bypassing the band mixer, and the improvement in sound quality was remarkable.

Alternatives to Adding a Mixer

If you need to integrate multiple microphones or instruments and your DJ board lacks sufficient inputs or control, you might use a separate microphone mixer ahead of the DJ board. This setup allows you to mix and control microphones before they reach your DJ board. If your DJ board has line inputs, you can also connect the microphone mixer to these inputs, provided the mixer can output at microphone level.

Conclusion

What’s the best thing to put between your DJ controller and your sound system? Generally, it’s just a good quality signal cable. If you absolutely need secondary level control, we’ll provide some suggestions in the description below for alternatives to a full mixer. These alternatives might be better suited to your needs without compromising sound quality.

Hopefully, these insights will help you improve the sound quality you provide as a DJ and manage everything else you need to do in the DJ realm.