How does Engine's Track waveform display work?

Hello all,

I have a semi technical question. How does Denons Engine’s Track waveform display work when analyzing a track? I’m talking about the three color display (Blue=Bass, Green=Mids, White=Highs)

So the root of this question goes down to me mixing my own tracks in Logic x. I couldn’t help but compare my tracks versus some of the more professional tracks out there. I mainly do Drum n Bass music. I noticed a lot of the low end (blue wave) has a smooth looking envelope to the waveform and visually looks correct.

My older tracks (even though they are massively bass / sub heavy) display it as if it’s more mid range heavy.

So, I’ve done several experiments to try and replicate it. Everything from Match EQ, linear phase EQ, match volume/ LUFS, over exaggerating the bass with a shelf, Heavy compression / Limiting, to no compression, heavy side-chaining to no side chaining.

The only time I got close was just a raw Bass patch straight out of serum synth, and a raw kick. It just sounds bad with the entire mix without actual processing.

So I’m dying to know, what are the parameters in a, audio track that translates to Engines track waveform? I hope that makes sense.

Thanks All, Ali

Hi @Saint_Rigal, welcome to the forum!

This isn’t really something for this forum, as you might expect, but for a sound engineer forum.

Talking about that. A good song has different instruments/sounds/voices positioned to fill the complete audio spectrum.

The simplest trick to kinda fill that audio spectrum with your own track, is to use the pink noise baseline EQ method. Using this method at least the levels are correct.

There are a lot of examples how to do this, but I’ll give you one here:

After that you’ll need to position the different instruments/sounds/voices in the audio spectrum, to not overlap each other. (You can do this the other way around also, of course; position first and then levels second)

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I think every to has its own job. After all, you “can” bang a nail in with a screwdriver handle, but a hammer will do it better. Got a slot head screw that needs tightening? Then a chisel “will” do it, but a screwdriver will do it better… assuming you ain’t smashed the screwdriver into 50 bits by trying to use it as a hammer of course lol

Same goes for DJing, we need to know when that tracks starts, when that vocal kicks in, when that instrumental bridge ends, when the loud bit of the track is, when the quiet bit is. We can find all that out in one color, 3 colors is spoiling us, 5 or more is an utter waste or processing time and storage space after all screaming midrange electric guitar isn’t going to look that much of a different color from any other intense midrange noise.

The waveforms perfect for what DJs need it for.

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That video is more for a gain stage level to be precise.

Gain staging and the right headroom are key to keep “sonics” in your overall energy of your audio.

Once that stage is perfect you’ll better call this session “V1” as it is your starting point.

(yes this is by far one of the most important parts of mixing a track, so this setup of gain levels needs to be perfect) you can go on the other aspects, Eq, Compression, Saturation bla bla.

Please keep those levels in mind, each action affects your outgoing level of your channel so you need to readjust that level again to match the one from your Stage 1 each time again. (very important)

As i said: Gain staging and the right headroom are key to keep “sonics” in your overall energy of your audio.

which result in stable and clear spikes in your wave form.

hope this kinda helps

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To answer the waveform question part of topic starter:

Have a look at this:

DenonDJ uses:

  • Blue for 20-500Hz
  • Green for 500-2000Hz
  • White for 2000-20000Hz

Not precisely, but it blends a bit. For instance, green will probably be seen up until 4000Hz and white will already be there.

Sinus sweep looks like this:

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Reese for president!

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Hahaha, yeah for “no-man’s-land“!

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Enough place for social-distancing no??

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Thanks all, you answered my question

cheers!

:slight_smile:

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