More detailed specifications of SC LIVE or other prime equipments

Engine DJ Hardware Standalone Controllers
1

Hello,

I am currently using SC LIVE 4, and I am looking for more detailed technical specifications of SC LIVE 4 (and possibly other prime equipments including X1850, PRIME 4, etc.). Because I do not know the nominal output level and the headroom, it makes a lot of headache if I plug in my SC LIVE 4 to other equipments such as preamps, live sound mixers or powered speakers. I have tested SC LIVE 4 in several ways to know the specifications, but it was hard to figure those out exactly. In this regard, I like to ask those here.

My question is the following.

  1. What is the nominal output level of SC LIVE 4 (when master level indicating 0dB) and the headroom?
  2. What is the EQ frequency for each band? (Not about ISO mode!)

I am also curious about such specifications for other equipments, too. I guess the EQ frequencies will be pretty similar, but the nominal level and headroom will be different.

Thanks.

P.S. Except for SC LIVE, there are ‘unity’ output levels on specifications, which are either +4dBu or 0dBu. I have no idea about what this means.

2

The cutoff frequency can be specified by the user in the settings if it is like on the prime 2 / prime 4 units, in the mixer tab if I remember correctly.

Around your Master/Main volume knob you have a number of points. One of these points is bigger than the others, this is called the unity gain. It indicates 0 dBu.

Theoretically it is therefore advisable not to go beyond this point on the master and then adjust the desired volume on your sound system / amp. Beyond this point, in order to avoid any clipping or saturation the sound will probably be limited but will lose a lot of dynamics. You will therefore be subjected to a constant and too high volume which can cause headaches.

When your master knob is at full you are at + 4 dBu

1 Like
4

Looks like you need a audio primer.

The specs are on the back pages of the manual.

5

The cutoff frequency setting is only applied to ISO mode. For normal EQ mode, the frequencies do not change. Moreover, without knowing the signal amplitude, there is no way to decide the analogue signal amplitudes as like 0dBu or +4dBu. I am asking this because I have some experienced with pro audio equipments, and usually, DJ hardwares lack such information on the spec sheets except for Allen & Heath. Of course, Pioneer DJ never specifies such specifications, but it looks some DJs know those specifications somehow.

6

OP again. Somehow, I did some tests and it looks quite successful, but it would be good to have a multimeter to check exactly. However, I feel that this is pretty enough.

  1. With channel trim at the unity position (at the ‘O’ mark) and with the maximum channel fader position, the internal recording of the full-scale (0dBFS, peak) 1kHz sine signal provided -9dBFS peak signal. This means that SC LIVE 4 has the internal digital headroom with 9dB, which is nice, and I guess this would be pretty standard for DJ controllers and digital DJ mixers.

  2. It was hard to measure how the master level meter works. I first connected the main output (balanced) to a live mixer mono input (balanced) which is saturated at +18dBu peak[1]. I intentionally saturated the input signal (1kHz sine) by increasing the master gain, and I looked how the meter changed according to the knob position. Based on this, it looks 0 VU on the master level meter corresponds to +9 dBu RMS and 12dBu peak. Since for sine signal, +18dBu peak corresponds to +15dBu RMS, we only have 6dB headroom according to the SC LIVE 4 master level meter.

I think this is not that great because for dynamic source, more headroom could be required. I guess this would be totally different to Prime 4 and X1850 because the level meters have +10VU position and above.

The usual nominal level for pro audio is +4dBu which is 5dB below 0 VU. This means that roughly, hitting -3VU position, we can expect this level. However, because I am more conservative, I might want to limit the meter at -10VU position. Anyway, still, the level meter on SC LIVE 4 is not misleading because the next positions are +3VU and PK, so 6dB of headroom looks fine to me. At least, it makes sense. However, I cannot understand why 0VU level should be higher like +9dBu.

Moreover, I have recorded some white noise sample for checking EQ frequency responses. It looks like those are set as follows.

HI: high-shelving, cut-off freq @ 2200Hz MID: Center frequency @ 1200Hz LOW: low-shelving, cut off freq @ 440Hz

I believe that these are pretty same with Prime 4 and X1850, too. I like this setting, and it is why I satisfies with Prime equipments. Honestly, I do not like much EQs of Pioneer gears… (even V10…)

[1] Here, actually ‘the saturation occur at +18dBu peak’ is not correct… My external mixer’s maximum input level is +21dBu, but the overlimit LED begins to flash from +18dBu. In fact, it is 3dB before the actually saturation occurs on the mixer.