DJ Advice on Set up of Extermal Effects to a Controller or Mixer

0:01 How you can plug in

Alright ladies and gentlemen, in this video I'm going to show you how you can plug in an external effects unit into a controller, maybe your mixer, something that has not got any effects. Now first and foremost, yes, this is the XDJ-RX and yes, it does have effects, but I'm not going to be using the effects on the RX, I'm going to be using the effects on the RMX500. So the objective of this video is to show you how to plug in an external effects unit into, let's say for example, a mixer that only has bass, mid and treble, up-faders and a crossfade, no effects. So imagine, no effects here, all we've got is bass, mid and treble and up-faders. So first of all, I'll give you a bit of a demonstration proving that the RMX500...

...is plugged in to the RX, then I'll pause this clip and we'll have a look at the back of the RX, and also how I've plugged everything in.

1:36 What you're looking at is the side of the RMX500

Tuned by the way you're listening to is Mr Kenny Hectic, a track entitled Your Love Is My Pain, it's the Sussy remix, and it's featuring Rowan Kirk. Okay so what I'm going to do now, I'm going to pause the camera and we'll have a look how everything's plugged in.

Okay so what you're looking at is the side of the RMX500. Now we have four RCA cables, so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to unplug these. Okay there you go, so take those out. Now what we've got here is we have input and output, also on and standby, so we're on at the moment. So what you will do... ...is you will go from the output of the mixer, or in this case the RX, the output into the input of the effects unit. And then from the output of the effects unit I have gone then to the input of the powered QSC speaker I've got over there. Again a powered speaker is one that has an internal amplifier. Passive is a speaker that has... ...no internal amplifier and you will need a power amp to run that.

3:55 ...I highly recommend that you do use XLR

So let's have a look, that cable there goes to that speaker over there... ...and this one here is plugged in if you can see there. Now at the back of the RX we have XLR out and we also have RCA out. So there you go, so I've gone from the RCA out into the back of the effects unit. Now if I wanted to I could easily enough just go from XLR to RCA... ...but seeing as this is just for a monitor it's bedroom use there's no need. Again a very valid point here some people seem to think that it's XLR all the way. Well if you're in a club environment and the cables are going a great distance... ...I highly recommend that you do use XLR. But if like the position we're in now, well I am, I'm stood here on the floor...

...I'm only like I don't know a meter away from the speaker there's no need for XLR. RCA will do just as good. Okay so I hope that's been a help. The only point, valid point here which is very important... ...is when you do use mixers with in and out there are levels set. So you don't go OTT and there's less chance of you blowing speakers. What you do have to be very wary of when you go from master out... ...is to make sure that the levels are very, very low. Because potentially you could be putting too much signal into your effects unit... ...and in turn out of the effects into your speakers. So the only thing I would recommend there is plug everything in first. Get everything plugged in and ready to go.

And then when you're plugged in set the levels as you normally would on your mixer... ...and then turn the power amplifier or for that matter the powered speaker on with the volume down. And then slowly increase the volume on your powered speaker or your amplifier. You may find that the volume is very low which means fine. But as you start to turn the volume up, you may have a burst of sound. So that will tell you that you need to turn everything down here first. So it's vitally important that you do not turn your powered speaker or your amplifier on first. Turn it up and then turn all of this on. Alright just one big tip there. I hope that's been a help. Check out the link in the description by the way to the Kenny Hectic Tune.

Practice and enjoy. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.