Your DJ software is lying to you. Sometimes. Maybe.

Coloured waveforms in popular DJ software are a handy way to get quick insights into song structure and frequency balance at a glance… or so we’re led to believe. As it turns out, the frequency balance part isn’t quite so simple, and the colours you’re seeing may be misleading.*

*this article mainly applies to Rekordbox – other software has not been fully investigated/tested.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the RGB coloured waveforms in DJ software and continue to use them. They’re extremely useful for viewing song structure, but I was also using them to get an idea of how I might need to set my EQ for a better balance – and while they’re still useful for that, they’re not as trustworthy as I once thought.

The problem lies here: the colouring is not consistent. Music that has an audible imbalance, say a lot of bass and very little treble, is having its waveform colour [partially] visually balanced. Two songs that sound a little different in terms of frequency balance may look quite similar in terms of visual colouring of the waveform. Songs that visually look like they’re unbalanced, are likely far worse than the colouring would imply.

Why? My assumption is because the primary focus in the DJ context is song structure. So, for the structure to not be completely masked by a rumbling bass line the colour balance gets nudged toward a representation in which structure is still discernible.

Consider these two examples, comparing the waveform in Rekordbox (top) to the waveform in Aurora (bottom). Note how to get a similar colour balance, drastically different colour mixer settings need to be used. This means if you’re using your DJ software’s coloured waveform as a frequency analyzer of sorts, you’re not getting an accurate, consistent reference point.

This is what Aurora does differently: the colour balance is always consistent so you can rely on it. Sure, you can customize it with the Colour Mixer controls to find a balance that suits your genre and production style, but once set it will always maintain that same reference point. This makes Aurora a reliable frequency analysis tool, and gives a rough idea as to what it will eventually look like in your DJ software.

Aurora’s default colour mixer settings are set such that a well balanced mix and master should appear reasonably similar in both Aurora and your DJ software.