Advice sought! Upgrading from S2 to modular possibly with A&H DB2

[snapandslide]

Hi everyone!

First post here and hopefully will be contributing here more!

Bit of my background, I'm a 'home dj' and having got interested a year ago I bought an S2 to get jamming. However I've now reached the limits of the thing and I'm fortunate to be in a position to upgrade.

The idea is to go modular for flexibility and to play more experimental (also for friends to come over and easily plugin their setups). I was thinking the following:

2 x X1s - I want to control 3 decks for traktor
Roland TR-8 - I played with one a few weeks back and it's fantastic fun
I was thinking of the DB2 mixer - the 92 seems overkill and DB4 is a wee bit pricey.

I've done some research and I'm a bit confused on if I need an external sound card to get the tr-8 to sync with Traktor and I guess it will also take up a deck. To add onto this I will want to add a synthesizer on top (and possibly even a pedal of sorts) and if I wanted to midi sync this as well would I have to sacrifice another deck? Or even could I use the DB2 midi clock?

I guess question is what is my best routing, and if I need an external sound card would I be best looking at another mixer (and I guess what would be the options)

Thanks for any help!

[rob2192]

From what you describe i think any 4 channel mixer would do the job, although a 4+1 (extra aux input) would be best.
If your really looking to add lots of instruments you could get a live/studio mixer and run them into that and then run that into the aux in of the DJ mixer.

For midi sync it is not an audio interface thats needed but a midi interface (often built into audio interfaces).
Using Traktor's midi clock would probably be easier than one in the mixer.
I've never synced up multiple instruments so can't advise on connecting them up to distribute the midi clock.

[snapandslide]

From what you describe i think any 4 channel mixer would do the job, although a 4+1 (extra aux input) would be best.
If your really looking to add lots of instruments you could get a live/studio mixer and run them into that and then run that into the aux in of the DJ mixer.

For midi sync it is not an audio interface thats needed but a midi interface (often built into audio interfaces).
Using Traktor's midi clock would probably be easier than one in the mixer.
I've never synced up multiple instruments so can't advise on connecting them up to distribute the midi clock.

Hi, thanks for the reply. Thanks for the correction, indeed I also meant midi interface. Looking up the DB2 manual, I'm not sure if this is capable to receive the midi clock, so maybe I'm going to need a audio/midi interface as well as the mixer.

I'm actually surprised there isn't more information on hooking up more instruments other than a drum in a live set, seems a logical step forward....

[rob2192]

I think the db2 can receive midi clock over the usb, but it's internal beat detection is supposed to good so midi sync isn't necessary.

You would probably want to send midi clock out of traktor and into the instruments, i'm just not sure if you need multiple midi outs (parallel connections) or can run the instruments in series off one midi out from the laptop.

[snapandslide]

Cheers,

I think I'll get the DB2 (have to admit the DB4 looks incredible with the amount of control - but double the price....) knowing my main plan for 2 x X1 and the tr8 should be fine.

Once I'm familiar with the new setup I can start exploring what would/wouldn't work with adding a synth. I'm trying to avoid going down the Ableton route to get lots of channels as in the end my aim is more for spontaneous playing and traktor works better for that.

I'll update once I get going on how to get the best out of this set up!