I booked my first decent-sized gig recently and am excited to get in the booth. I visited the venue during a down time and checked out the various inputs they have available to visiting DJ’s. I will be relying on a very basic set-up - Traktor S4, Midi Fighter 3D, Macbook. The main input looked to be two 3-pin XLR cables, which vanished into the abyss of cords in the back of the booth (picture of the input below). They also had a standard 3.5MM component cable that could be used to hook-up an ipod when no DJ is playing.
Here’s my question: is my best bet picking up a RCA to 3.5MM female adapter, connecting Traktor - 3.5MM component and calling it a day (adapter pictured below)? Will that allow me to mix on Traktor’s sound card, use headphones, etc.? Or, do I need to look into some way to adapt to the XLR’s? I’ve been DJing for about 2 years in the bedroom and at parties so never have had to deal with anything that didn’t just receive RCA directly.
Thanks everyone! Here are pictures, my apologies if I’m using the wrong terminology for these cables:
[QUOTE]Thank you, really appreciate the reply. So if I’m forced to use an RCA - XLR adapter or RCA - mini, will I be ok as far as sound/signal quality?
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It depends how long the cable run from S4 > Engineers desk, it “might” be ok or it might be shite. ALWAYS use the balanced jack outputs as master whenever possible, only then you can to be sure of a clean signal.
On the S4, you would use the booth output (jacks) as your master volume and RCA as the booth - there is a switch for this.
If you are planning on gigging regularly, I would highly recommend buying:
Jack > RCA
Jack > Jack
Jack > Male XLR
RCA > RCA
That will cover you for just about any booth you are planning to play in.
Please read this as it explains pretty much all the inputs outputs on the s2 / s4 and when/how to use them along with the cables required.