ESI Gigaport - Yay or Nay?

ESI Gigaport - Yay or Nay?

Hi guys newbie here, been reading the blog for a while so thought its time to post.

looking at getting into digital djing after years of sticking by vinyl and cds. Im set on using a kontrol x1 and my mixer for mixing outside of traktor, of which i will eventually add another kontrol x1 to.

I have been scouring the net looking at USB interfaces and the ESI gigaport looks a great option for the price compared to other soundcards in that price point. obviously an audio dj 8 would be ideal but im just thinking of a budget solution to get me started.

Any advice?

Thanks!

I have the ESI Gigaport HD.

I like it. Originally I had a fast track pro but that only had 4 in/4 out. I needed 8 out for 4 deck mixing. As long as you have no inputs it works great. Sound quailty is good and its nice being able to map 8 outputs.

Give it a try for the money!

Thanks for the info, will definitely give it a go.

In terms of recording from my external mixer into my laptop im guessing i would need to go into the mic-in (not ideal id imagine?) or get a second cheaper soundcard with inputs (like a behringer £25 thing.)

Im guessing with external mixing i will need to record using something like Audition rather than through traktor itself?

I think you do need other software to record post-mixer if mixing externally, but I’m not a traktor user. I could easily be wrong.

As for the input…as long as your “mic” input will take and auto-detect line-level signals (most of them will) and you have things set up to not clip it (a controllable aux/booth/record/other output on your mixer would be good), it shouldn’t be bad. I’ve used my laptop’s normal input, a little 2-in USB sound card a friend gave me, and my FS Open interface to record DJ sets at different points. They all work.

I used a similar setup and the gigaport is more than capable. If you don’t use the 4 channels you can increase the sampling rate a little bit.
No issues with the driver on my Vista setup - earlier versions would BSOD if I unplugged the interface while playing but subsequent updates fixed it.

You will need to record with your built-in line in or another audio interface. By default it’ll have to be in a separate application as traktor only sees one interface.
You could aggregate your interfaces with ASIO4ALL to record inside traktor but It’s probably safer to use another program.