How are these sound cards?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

How are these sound cards?

Lately i’ve been checking out sound cards, and I’m really poor, so finding one that meets my expectations hasen’t been easy.

I wanted something that had a dedicated master, booth, and phones level, but finding that for $200 or less seems to be difficult. I also need something with awesome sound quality that will rock a party.

I’ve narrowed it down to 3 choices so far.

Lexicon Alpha:

Pro’s:

-more than enough outputs to have a L+R master and a separate output for a “booth”.

-price

Con’s:

-As far as I can tell, all outputs are controlled by one volume knob, meaning that the booth would have to be preset to a higher volume than the main’s, or adjusted individually using the volume knob on the powered speaker.

-Some reviews questioned the sound quality, and apparently it’s no good with Vista 64-bit, and uses USB 1.1?

Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ:
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/dj/audio-2-dj/

Pro’s:

-Excellent sound quality (from what i’ve read, never heard it in person)

-Fairly priced

Con’s:

-Would require an external mixer to get a dedicated booth output, which would bring the cost up and require me to carry more gear to my gigs.

E-MU 0202 USB 2.0:
http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?category=610&subcategory=611&product=15186

Pro’s:
-L + R outputs for the mains, and a separate “stereo” output that can be used for the monitor

-Price

Con’s:
-Can’t think of any at the moment.

Novation Nio 2/4
http://www.novationmusic.com/products/audio_interface/nio_2_4

Pro’s:
-4 outputs, with 2 volume faders controlling two outputs. This means I can have dedicated output control of my master’s, and my booth.

Con’s:
-Price

Do you guys have anything to ad to this, or any input?

2

you might want to check out the echo indigo cards?

i dont know the prices on these, just some food for thought :smiley:

3

My laptop doesn’t have a slot that’ll incorporate that kind of card.

4

presonus

it wouldn’t be too hard to find a presonus fire box for around $200. Presonus makes an entry USB card called the Audiobox. goes for about $150 and will do everything you ask.

5

Um… I don’t think you need an external mixer for the Audio4 to have a booth output. You have a stereo pair for the master, a stereo pair for the monitor and the headphone out.

6

I know, that’s just a little more than I want to spend.

I figure if I’m going to spend that much, then I should get a multi-channel line-level mixer like the Alesis MultiMix 8 USB…Since I’m sure i’m going to need the extra inputs at some point.

http://www.alesis.com/multimix8usb

With the Audio 4 DJ, aside from the phones which seems to have a dedicated volume fader, how would you adjust the master output? Would you have to use the master output integrated into the Traktor software?

Also, with sound cards, is it possible to use the microphone inputs for live applications and not just recording?

7

Well, you could use the multimix8USB but it takes up a lot more space than the Audio4, and has a lot of stuff you’d probably never use for DJing.

Assuming you plug your soundcard into a DJ mixer at a club then you use both Traktor’s output volume and the mixer output. If you plug it into an amp, or directly into a powered PA system then you’d use the volume in conjunction as well.

Yes you can use Microphones for live use through Traktor if you change the deck the mic is assigned to to Audio Through (I believe).

8

Thanks for all the helpful advice.

The Alesis does take up quite a bit of space more…But most of my DJ’ing is mobile DJ’ing, so I figure I’ll eventually need something like that. I’d eventually love to get back into the club scene, and taking something like an Alesis would seem ridiculous. The preferred situation would be to have the Audio 4, AND the Alesis…But I’m really low on funds right now, so i’ve been mulling over this for a long time, just to make sure I make the right decision.

9

dont forget you can control booth output and master output levels in traktor itself via a midi command.

i also did not see any mention of the gigaport hd. i was in the same boat when i purchased my sound card, and i decided to go with the gigaport because, if mixing internally, you have more than enough outputs for master, booth and monitor, and plus it gives you the flexibility to mix 4 tracks externally if you decide to go that route later on. and at about 100 bucks, its one of the cheapest cards out there, and it still sounds clean enough through nearly any sound system. just my 2 cents

10

I think it would be pretty much complete overkill to have the Alesis and the Audio4, unless you are going to be integrating live instruments, or more keyboards or something. If all you need are a mic, a master out, a booth out and a headphone out, then why get more than that? If expandability is the name of the game then that’s different.

Though, I was doing some digging and the Audio4 doesn’t have a Mic In. So that kind of renders that option moot.

11

I heard good stuff about the ESI Giga port HD, should be around $140 not sure about the mic in but it has a variety of routing options. And something like 4 Stereo (ie 8 Mono) outs.

12

this might sound dumb but…everyone hates on the DJ i/o…i have used it live many times and its great, i reccomend it if your on a tight budget