So a long while back I bought myself a Rane SL2, but tried to use it in a club once and it failed miserably and I just never tried again and went on playing with USBs. Am now looking at this as an option again with the direction that my music library is taking.
Questions:
What cables do I require?
Which cables go to where?
I run Serato DJ at home with my DDJ SX, will this work for a standard DJM/DJM setup?
Will I lose any features I will have come used to by moving to the use of CDJs? Other then the obvious difference in effects and the pads.
Some help would be really fantastic, anything you could think of in regards to what I need or how it works would be fantastic!
Generally, you just need 2x RCA’s and 1x USB cable.
Being your first time, I can understand it is easy to get confused and was probably something as simple as having the RCAs plugged into the wrong side of your box.
Basically from your CDJs/Turntables > Into the INPUT on your SL2 box (left and right deck accordingly) > from the OUTPUT of your SL2 box to 2 channels on your mixer and that should be it!
To help you with this, in the past I’ve seen guys new to serato label the RCAs and leaving them plugged in during travel (and also to help speed up setup time).. Whatever works for you!
As an alternative you can probably look into bringing your DDJ SX to gigs (if space allows) and just going from your output into a channel on the clubs mixer.
Yes you will lose features such as the hot cues, roll and what not that is convenient for you on the DDJ SX, but of course these are pretty much possible just by using the shortcuts on your keyboard instead.. Otherwise you will have bigger platters to play with and the pitch control as normal which is really all you will need.. Effects should be available on most mixers in clubs these days, so everything will be there for you..
you need RCA to go from the cdj to the sl2, and from the sl2 to the mixer. Unless it’s a CDJ with HID, in which case you can use USB with them. At least that’s how it works with Scratch Live.
I think that’s my main issue, in the last gig I used CDJ2000s. All I had was a usb going for my sl2 to my laptop, and the rcas plugged in. My serato was running off the cdjs, but I had no control over the pitch, for example when I moved the pitch on the cdj there was no response within serato on my bpm.
To this day I think it was because I shouldve been using usb? With usb do I need to plug in both the rcas to the mixer, and a usb going from each cdj to my laptop?
Using HID mode over USB is definitely better than using timecode CDs if you have the option, but for future reference, I’m willing to bet that on that occasion, Master Tempo was activated on the CDJs.
With timecode CDs, that needs to be switched off, or you’ll get that issue.
That has to have been the problem because that’s how I was doing it! 2000s would have the HID mode right?
I have always DJ’d using USBs, but have always done with a laptop at home, I’m finding my creative works much better on the laptop and the music storage system I use works really well with Serato and without the use for setting cues before each time I play.
