There are a million cheap USB soundcards or USB audio converters. My question is, do any of them work and give clean sound?
I have a cheap Numark USB mixer that works well. I can hook two laptops up to it via the USB Audio Codec and crossfade the signals. Problem is I have to run that cheap mixer into a single channel on my nice Denon mixer. The Denon mixer will give me a green/yellow/red level indicator on the individual channel that will help me mix audio levels better. I want to run the laptops to the denon mixer each on their own channel. To do that I would need two USB interfaces that I could run out. Anybody have any luck with a USB audio converter? I don’t trust just running the sound out of the headphone jack. It seems way too hokey to me plus I end up getting the OS sounds through my PA whereas I can set it to only run the music out of the USB jack.
Thanks guys. You are by far the best and most accommodating DJ forum I have been on.
What numark mixer?
Route one channel to the master and a second channel to the headphones, then with some wire magic, connecto those two to the two channels on your normal mixer.
I don’t understand how a 4 channel sound card works. Can I run two mixing programs simultaneously? Basically I run two laptops because I want to be able to listen to the songs in one (especially requests) while playing on the other. I like to be able to check out my transitions. Sometimes you get gold mixing two songs that are nothing alike with a good beatmatch cutting the vocals of one over the top of the beat of the other, creating a 15-20 second mashup as the songs fade. I like to preview that before I run it live so that I can figure if it sounds good or if it sounds like I wound up a bunch of music boxes at once.
It is not about how a 4channel soundcard works, it is about the software.
If you have software that outputs two different songs, each on it’s own output pair (stereo), you do the cueing in the mixer.
So for example MAYA44 is the cheapest soundcard that just does the trick. Other similar soundcards are Numark I|O and NI Audio 2 DJ.
You did not answer my mixer question is that and now here is a new one: What software do you run on those laptops?
ALSO: Have you tried connecting both USB cables from your Numark mixer to ONE laptop? Their drivers (if any) might allow youj to join the sound devices into one. If that does not work, you can always use ASIO4ALL to create one solid device from multiple.
Numark 950USB
Mixmeister express 6 and 7 respectively.
I like the simple approach and the cheap price tag. I know nothing of other programs but also have numark v7 turntables and an x5 mixer. When I am confident with the v7s I wont be using the mixmiester so I don’t want to upgrade to the expensive version unless its really worth it and a viable tool for making mashups etc. I might be best to switch to itch so that I can organize my library and get familiar to the software but I don’t know if it works without a controller attached.
I don’t know how. With mixmeister I can sit down with the bride and groom and program the first hour of music for them. With the V7s I have to spend the whole night cueing and adding songs one at a time. I am not aware of an autoplay feature. Also, what am I going to do with wedding music on turntables? What if people want me to scratch and cut and I don’t know how? I figured I would work my way into it. If I’ve been using two f-in laptops anyway I suppose I can bring the v7s and run mismeister on the other one for when I need a break.
I am not yanking your chain. Imagine if somebody had a beat up moped (Motor scooter) in their garage (My mixmeister) that they used only occasionally. They got some money and decided to buy a Ducati Superbike, (My V7s) only to find out they had now clue how to ride it.
I have never even touched a turntable before I had my V7s. I really feel like an idiot for buying them and have tried some youtube turntable tutorials but it’s really hard and I have this fear that I am going to look like a giant douche and fubar my gig because somebody at the party will be a bedroom DJ and realize I don’t know how to work the tables. My old Dell laptop would sometimes cause the music to skip if ran too many operations at once so I knew bringing them was out of the question. I just got a quad-core windows 7 monster with 6 gigs of ram. Skipping won’t be a problem. Perhaps I should take another crash course in mixing and just bring them to my next gig.
Ordered my flight cases. I’m just gonna bit the bullet and start bringing them to my gigs.
Just so you know, I’m not a complete moron, I’m just totally turn-table illiterate and don’t know much about being a DJ. I understand Drum machines multi-trackers, I’ve been in a band, composed some tunes, written songs. I play the base and a little bit of keyboard.
My experience with drum machines has me very interested in the MIDI fighter advertised on this website. Would that be any use to me with my v7’s or is it just a tractor controller? It kinda looks like a drum machine and the arcade buttons look sick. It looks like something I could get into. What exactly does the f’n think do?
Hey, thanks for taking a step further and explaining your situation. Yesterday, I wrote :facepalm: because the thread-outline was like that and to tell you the truth, that was the only thing I could write without sounding like an asshole or a smartass(hole). And some of the community members can assure you that I know how to be an asshole.
Now, you could still follow up with my first response and connect the two laptops to old Numark and then use:
hedphone cue as one channel and,
master for a second channel
That would allow you to use the new mixer as intended.
You can also just use the V7s and get out of the stupid situations by saying that Mixmeister does not support midi control (I assume).
Sounds good. Thanks for givinf me the push to start using my turntables. Can the MIDI fighter work with serato itch? I like it. It looks like a badass drum machine.
If you have time; Practice! Everyone has some point where they had “never touched turntables” before and then do. Might as well jump in and get your mix on. Learn your music. A great wedding DJ can have a huge positive effect on a wedding if they can keep a groove going and get people dancing. I’ve seen it before. My dad once commented on how good the DJ was at a wedding - and the DJ was definitely above the cut in terms of mobile/wedding dj’s - and he doesn’t even dance.